List of papyri from ancient Egypt

Last updated May 01, 2024

Photo of ancient papyrus document, showing vertical and horizontal striations from the strips of pith of the papyrus plant. Papyrus.jpg — Photo of ancient papyrus document, showing vertical and horizontal striations from the strips of pith of the papyrus plant.

This list of papyri from ancient Egypt includes some of the better known individual papyri written in hieroglyphs, hieratic, demotic or in ancient Greek. Excluded are papyri found abroad or containing Biblical texts which are listed in separate lists.

Name	Date: century BCE	Content	Institution	Ref #	City	Country
Diary of Merer	26th	O - stone transport to the Great Pyramid of Giza	Egyptian Museum	^[1]	Cairo	Egypt
Abusir Papyri	25th or later	O - about Neferirkare Kakai
Moscow Mathematical Papyrus	21st	S - Mathematical problems and solutions	Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts		Moscow	Russia
Berlin Papyrus	21st or later	S - Medical and mathematical topics	Egyptian Museum of Berlin	P. Berlin 6619	Berlin	Germany
Dramatic Ramesseum Papyrus	20th	R - Religious drama	British Museum	P. BM EA 10610,2	London	UK
Westcar Papyrus	20th	L - Tales of Magic	Egyptian Museum of Berlin	P. Berlin 3033	Berlin	Germany
Heqanakht Papyri	20th	P - Private Correspondence of Heqanakht	Metropolitan Museum of Art	22.3	New York City	United States
Papyrus Hermitage 1116A Papyrus Moscow, Papyrus Carlsberg 6	20th or later	T - Instruction of Merikare
P. Leningrad 1115	20th or later	L - Tale of the shipwrecked sailor	Russian Museum	P. Leningrad 1115	Moscow	Russia
Prisse Papyrus	20th or later	T - Instruction addressed to Kagemni The Maxims of Ptahhotep	Bibliothèque Nationale		Paris	France
Papyrus Berlin 3023 Papyrus Berlin 3025 Papyrus Berlin 10499	20th or later	L - The Eloquent Peasant		P. Berlin 3023 P. Berlin 3025 P. Berlin 10499	Berlin	Germany
Papyrus Butler 527	20th or later	L - The Eloquent Peasant	British Museum	P. BM 10274	London	UK
Papyrus Berlin 3024	20th or later	L - Dispute between a man and his Ba, Herdsman's Tale		P. Berlin 3024	Berlin	Germany
Hearst Papyrus	20th or later	S - Medical texts	University of California, Berkeley		Berkeley, CA	United States
Rhind Mathematical Papyrus	19th or later	S - Mathematical problems and solutions	British Museum	pBM 10057, pBM 10058	London	UK
Kahun Papyri	19th	S - Mathematical and medical topics	University College London		London	UK
Papyrus Berlin 3022	19th	B (?)- Story of Sinuhe		P. Berlin 3022	Berlin	Germany
Ramesseum medical papyri	18th	S - Medical texts
Papyrus Boulaq 18	18th	O - palace administration			Egypt	Cairo
London Medical Papyrus	18th	S - Medical texts	British Museum	pBM 10059	London	UK
Reisner Papyrus	18th	O - official records
Ipuwer Papyrus	17th	T - The Admonitions of Ipuwer	Rijksmuseum van Oudheden	Papyrus Leiden I 344	Leiden	Netherlands
Papyrus Golenischeff	17th	R - Hymn to the Red Crown
Edwin Smith Papyrus	16th or earlier	S - Medical	New York Academy of Medicine		New York City	United States
Ebers Papyrus	16th	S - Medical	University of Leipzig		Leipzig	Germany
Millingen Papyrus (now lost)	16th or later	T - Instructions of Amenemhat
Carlsberg Papyrus VIII	15th (ca. 1400 BC) or later (perhaps Ramesside: 1292-1077 BC)	S - Medical texts	University of Copenhagen	VIII	Copenhagen	Denmark
Turin King List	13th (1292-1077 BC; Ramesside)	O - Kinglist	Museo Egizio		Turin	Italy
Papyrus of Ani	13th or later (ca. 1250 BC)	F - Book of the Dead	Egyptian Museum	P. Boulaq 4	Cairo	Egypt
Papyrus Sallier II	13th or later	T - The Satire of the Trades	British Museum		London	UK
Papyrus Anastasi I	13th or later (1292-1077 BC; Ramesside)	T - Satirical letter	British Museum	pBM 10247	London	UK
Papyrus Harris I	12th (1155–1149 BC)	O - Lists of endowments	British Museum	P. BM 9999.	London	UK
