Research Arts Humanities 2017 2018

18
The Cologne
Papyrus Portal
Project leader: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Hammerstaedt | Research Unit for Papyrology, Epigraphy
and Numismatics - Cologne Center for eHumanities
Funded by the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts
T
he Cologne Papyrus Collection, one of the
most important of this kind worldwide,
includes approximately 10,000 items, mainly
fragments of papyri and parchments (ca.
8,000 items), but also around 500 ostraca (potsherds
covered with short texts written in ink) and a small group
of lead and wooden tablets. The vast majority of them
are Greek texts, but the collection also houses hundreds
of Egyptian writings in Demotic and Coptic, and a few
Latin, Arabic and Aramaic texts. Most of them come from
Egypt where they were written during a time span of more
than a thousand years, from the time of Alexander the
Great through to the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine
periods until the Arab conquest of Egypt in the seventh
century CE. Ancient literature, often parts of the oeuvre of
well-known authors such as Homer, Archilochus, Sappho,
Alcaeus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Demosthenes, Plato
and Cicero as well as biblical or other religious texts, are
comprised in the corpus. However, documentary texts,
e.g. writings from everyday life such as legal documents,
fragments of official or private correspondence,
prescriptions, receipts, school work, etc. make up the
majority of the collection.
The objective of this project, funded by the North
Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities
and the Arts and implemented in cooperation with the
Cologne Center for eHumanities, is to facilitate and
promote the study of these original antique texts by
making the contents of the Cologne Papyrus Collection
available in a searchable, open access database.