Griffith, Francis Ll. [Hrsg.]: The demotic magical papyrus of London and Leiden (Band 1) (London, 1904)

INTRODUCTION

I. HISTORY OF THE MS.

The demotic magical papyrus of London and Leiden
was discovered at Thebes with other papyri, principally
Greek but dealing with subjects of a like nature, in the
early part of the last century, and was bought by Ana-
stasi,who was at that time Swedish consul at Alexandria,
and made a large collection of Egyptian MSS. When
Anastasi obtained the MS. it must already have been
torn into two parts, and it is even probable that he
obtained the two parts at different times, since he sold
his Egyptian collections, including the Leiden MS., to
the Dutch government in 1828, while the London
portion was bought at the sale of his later collections
at Paris in 1857 for the British Museum (No. 1072 in
Lenormant's Catalogue).

The Leiden fragment was made known to the world
much earlier than that in the British Museum. Its
importance for the deciphering of the demotic script
by the help of the numerous glosses in Graeco-Coptic
characters was at once perceived by the distinguished
scholar Reuvens, at that time Director of the Leiden
Museum of Antiquities, who proceeded to study it
carefully, and in 1830 published an admirable essay1
in which he sketched the principal contents of the MS.
and indicated its value for the progress of demotic

1 Lettres a M. Letronne sur les papyrus bilingues et grecs, par C. J. C.
Reuvens. Leide, 1830. (Premiere lettre, Papyrus bilingues.)

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