Subproject 4.6.: Papyrology

Project Manager: Prof. Dr. R. Scholl
Chair for Ancient History, Department of History, University of Leipzig; in co-operation with the University Library, Papyrus and Ostraca Collection, University of Leipzig

The body of ancient Greek and Latin literature – as far as it has been handed down and conserved – is available in critical editions, in translations, and in bilingual editions. A considerable part of this corpus is also accessible in digital form (cf. TLG, Perseus, etc.). New additions to these texts are very rare.

However, archaeological excavations, museums, and art trade yield new texts – on stone, coins, papyri, ostraka, and parchment. Some of these texts can be identified as known literary texts, many, on the other hand, are unknown fragments, which cannot be ascribed to any of the ancient authors yet. The majority of these new findings, though, are of a documentary nature.

Text-Mining works as a tool to bring together new fragments and known authors by way of comparison. Literary and semi-literary fragments are compared with the corpus of ancient literature in order to attribute them to an ancient author or at least limit the possibilities of authorship.

Also, new and old texts can be mutually amending. Especially with inscriptions and papyri, this feature gains importance as these sources frequently are found as fragments of different size and content. It is not unusual that parts of one and the same text belong to different collections, and that their relationship remains unknown. Text-Mining can be of great help here, since it puts together the pieces and finds parallel texts. Many documentary papyri and inscriptions share certain formulas, structures of the text, and keywords, which reveal them away as typical public records Therefore, on the basis of known parallels, they can be completed. In connection with the tools listed under (A), Text-Mining will provide considerable support. The metadata of the edited documentary papyri and ostraka can be found in the 'Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis' in form of a FileMaker database comprising 55,803 data sets ( http://aquila.papy.uni-heidelberg.de/gvzFM.php ). The Perseus Project offers the respective links to the Greek original text in the 'Duke Data Bank of Documentary Papyri.'

For the metadata of the literary texts, consult the 'Leuven Database of Ancient Books' with 11,518 texts (as of 17 May 2007) ( http://ldab.arts.kuleuven.ac.be) , and for literary and semiliterary texts, refer to 'Centre de Documentation de Papyrologie Littéraire' at the University of Liège ( http://promethee.philo.ulg.ac.be/cedopal/index.htm )

In addition to these published papyri, many other papyri do exist, in collections throughout the world, which still await cataloging, digitalization, and editing. For working on those documents, it is, first of all, necessary to classify them according to content and form, even if they have not yet been completely transcribed (and thus digitalized). In this case, the Text-Mining program suggests a lemmatized keyword-search.