Subject Guides: Papyrology: Background

Papyri at BYU

BYU has a few original papyri in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections. The most important of these is a substantial fragment of Didymus the Blind's Commentary on the Psalms, a 5th or 6th century Greek papyrus written in Egypt. The BYU portions of the Didymus papyrus have been digitized and may be accessed by clicking here.

We also have two papyrus collections called P.BYU and P.Deaton.

All of these can be accessed in the Library catalog by doing a genre/form search on the term Manuscripts, Greek (Papyri) or Coptic manuscripts (Papyri).

Additionally the Library collects facsimiles of manuscripts on papyrus. These can be found by doing a genre/form search in the catalog on one of the following terms:

Coptic manuscripts (Papyri)--Facsimiles.

Manuscripts (Papyri)--Facsimiles.

Manuscripts, Greek (Papyri)--Facsimiles.

Manuscripts, Latin (Papyri)--Facsimiles.

BYU's Ancient Textual Imaging Group is heavily involved in the restoration of texts from damaged ancient documents such as those from the Herculaneum site. For information, see the Herculaneum Project page of this guide.

Donors

The Library is grateful to the Fritz B. Burns Foundation and to Dennis and Margo Heiner for providing a substantial gift in 2010 permitting us to purchase many of the papyrological publications in the collection. This purchase helped the Library and the University prepare for the American Society of Papyrologists Summer Institute, held at BYU in 2011.

Finding Books

To find books in the Library about papyri and papyrology,

Go to the Library catalog
Click Alphabetic Search
Enter one of the searches listed below in the search box
Click Subject

Some common subject searches

Coptic Manuscripts (Papyri)
Manuscripts (Papyri)
Manuscripts, Arabic (Papyri)
Manuscripts, Aramaic (Papyri)
Manuscripts, Classical (Papyri)
Manuscripts, Greek (Papyri)
Manuscripts, Hebrew (Papyri)
Manuscripts, Latin (Papyri)
Manuscripts, Semitic (Papyri)

Coptic language--Papyri
Egyptian language--Papyri

Paleography
Paleography, Arabic
Paleography, Coptic
Paleography, Egyptian
Paleography, Greek
Paleography, Hebrew
Paleography, Latin
Paleography, Semitic

Papyrus (The plant)

Bibliographies

Checklist of Editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca and Tablets

Standard list including editions and secondary materials.

Oxford Bibliographies - Classics

Growing set of bibliographies by classical scholars on topics ranging from individual authors such as Aeschylus and Ovid to historical figures such as Alexander the Great to broad topics such as papyrology or epigraphy. Each bibliography includes a brief introductory essay (including biographies or historical overviews) and citations to the most important books and articles on the topic. For the bibliography on papyrology, search in the list under Papyrology: Literary and Documentary.

Gagos, Traianos. A Select Bibliography of Papyrology.

By the Classics Librarian at the University of Michigan Library. [Offline as of October 13, 2015, but a request has been made to the UM Library to restore the page]

Van Minnen, Peter. Papyrological Bibliography.

Hosted by McMicken College Department of Classics.

Finding Articles

Papyrological publications are indexed in the same indexes applicable to general Classical Studies. For information about searching these indexes, see the Classical Studies Library Guide. Most of the journals listed below are indexed in L'Année Philologique.

The Library currently subscribes to a number of journals dealing with papyrology, all of which are indexed. Click on ♦ to access the BYU Catalog description of the journal.

♦ Aegyptus

Periodicals Room PA 3339 .A4

Copy in JSTOR (except most recent five years) (authentication required)

♦ Analecta Papyrologica

Ancient Studies PA 3339 .A55

♦ Archiv für Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete

Ancient Studies PA 3339 .A6

Index to Bd. 1-50 (1901-2004) bound at end of Bd.50 (2004)

♦ Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale du Caire (BIFAO)

Ancient Studies DT 57 .F81

Index

♦ Bulletin of the Center of Papyrological Studies