Judicial Papyrus of Turin	12th	O - Report on the Harem conspiracy against Ramesses III
Turin Papyrus Map	12th (ca. 1150 BC)	D - Map	Museo Egizio		Turin	Italy
Abbott Papyrus	12th (ca. 1100 BC)	O - Investigation of crimes	British Museum	10221	London	UK
Leopold II and Amherst Papyrus	12th (1113 BC)	O - Investigation of crimes	Musée d'arts		Brussels	Belgium
Mayer Papyri	12th and later (A: 1083-1080 BC; B: 1118 BC)	O - Investigation of crimes	World Museum	M11162, M11186	Liverpool	UK
Chester Beatty Medical Papyrus	12th	S - Medical texts	British Museum		London	UK
Papyrus British Museum 10474	12th	T - Instructions of Amenemopet	British Museum	P. BM 10474	London	UK
Papyrus Lansing	12th	T - Schoolbook	British Museum	P. BM 9994	London	UK
Papyrus Chester Beatty IV	12th	T - The Immortality of Writers	British Museum	P. BM 10684	London	UK
Papyrus D’Orbiney	12th	L - Tale of Two Brothers	British Museum	P. BM 10183	London	UK
Papyrus Chester Beatty II	12th	L - Tale of Truth and Falsehood	British Museum	P. BM 10682	London	UK
Papyrus Chester Beatty I	12th	L - Love poetry Contention between Horus and Seth
Turin Erotic Papyrus	12th (ca. 1150 BC)	D - Animal and erotic cartoons		P. Turin 55001	Turin	Italy
Papyrus Harris 500	12th or later	L - Tale of the doomed prince, The Taking of Joppa, love poems, the Harper's Song	British Museum	P. BM 10060	London	UK
Papyrus Pushkin I	12th or later	L - Moscow literary letter		P. Pushkin I
Greenfield Papyrus	11th	F - Book of the Dead	British Museum	BM EA 10554	London	UK
Papyrus Moscow 120	11th or later	L - Story of Wenamun		P. Moscow 120
Papyrus Hood	10th	W - Onomasticon of Amenope	British Museum	P. BM EA 10202	London	UK
Papyrus Berlin 3048	8th	P - Marriage contract		P. Berlin 3048	Berlin	Germany
Papyrus Rylands 9	6th	P - The petition of Pediese	John Rylands Library	P. Rylands 9	Manchester	UK
Brooklyn Papyrus	5th (450 BC)	S - Medical texts	Brooklyn Museum		Brooklyn	United States
Papyrus Bremner–Rhind	4th	R - The Songs of Isis and Nephthys.	British Museum	P. BM 10188	London	UK
British Museum Papyrus 10508	4th or later	T - Instruction of Ankhsheshonq	British Museum	P. BM 10508	London	UK
Papyrus Berlin 3008	4th or later	R - The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys		P.Berlin 3008	Berlin	Germany
Cairo Museum Papyrus No. 30646	4th or later	L - Setne I	Egyptian Museum	Cairo Museum Papyrus No. 30646	Cairo	Egypt
Cairo Museum Papyrus No. 30692	4th or later	L - Setne I	Egyptian Museum	Cairo Museum Papyrus No. 30692	Cairo	Egypt
Vienna Demotic Papyrus 6165	4th or later	L - Story-cycle of King Petubastis		Vienna Demotic Papyrus 6165	Vienna	Austria
Leiden Demotic Papyrus I 384	4th or later	R - The Myth of the Eye of the Sun	Rijksmuseum van Oudheden	P.Leid.Dem. I 384	Leiden	Netherlands
Papyrus Milbank	4th or later (332-30 BC)	F - Book of the Dead	Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures	E10486^[2]	Chicago	United States
Zenon Papyri	3rd (250-230 BC)	O/P: legal and financial transactions, architectural descriptions	dispersed	^[3]^[4]	various
Waziri Papyrus I	3rd or later	F - Book of the Dead	Egyptian Museum		Cairo	Egypt
Milan Papyrus	3rd or later (ca. 220 BC)	L - Poetry in Greek	University of Milan	P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309	Milan	Italy
Insinger Papyrus	1st or later	T - Instruction of Papyrus Insinger	Rijksmuseum van Oudheden	F 95 / 5.1	Leiden	Netherlands
Dryton and Apollonia Archive	1st or later (174-94 BCE; Ptolemaic)	P - family papers	dispersed	^[5]
British Museum Papyrus 604	1st AD (39 AD)	L - Setne II	British Museum	P. BM 604^[6]	London	UK

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papyrus</span> Writing and implement

Papyrus is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge. Papyrus can also refer to a document written on sheets of such material, joined side by side and rolled up into a scroll, an early form of a book.

