DOI Artikel:
Kenyon, Frederic George: Progress of Egyptology: graeco-roman Egypt, 1906-7
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12424#0069
Geaeco-Eoman Egypt.
55
B.—GEAECO-EOMAN EGYPT, 1906-7.
At the time of writing this Beport, none of the important literary texts,
whose discovery was announced last year, has yet been published.
M. Lefebvre has been too much occupied with his official duties, and
Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt by their further excavations and the preparation
of the second volume of their Tebtunis Papyri, to complete the editiones
principes of Menander, of Pindar's paeans and the other texts for which
scholars are waiting; nor would it be reasonable to make this a cause of
complaint. Both volumes are in a forward state of preparation; and it is
a disservice to scholarship to press the first editors of new texts either to
produce their discoveries in an unsatisfactory form or to overwork them-
selves in the attempt to make them satisfactory in an inadequate time.
Meanwhile, the most important literary publication which has taken
place is that of vol. v. of the Berliner Klassihertexte,1 containing a number
of the smaller literary papyri in the Berlin Museum. The volume, which
is edited by Wilamowitz and Schubart, is divided into two parts, the first
including the epic and elegiac fragments, the second the lyric and dramatic.
Some of the texts have been published previously, others are new. The
first part includes a catalogue of Homeric papyri, a paraphrase of an
Orphic poem on the rape of Persephone (closely connected with the
Homeric hymn to Demeter), fragments of the Hesiodic KaraXoyoi, (some
of them published in 1900, and described as no. 3 in this Report for
1900-1), portions of Aratus, Theocritus, and Oppian, two interesting scraps
(30 lines) of Euphorion, in highly artificial diction, considerable fragments
of Nonnus (books xiv-xvi), and miscellaneous late and anonymous poems.
The second part is more interesting. It includes not only the very
attractive Sappho-fragments originally published by Schubart in 1902
{Report 1901-2, no. 1), but some highly interesting fragments of Corinna
(portions of 200 lines, but only about £0 in reasonably good preservation),
a characteristic passage from the Cretans of Euripides (52 lines), and an
ode from the Phaethon, besides previously known portions of the Melanippe
and Hippolytns, several leaves of a codex of Aristophanes, two specimens
(about 50 and 100 imperfect lines respectively) from the New Comedy, and
miscellaneous fragments, of which the most noteworthy is a tiny roll of
amatory epigrams, measuring less than 2i inches in height. Both parts
are well provided with specimen facsimiles.
The second volume of the Tebtunis Papyri'1 (excavated by Messrs.
Grenfell and Hunt in 1899-1900 on behalf of the University of California,
and edited by them in conjunction with Prof. E. J. Goodspeed) contains a
55
B.—GEAECO-EOMAN EGYPT, 1906-7.
At the time of writing this Beport, none of the important literary texts,
whose discovery was announced last year, has yet been published.
M. Lefebvre has been too much occupied with his official duties, and
Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt by their further excavations and the preparation
of the second volume of their Tebtunis Papyri, to complete the editiones
principes of Menander, of Pindar's paeans and the other texts for which
scholars are waiting; nor would it be reasonable to make this a cause of
complaint. Both volumes are in a forward state of preparation; and it is
a disservice to scholarship to press the first editors of new texts either to
produce their discoveries in an unsatisfactory form or to overwork them-
selves in the attempt to make them satisfactory in an inadequate time.
Meanwhile, the most important literary publication which has taken
place is that of vol. v. of the Berliner Klassihertexte,1 containing a number
of the smaller literary papyri in the Berlin Museum. The volume, which
is edited by Wilamowitz and Schubart, is divided into two parts, the first
including the epic and elegiac fragments, the second the lyric and dramatic.
Some of the texts have been published previously, others are new. The
first part includes a catalogue of Homeric papyri, a paraphrase of an
Orphic poem on the rape of Persephone (closely connected with the
Homeric hymn to Demeter), fragments of the Hesiodic KaraXoyoi, (some
of them published in 1900, and described as no. 3 in this Report for
1900-1), portions of Aratus, Theocritus, and Oppian, two interesting scraps
(30 lines) of Euphorion, in highly artificial diction, considerable fragments
of Nonnus (books xiv-xvi), and miscellaneous late and anonymous poems.
The second part is more interesting. It includes not only the very
attractive Sappho-fragments originally published by Schubart in 1902
{Report 1901-2, no. 1), but some highly interesting fragments of Corinna
(portions of 200 lines, but only about £0 in reasonably good preservation),
a characteristic passage from the Cretans of Euripides (52 lines), and an
ode from the Phaethon, besides previously known portions of the Melanippe
and Hippolytns, several leaves of a codex of Aristophanes, two specimens
(about 50 and 100 imperfect lines respectively) from the New Comedy, and
miscellaneous fragments, of which the most noteworthy is a tiny roll of
amatory epigrams, measuring less than 2i inches in height. Both parts
are well provided with specimen facsimiles.
The second volume of the Tebtunis Papyri'1 (excavated by Messrs.
Grenfell and Hunt in 1899-1900 on behalf of the University of California,
and edited by them in conjunction with Prof. E. J. Goodspeed) contains a