Bulletin of the American Society ofPapyrologists 32 (1995) 97-116
Four Coptic Papyri from the Patermouthis Archive
in the British Library
(Plates 2-4)
When details of the Patermouthis archive Greek papyri, which are now
mainly in London and Munich, were published,' only two Coptic documents
were explicitly associated with them.2 However, in 1921, Walter Ewing
Crum published transcriptions of two of the texts edited below (ST 96 and
181), which involve Patermouthis and/or his wife Kako, two of the main
characters in the archive. He even went as far as to note there that ST 96
involved persons who also occurred in P. Lond. V 1724, a conveyance from
the archive.
The four Coptic papyri edited below, BL Or. 6943 (1), (2-5), (11) and
(12),3 were acquired by the British Museum on 12th November 1907,4 along
with Greek manuscripts from the Patermouthis archive and other Coptic,
Arabic and Nubian manuscripts, from Robert de Rustafjaell,5 who had
acquired them in Egypt that winter.6 Although a number of other items
1For a chronology and bibliography of the archive of this Egyptian boatman and soldier
from Elephantine, see J.L. Farber and B. Porten, "The Patermouthis Archive: a third look,"
BASP 23 (1986) 81-98, and see the forthcoming monograph of translations of the Aramaic,
Greek, demotic and Coptic documents from Elephantine/Syene, to which they have kindly
granted me pre-publication access.
2One of these is written on the verso of a Greek document from the archive, see L.S.B.
MacCoull, "Further notes on ST 439 (P. Lond V 1720v)," ZPE 96 (1993) 229-233. The other
is still unpublished, see P. Minch. I p. 2 for the description of this small "koptischen
Schuldurkunden oder Quittung", which, if still extant, may soon be published, see L.S.B.
MacCoull, "Coptic papyri in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich," in: D.W. Johnson ed.,
Acts of the Fifth International Congress of Coptic Studies. Washington, 12-15 August 1992
vol. 2.2 (Rome 1993) 277, noting that this Munich papyrus disproves the comments about
provenance made on p. 281.
3All of these fragments have been mounted so that only one side of the papyrus is
visible. I am grateful to the authorities of the Board of the British Library for permission to
publish them.
4See B. Layton, Catalogue of Coptic literary manuscripts in the British Library
acquired since 1906 (London 1987) xxviii.
5See W.R. Dawson, E.P. Uphill, Who was who in Egyptology (2nd ed., London 1972)
256.
6See Layton, op. cit. (note 4) xxvi-xxx and 90, and H.I. Bell, "Syene papyri in the
British Museum," Klio 13 (1913) 160, for details of this acquisition.