The Elephantine Papyri and Ostraca consist of thousands of documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Aswan, which yielded hundreds of papyri and ostraca in hieratic and demotic Egyptian, Aramaic, Koine Greek, Latin and Coptic, spanning a period of 100 years in the 5th to 4th centuries BCE. The documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives, and are thus an invaluable source of knowledge for scholars of varied disciplines such as epistolography, law, society, religion, language and onomastics. The Elephantine documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives: divorce documents, the manumission of slaves, and other business. The dry soil of Upper Egypt preserved the documents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rylands Library Papyrus P52</span> Earliest surviving miniscript of the New Testament

The Rylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the St John's fragment and with an accession reference of Papyrus Rylands Greek 457, is a fragment from a papyrus codex, measuring only 3.5 by 2.5 inches at its widest, and conserved with the Rylands Papyri at the John Rylands University Library Manchester, UK. The front (recto) contains parts of seven lines from the Gospel of John 18:31–33, in Greek, and the back (verso) contains parts of seven lines from verses 37–38. Since 2007, the papyrus has been on permanent display in the library's Deansgate building.

The system of ancient Egyptian numerals was used in Ancient Egypt from around 3000 BC until the early first millennium AD. It was a system of numeration based on multiples of ten, often rounded off to the higher power, written in hieroglyphs. The Egyptians had no concept of a positional notation such as the decimal system. The hieratic form of numerals stressed an exact finite series notation, ciphered one-to-one onto the Egyptian alphabet.

Ancient Egyptian mathematics is the mathematics that was developed and used in Ancient Egypt c. 3000 to c. 300 BCE, from the Old Kingdom of Egypt until roughly the beginning of Hellenistic Egypt. The ancient Egyptians utilized a numeral system for counting and solving written mathematical problems, often involving multiplication and fractions. Evidence for Egyptian mathematics is limited to a scarce amount of surviving sources written on papyrus. From these texts it is known that ancient Egyptians understood concepts of geometry, such as determining the surface area and volume of three-dimensional shapes useful for architectural engineering, and algebra, such as the false position method and quadratic equations.

Faiyum is a city in Middle Egypt. Located 100 kilometres southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyum Governorate. Originally called Shedet in Egyptian, the Greeks called it in Koinē Greek: Κροκοδειλόπολις, romanized: Krokodilópolis, and later Medieval Greek: Ἀρσινόη, romanized: Arsinoë. It is one of Egypt's oldest cities due to its strategic location.

Oxyrhynchus, also known by its modern name Al-Bahnasa, is a city in Middle Egypt located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo in Minya Governorate. It is also an important archaeological site. Since the late 19th century, the area around Oxyrhynchus has been excavated almost continually, yielding an enormous collection of papyrus texts dating from the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Roman Egypt. They also include a few vellum manuscripts, and more recent Arabic manuscripts on paper.

The Greek Magical Papyri is the name given by scholars to a body of papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt, written mostly in ancient Greek, which each contain a number of magical spells, formulae, hymns, and rituals. The materials in the papyri date from the 100s BCE to the 400s CE. The manuscripts came to light through the antiquities trade, from the 1700s onward. One of the best known of these texts is the Mithras Liturgy.

The Papyrology Collection of the University of Michigan Library is an internationally respected collection of ancient papyrus and a center for research on ancient culture, language, and history. With over 7,000 items and more than 10,000 individual fragments, the Collection is by far the largest collection of papyrus in the country, and offers a glimpse into the everyday life and language of the ancient world. Of keen interest to historians, linguists, classicists, philosophers, archaeologists, as well as others, the collection includes biblical fragments, religious writings, public and private documents, private letters, and writings on astronomy, astrology, mathematics, and magic. The papyri span nearly two millennia of history, dating from about 1000 BC to AD 1000, with the majority dating from the third century BC to the seventh century AD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oxyrhynchus Papyri</span> Manuscript fragments from 32BC–640AD found in an Egyptian rubbish dump

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Egyptian literature</span> Literature written in the Egyptian language

Ancient Egyptian literature was written with the Egyptian language from ancient Egypt's pharaonic period until the end of Roman domination. It represents the oldest corpus of Egyptian literature. Along with Sumerian literature, it is considered the world's earliest literature.

Egyptian medical papyri are ancient Egyptian texts written on papyrus which permit a glimpse at medical procedures and practices in ancient Egypt. These papyri give details on disease, diagnosis, and remedies of disease, which include herbal remedies, surgery, and magical incantations. Many of these papyri have been lost due to grave robbery. The largest study of the medical papyri to date has been undertaken by Humboldt University of Berlin and was titled Medizin der alten Ägypter.

