Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 35 (1998) 185-210
"It was Wonderful, Our Return in the
Darkness with... the Baskets of Papyri!"
Papyrus Finds at Tebtunis from the Bagnani
Archives, 1931-19361
(Plate 23)
The first Italian excavations at Tebtunis began with high hopes
in 1929 but ended quietly in 1936 without ever receiving proper
publication. Recently, however, excavation notebooks, diaries,
plans, correspondence, photographs, and even watercolours were
discovered among the papers left to Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada by one of the excavation's directors,
Gilbert Bagnani.2 While most of the new information concerns
architecture, there are nonetheless many scattered references to
papyri and ostraka. Perhaps of greatest interest are the detailed
eyewitness descriptions of the two largest papyrological discoveries,
that of the sanctuary "library" in 1931 and that of the "grapheion"
in 1934. It seems best to present the material chronologically, based
on the information in the archives together with the preliminary
reports and other references among the papyrological literature. It
needs to be emphasized that the conclusions are preliminary until
the new material can be considered in conjunction with the archives
in Italy of Carlo Anti and Achille Vogliano.
1 I would like to thank Terry Wilfong for inviting me to submit this account of
the papyrological aspects of the Bagnani Archives, as well as for unfailingly
helpful advice. The inadequacies remaining are mine.
2 I wish to express my sincere appreciation to the Trustees of the Gilbert and
Stewart Bagnani Endowment Fund both for allowing me to publish the Bagnani
Archives and for generously supporting this research project. I would also like to
acknowledge the invaluable assistance provided with unfailing courtesy and
patience by the Trent Archivist Bernadine Dodge and her assistant Jodi Aoki,
especially since the Bagnani archives are still unprocessed and unavailable for
public scrutiny at this time.
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