Papyrus and ostraca collection at the Leipzig University Library
The papyrus and ostraca collection of the Leipzig University Library is one of the most important and largest collections of ancient papyri and ostraca in the German-speaking area. The foundations for the collection were laid in the 19th century, when one of the most famous papyri, the Ebers Papyrus , came into the collection. Like many other German institutions, a large part of the collection was acquired in 1902 as part of the German Papyrus Cartel . Most of the papyri in Leipzig come from Hermopolis and were written in Greek in the 4th century . The collection includes approx. 5000 papyri and approx. 1600 ostraka. Only a small part of it is published.
Collection history
The first pieces of the Leipzig papyrus collection were brought to Leipzig by travelers, including Konstantin von Tischendorf , who later became known through the discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus . The papyri he had brought with him were glued into a specimen copy of the book The Greek Papyri in the Leipzig University Library by Karl Wessely in 1885 .
The showpiece of the collection, the Ebers papyrus, was acquired by the German Egyptologist Georg Ebers in Leipzig in 1873. The majority of the collection was acquired when the university became a partner in the German Papyrus Cartel , which acquired papyri for many German institutions in Egypt in 1902. The papyrus cartel was supposed to pool the financial resources for purchases from the various German institutes and prevent the various German universities from appearing as buyers themselves and outbid one another without knowing it. The acquired papyri were then distributed proportionally to the institutions, which occasionally led to pieces belonging together being distributed to different locations. Leipzig acquired shares in both departments, the literary as well as the documentary. The collection was also generously sponsored by Theodor Mommsen , who contributed a large part of his prize money for the 1902 Nobel Prize for Literature . The first scientific development of the documents was carried out by the legal historian Ludwig Mitteis and the Mommsen student and founder of scientific papyrology , Ulrich Wilcken , who was Professor of Ancient History in Leipzig between 1906 and 1912 . In the years that followed, individual studies were repeatedly carried out. In the 1930s, papyri were purchased again, the purchase of which was supported by the Friends of Leipzig University . Smaller parts of the collection were then restored, inventoried and cataloged.
After the Second World War , Wilhelm Schubart, who was then Nestor of German papyrology, became professor in Leipzig at an advanced age, but papyrology was no longer one of the research areas of particular interest. In the following years the interest decreased more and more. For a long time there was no research assistant for the collection, nor was there a curator of the collection. Many of the papyri were still in the original containers in which they had been taken over by the papyrus cartel. These conditions only changed again after the fall of the Wall . In 1993, Reinhold Scholl took over the collection and has been officially responsible for the collection since 1997. In 2002 Greek documents from the papyrus collection in Leipzig appeared [P. Lips. II] by Ruth Duttenhöfer, the first major publication in a long time. From June to October 2010, under the title Buried - Lost - Found - Explored. Papyrus Treasures in Leipzig organized an exhibition on the Leipzig papyri in the university library, at which the Ebers papyrus was shown almost completely.
The library's ostraca collection consists of around 1,600 pieces, all acquired in 1902 with the cartel's papyri. 16 of them were born together with Fr. Lips. I published, further pieces by Wilcken and the head of the papyrus collection in Jena, Fritz Uebel (1919–1975). Other demotic and Coptic were published in various magazines. It was only in the 1990s and 2000s that more and more ostracas were brought to the public again. So far, around 1500 of the ostraka are still awaiting publication. Since 2003, the collection has been processed as part of a digitization project of the universities of Leipzig , Halle and Jena ( papyrus and ostraca project Halle-Jena-Leipzig ). In addition, the Internet portal Papyrusportal , in which the collections from Bonn, Erlangen, Gießen, Halle, Heidelberg, Jena, Cologne, Leipzig, Trier and Würzburg have come together, is organized as part of the research on the collection . A third volume on the Leipzig papyri is currently being prepared in which the as yet unpublished pieces will be published.
literature
- Reinhold Scholl (Ed.): Buried - Lost - Found - Researched. Papyrus treasures in Leipzig. (Series: Writings from the Leipzig University Library. ) Universitätsverlag Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-86583-483-6 .
Web links
- Papyrus and ostraca collection at the Leipzig University Library
- Papyrus and ostraca project Halle-Jena-Leipzig
- The Papyrus Portal