Naphtali Lewis was an American papyrologist who published extensively on subjects ranging from the ancient papyrus industry to government in Roman Egypt. He also wrote several social histories of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt to make his research more accessible to non-specialists. He was married to the psychoanalyst Helen Block Lewis (1913–1987), and they had two children, John Block Lewis and Judith Lewis Herman, a physician who followed in her mother's professional footsteps.

Dirk D. Obbink is an American papyrologist and classicist. He was Lecturer in Papyrology and Greek Literature in the Faculty of Classics at Oxford University until 6 February 2021, and was the head of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project until August 2016. Obbink was also a fellow and tutor in Greek at Christ Church Oxford, from which role he was suspended in October 2019, as a result of allegations that he had stolen some of the Oxyrhynchus papyri and sold them to the Museum of the Bible.

The Lahun Mathematical Papyri is an ancient Egyptian mathematical text. It forms part of the Kahun Papyri, which was discovered at El-Lahun by Flinders Petrie during excavations of a workers' town near the pyramid of the Twelfth Dynasty pharaoh Sesostris II. The Kahun Papyri are a collection of texts including administrative texts, medical texts, veterinarian texts and six fragments devoted to mathematics.

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 54 is a letter concerning the repair of public buildings, written in Greek. The manuscript was written on papyrus in the form of a sheet. It was discovered by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897 in Oxyrhynchus. The document was written between 27 March and 25 April of the year 201. It is housed in the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures in the University of Chicago. The text was published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1898.

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 72 is a notice of a transfer of property (ἀπογραφή), written in Greek. The manuscript was written on papyrus in the form of a sheet. It was discovered by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897 in Oxyrhynchus. The document was written on 12 April 90. Currently it is housed in the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures in University of Chicago. The text was published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1898.

Apollonius was the dioiketes or chief finance minister of Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Little is known about his personal life; in ancient documents, he is called simply "Apollonius the dioiketes" without recording his home city or his father's name. But a great amount of information has survived about his public role, in the archive of papyri kept by his assistant Zenon.

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 581 is a papyrus fragment written in Ancient Greek, apparently recording the sale of a slave girl. Dating from 29 August 99 AD, P. Oxy. 581 was discovered, alongside hundreds of other papyri, by Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt while excavating an ancient landfill at Oxyrhynchus in modern Egypt. The document's contents were published by the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1898, which also secured its donation to University College, Dundee, later the University of Dundee, in 1903 – where it still resides. Measuring 6.3 x 14.7 cm and consisting of 17 lines of text, the artifact represents the conclusion of a longer record, although the beginning of the papyrus was lost before it was found. P. Oxy. 581 has received a modest amount of scholarly attention, most recently and completely in a 2009 translation by classicist Amin Benaissa of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

References

↑ "Egypt Displays Oldest Papyrus, Accounts on Pyramid-Builders - The New York Times". www.nytimes.com. Archived from the original on 2016-07-14.
↑ "Papyrus Milbank". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
↑ McKenzie, McKenzie & Moorey 2007.
↑ "About the Zenon Papyri". apps.lib.umich.edu. University of Michigan . Retrieved 24 April 2021.
↑ Lewis, N: “Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt”, pp 88–103. Oxford University Press, 1986
↑ "papyrus (Previous P.Lond.3.604B) | British Museum". www.britishmuseum.org. Retrieved 2023-11-16.

Sources

Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. 1 to 3 https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/07/14/world/middleeast/ap-ml-egypt-antiquities.html Archived 2016-07-18 at the Wayback Machine
McKenzie, Judith; McKenzie, Rhys-Davids Junior Research Fellow in Archaeology Judith; Moorey, Peter Roger Stuart (2007). The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, C. 300 B.C. to A.D. 700. Yale University Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-300-11555-0 . Retrieved 21 April 2021.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] "Egypt Displays Oldest Papyrus, Accounts on Pyramid-Builders - The New York Times". www.nytimes.com. Archived from the original on 2016-07-14.

[2] "Papyrus Milbank". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 2023-11-16.

[FOOTNOTEMcKenzieMcKenzieMoorey2007-3] McKenzie, McKenzie & Moorey 2007.

[4] "About the Zenon Papyri". apps.lib.umich.edu. University of Michigan . Retrieved 24 April 2021.

[5] Lewis, N: “Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt”, pp 88–103. Oxford University Press, 1986

[6] "papyrus (Previous P.Lond.3.604B) | British Museum". www.britishmuseum.org. Retrieved 2023-11-16.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

List of papyri from ancient Egypt

Contents

See also

Related Research Articles

References

Sources