ï~~166
Peter van Minnen
The papyrus was retrieved from some kind of papier mdachi (illustrated
on p. 61, a photo taken while it was being disassembled) that also contained
25 documents, now deposited for study at the Statale in Milan. The documents are from the late first century AD (Vespasian-Domitian) and relate to
Alexandrian citizens, their legal affairs in the city of Alexandria, and their
property in the Antaeopolite nome (p. 62). Whether the papyrus belonged
with these private papers is not certain, but it is remarkable enough to find a
set of private papers bundled together in papier mdachi, so that the inference
that the papyrus has some connection with Alexandria is reasonable. Where
it was recycled is unknown.
(If the papier machi has anything to do with the funerary business the
source must be looked for in the Arsinoite and Heracleopolite nomes, where
at least one cemetery yielded Alexandrian documents [from a public context]
in abundance, Abusir el-Melek, from the reign of Augustus, about a century
before the date of the 25 documents that came with the papyrus. Recycling in
mummy cartonnage extends in time to the beginning of the second century
AD, so the papier mdachi here, if it has anything to do with it, dates from the
very end of the recycling phenomenon.)
The papyrus is 32.5 cm high, and the two fragments are 41.5 and 189.5 cm
wide respectively. The editors allow a small break between the two fragments,
to accommodate the rest of col. 3. The first fragment was probably already detached from the rest of the roll when it and the second fragment were recycled
in the papier mdachi along with the documents.
It is unavoidable to address the somewhat painful prehistory of this volume. After the papyrus was acquired for the Egyptian Museum in Turin in
2004 an exhibit was held there in 2006. The exhibit almost immediately led to
a strong reaction on the part of Luciano Canfora (for some Italian "political"
reason), who claimed the papyrus was a fake made by the nineteenth-century
forger Constantine Simonidis. Canfora has stuck to his guns ever since. As a
consequence of the torrent of publications by him and others, the editors have
tried in this editio princeps to "anticipate" (after the fact) the many criticisms
about reading and interpretation levelled at them and not just on pp. 57-60.
This has unfortunately not made for better scholarship on their part. Too often
the editors of the Greek text indulge in the same kind of unqualified statements
that has so far been characteristic of Canfora c.s. The result is that I was surprised by the tone of many of the comments in the earlier part of the volume,
where the texts are edited and explained.
An example. In col. 1.3-4 Luciano Bossina, one of Canfora's "collaborators," wants to read something else than the editors, whose preliminary text
he used. This is what they have to say about it: "la lettura e manifestamente
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