Classics

RAFFAELE LUISELLI

This course provides students with basic knowledge in literary and documentary papyrology so that they can develop an autonomous ability to connect what they learnt with the other cultural and historical disciplines of Graeco-Roman antiquity.

It is helpful for students to have a good knowledge of classical Greek.

«Books and documents in the multicultural society of Graeco-Roman Egypt».
This course offers an introduction to the Greek and Latin literary and documentary papyri as sources for the study of the multicultural society of Egypt under Ptolemaic and Roman rule.

1) (a) R.S. Bagnall (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 3-100, 149-169, 216-281, 320-337, 395-451, 590-622; (b) P. Parsons, City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish (London: Orion, 2007); (c) K. Vandorpe (ed.), A Companion to Greco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt (Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell, 2019), pp. 35-69, 103-138, 147-178, 283-313, 381-393, 429-438, 449-471.

(2) Papyrus texts that will be discussed in class.

Subject matter and skills will be taught to, and learned by, students in a variety of ways. Face-to-face teaching will help students acquire key competences. Emphasis will also be put on seminars and group-based discussion, which will enable students not only critically to read the previously edited texts, but also to develop their own intellectual and practical skills.

Regular attendance is recommended.

A written exam at the end of the course will be used to assess the student learning outcomes. The exam will yield the relevant information needed to determine the level of a student’s acquisition of key competences, as well as the level of their ability to communicate them. In order to pass the exam, students must get a mark of 18/30, and must show to have acquired a basic knowledge of one of the course topics. In order to get a mark of 30/30 cum laude, students must show to have acquired excellent knowledge of all the course topics.

Could you describe the manufacturing process of papyrus paper?
Could you describe the manufacture and typology of the papyrus codex?
Can you tell something about ancient (il)literacy in the light of the papyri?
Can you tell something about libraries and archives in Graeco-Roman Egypt?

• Lesson 1: Introduction to the Papyrology class.


• Lessons 2-4: The manufacture of papyrus paper and papyrus roll.


• Lessons 5-6: Editorial conventions; types of editions of papyrus texts.


• Lessons 7-9: The typology of the papyrus roll.


• Lessons 10-12: Greek presence in Upper Egypt at the end of the fourth century B.C. in the light of P.Eleph. 1.


• Lessons 13-15: Multicultural and multiethnic society in Upper Egypt in the second century B.C.


• Lessons 16-17: The papyrus codex: its manufacture and typology.


• Lessons 18-21: Multicultural and multiethnic society in Middle Egypt under Roman rule in the light of book circulation and documentary archives.