Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 23.3-4 (1986) 81-98
THE PATERMOUTHIS ARCHIVE: A THIRD LOOK1
This seems a good time to begin the reconsideration of that group of 33 Byzantine
papyri known as the Patermouthis archive if only because Teubner has recently reissued the
original 1914 publication of the Munich2 half of the archive, the other half being in London.3
We have recently been examining both halves closely, particularly the London share, which
is housed in the Department of Manuscripts, the British Library, and we argue that the
published dates of several of these papyri are significantly in error.4
The curious history of the purchase and publication of the archive may help to explain how the errors of dating crept in and remained undetected. Under a publication date of
1909 Robert de Rustafjaell, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, described what he
believed had occurred two years earlier:
In the month of February 1907 I was in Egypt, engaged in making preparation for a journey to the Oracle of Jupiter Ammon in the Siwa desert. But, hearing that
several important manuscripts had been discovered in Upper Egypt, I lost no time in
hurrying up the Nile to attempt to acquire them. I found them to be seven Coptic
volumes, a Greek codex of vellum, a dozen Greek papyri with fragments, and a
book.... I was so fortunate as to conclude the purchase on the same day.
The authors here record their gratitude to John Oates of Duke University for making available the remarkable
facilities of the Perkins Library Papyrology Room at Duke with its Welles-Rostovtzeff Collection and its
Ibycus computer, and to Professors Oates and William Willis for their patient help and encouragement.
Thanks are also due to Franklin and Marshall College and to the Hebrew University for underwriting the costs
of the authors' study at the British Library, where Mr. T. S. Pattie gave unstintingly of his expertise.
2August Heisenberg and Leopold Wenger, Byzantinische Papyri der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek Manchen,
second edition prepared by Dieter Hagedorn (Stuttgart 1986). This edition (which will be designated P.
Manch. in the forthcoming revised edition of Oates, Bagnall, Willis and Worp, Checklist) reprints the
original plates of the transcriptions, translations, and notes of P. Monac. and adds an important historical
survey of the collection by Erwin Arnold plus Hagedorn's convenient list of published corrections and other
references in the literature. But, sadly, the cost of reproducing Obernetter's magnificent Tafeln in all their
glory must have been prohibitive, for we see here only the most pedestrian photos.
3P. Lond. V 1719-1737.
4Our own study of the archive is part of a larger enterprise, one designed to bring together translations of all
the Aramaic, Greek, and Demotic documents from the community of Syene/Elephantine in order to provide a
coherent picture of the continuities and discontinuities within its social, economic, legal, religious, and
material life throughout this 1200-year period.
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