DOI Artikel:
Kenyon, Frederic George: Progress of Egyptology: graeco-roman Egypt
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12420#0063
Graeco-Roman Egypt.
49
department of secular literature the only item to add is Dr. Gerhard's
definitive edition (see no. 4 of 1906-7) of the Heidelberg fragment of the
choliambics of Phoenix of Colophon.4 As usual, a small amount of text
serves Dr. Gerhard as basis for an elaborate and learned commentary of
great length. He discerns in Phoenix a writer of the Cynic school
(though much of it differs little from the commonplaces of the satirists of
all ages and philosophies), and collects all that he can find to illustrate
this type of Hellenistic literature.
Of non-literary texts, the principal collection is again that of Messrs.
Grenfell and Hunt's volume.1 In addition to the literary texts mentioned
above, it contains 59 non-literary documents edited in full, and descriptions
(with more or less complete texts) of 50 more, of which the last three are
Arabic. Among the more interesting are no. 888, an edict of the prefect
PI. Valerius Pompeianus in a.d. 287 on the appointment of guardians for
orphan children ; 894, a Latin declaration of the birth of a child in 194-6 ;
899, part of a petition by a woman to be released from the obligation to
cultivate certain crown lands, with a recital of her previous endeavours to
the same end; 903, a long complaint by a wife of her husband's ill-
treatment of her; 905 and 906, contracts for marriage and divorce; 907, a
will of the year 276; 918, a long land-register of the second century ; with
various leases, accounts, and private letters. Six plates of facsimiles are
appended.
The two parts of the Berlin series that have appeared,6 under the editor-
ship of Schubart, have a special interest, in that they contain a group of
documents emanating from Alexandria. They come from the papyrus-
cartonnages discovered in the German excavations at Abusir, and form
part of the same group as nos. 1050-1059, published in 1906; but it is
only lately that their Alexandrian origin has become evident. In date
they belong to the first half of the reign of Augustus, ranging from b.c. 22
to b.c. 5. Most of them are addressed to the same official, Protarchus, who
is described as 6 ettl rS KpiT^piw. In contents they are mainly contracts
of various forms, especially leases, but their chief interest lies in the
information which they give as to the population of Alexandria. This is
elaborately discussed by Schubart in a long article in the Archiv,6 which
forms an indispensable commentary on this group of texts. In particular,
a great quantity of evidence as to the Alexandrian tribes is derivable from
them.
Two Greek texts, dated in the years 29 and 43 a.d., are published,
with facsimiles, in Griffith's monumental Catalogue of the Demotic Papyri in
the John Rylands Library;7 and a third, of 136 b.c., is jointly edited by
E
49
department of secular literature the only item to add is Dr. Gerhard's
definitive edition (see no. 4 of 1906-7) of the Heidelberg fragment of the
choliambics of Phoenix of Colophon.4 As usual, a small amount of text
serves Dr. Gerhard as basis for an elaborate and learned commentary of
great length. He discerns in Phoenix a writer of the Cynic school
(though much of it differs little from the commonplaces of the satirists of
all ages and philosophies), and collects all that he can find to illustrate
this type of Hellenistic literature.
Of non-literary texts, the principal collection is again that of Messrs.
Grenfell and Hunt's volume.1 In addition to the literary texts mentioned
above, it contains 59 non-literary documents edited in full, and descriptions
(with more or less complete texts) of 50 more, of which the last three are
Arabic. Among the more interesting are no. 888, an edict of the prefect
PI. Valerius Pompeianus in a.d. 287 on the appointment of guardians for
orphan children ; 894, a Latin declaration of the birth of a child in 194-6 ;
899, part of a petition by a woman to be released from the obligation to
cultivate certain crown lands, with a recital of her previous endeavours to
the same end; 903, a long complaint by a wife of her husband's ill-
treatment of her; 905 and 906, contracts for marriage and divorce; 907, a
will of the year 276; 918, a long land-register of the second century ; with
various leases, accounts, and private letters. Six plates of facsimiles are
appended.
The two parts of the Berlin series that have appeared,6 under the editor-
ship of Schubart, have a special interest, in that they contain a group of
documents emanating from Alexandria. They come from the papyrus-
cartonnages discovered in the German excavations at Abusir, and form
part of the same group as nos. 1050-1059, published in 1906; but it is
only lately that their Alexandrian origin has become evident. In date
they belong to the first half of the reign of Augustus, ranging from b.c. 22
to b.c. 5. Most of them are addressed to the same official, Protarchus, who
is described as 6 ettl rS KpiT^piw. In contents they are mainly contracts
of various forms, especially leases, but their chief interest lies in the
information which they give as to the population of Alexandria. This is
elaborately discussed by Schubart in a long article in the Archiv,6 which
forms an indispensable commentary on this group of texts. In particular,
a great quantity of evidence as to the Alexandrian tribes is derivable from
them.
Two Greek texts, dated in the years 29 and 43 a.d., are published,
with facsimiles, in Griffith's monumental Catalogue of the Demotic Papyri in
the John Rylands Library;7 and a third, of 136 b.c., is jointly edited by
E