ï~~42
Marja Bakker, Alette Bakkers, and Klaas Worp
several persons, from fellahin in Hibeh and Achmim and from Maurice Nahman in Cairo, a substantial number of inscribed objects, in particular ostraka
and fragments of papyrus and parchment. Von Scherling sold these objects to
customers all over the world, including at least some private individuals and
academic institutions in the East and Midwest of the United States. Furthermore, after von Scherling's death some of his texts came into the hands of other
dealers (i.a. Maggs Brothers, mentioned above, and Laurence Witten, Southport, Connecticut) who sold these to customers of their own. Nowadays, papyri once belonging to the von Scherling collection are located in the libraries
of the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis, Indiana University-Bloomington
(see n. 9), the University of Colorado-Boulder (see n. 17), Yale University (cf.
R Turner 27-28 introd.), and Duke University,5 as well as in the British Library,
the Belastingmuseum in Rotterdam, and the National Museum of Antiquities
and the Papyrological Institute in Leiden.6
I have attempted to reconstruct the contents of von Scherling's collection,
especially as far as the Greek papyri are concerned.7 This attempt is based
first and foremost on data in von Scherling's journal Rotulus, in fact a sales
catalogue published at irregular intervals for potential buyers.8 These sales
catalogues contain concise descriptions of various objects for sale, and from
volume 5 onwards the descriptions also feature an inventory number connected with von Scherling's collection. As he sometimes re-offered in a later
Rotulus volume an object already offered previously in an earlier volume, it is
possible to add to the earlier descriptions an inventory number found only with
a later description. In the case of inv. 235 below, the inventory number is visible
on the back of the original kept in the Leiden Papyrological Institute.
SSee W.H. Willis, BASP 25 (1988) 99. Through the APIS website one finds that
P.Robinson inv. 18-20 = P.Duke inv. 758-760 (for the last item cf. SB 20.14290), while
P.Robinson inv. 24-26 = P.Duke inv. 761-763. A Duke inventory number for P.Robinson
inv. 21-23 is unavailable.
6 For the latter two collections, see the information provided by A. Verhoogt and N.
Kruit to S. Clackson and reported by her in RMon.Apollo, pp. 13-14. For another Greek
papyrus in the collection of the National Museum of Antiquities see the ed.pr. of SB
18.13631 in OMRO 67 (1987) 25 (= inv. F1948/3.4). To the kindness of Dr. M. Raven
I owe the information that the Museum's inventory numbers F 1942/10.6-17, and F
1948/3.1-5 all refer to Greek papyri coming from the collection of E. von Scherling. It is
hoped that some of these texts may be published elsewhere in a forthcoming article.
7 I record here with gratitude the permission given by my colleague P. van Minnen to
make use of some notes collected by himself long ago in Leiden on E. von Scherling's
collection.
8 Between 1931 and 1954 there appeared volumes 1 (1931); 2 (1932); 3 (1933); 4
(1937); 5 (1949); 6 (1952); and 7 (1954).
0