Course program
«Greek literary and documentary papyri from Roman Egypt».
This course offers an introduction to the Greek literary and documentary papyri from Roman Egypt with the aim of teaching students the methods used to decipher, reconstruct, edit, and interpret the fragmentary texts preserved on papyrus.
Prerequisites
A good knowledge of classical Greek is required. It is helpful for students to have a basic knowledge of Greek palaeography; and it would be important for them to be able to read secondary literature written in English.
Books
(1) First course unit: (a) R.S. Bagnall (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009, ch. 7 (pp. 170-178), 8 (pp. 179-196), 10 (pp. 216-255), 11 (pp. 256-281), 16 (pp. 358-394), 18 (pp. 418-451); (b) E.G. Turner, Greek Papyri: An Introduction, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press 1980, ch. 1-8. The following Italian translation may be used: E.G. Turner, Papiri greci, Italian edition by M. Manfredi, Rome: Carocci 2002 (or subsequent reprints; 1st Italian edition, La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1984), ch. 1-8 (pp. 19-169); (c) K. Vandorpe (ed.), A Companion to Greco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt, Hoboken (NJ): Blackwell, 2019, pp. 51-69, 119-138, 155-159, 171-178, 289-298, 381-393, 435-438, 449-471.
(2) Second course unit: students will be given digital images of the papyri to be discussed in class.
Frequency
Attendance is strongly recommended.
Exam mode
An oral 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 critically 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.
Lesson mode
Subject matter and skills will be taught to, and learned by, students in a variety of ways. Face-to-face teaching will be employed mainly during the first course unit. This will help students acquire key competences. In the second course unit, greater emphasis will be put on seminars and group-based discussion with the aim of enabling students not only critically to read the previously edited texts, but also to develop their own intellectual and practical skills which will enable them to prepare editions of papyrus texts. We will focus on a selection from the published papyri that range in date from the late first century B.C. to the mid-third century A.D. The papyri will be studied in chronological order. Students will be asked to transcribe and translate each text; and their work will be discussed in class. The teacher will give methodological information, and will also comment on the main data provided by the texts themselves, with particular emphasis on topics such as palaeography, language, textual criticism, and historical background. In addition, students will be required to write two essays, of which one will focus on a literary papyrus, and the other on a documentary text. These essays will enable the teacher to determine the level of student understanding of course content, as well as the students’ perceptions of the methodologies needed in papyrology.
