Papyri Related to the Alexander Romance

Posted on September 21, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

In the process of studying the Antinoopolis Charioteers papyrus, I spent some time with other papyri containing texts related to the Alexander Romance. I say “related to” the Alexander Romance, because it’s not entirely clear that any of these pieces contain a continuous text of the Alexander Romance as we know it from the medieval copies. Some parts of the Alexander Romance (for instance, letters embedded in the narrative) seem to have circulated independently from the larger narrative framework, which is itself a quite fluid text.

These papyri are fascinating. Each of the pieces has its own interesting aspects. For instance, PSI 12 1285, a copy of letters Alexander, maintains some aspects of epistolary layout (the sign off ἔρρωσο is set on a line by itself). Perhaps the most intriguing to me is PSI 7 743, a papyrus roll with generous margins and a neatly written Latin script (something like “rustic capitals”) that spell out the Greek text of an episode from the Alexander Romance. That kind of combination (Latin letters used to spell out a Greek text) might suggest an educational setting, but the quality of the production seems to point in a different direction.

A portion of PSI 7 743 with transcriptions

Here are the papyri, listed in assumed chronological order (with links to images where available).

Designation & Trismegistos (TM) numberFormatContentsAssigned date
P.Hamb. 2 129
(TM 65529)		papyrus rollcollection of fictional letters, including some attributed to Alexander (cf. Alexander Romance, Book 1, ch. 39; book 2 ch. 17)2nd or 1st cent. BCE
P.Berol. inv. 13044
(TM 65645)		papyrus rollAlexander and the gymnosophists (cf. Alexander Romance, Book 3, ch. 5-6), list of artists and wonders of the world2nd or 1st cent. BCE
P.Hal. inv. 31
(TM 62667)		papyrus rollletters of Alexander (cf. Alexander Romance, Book 3, ch. 28)1st cent. BCE
P.Mich. 18 761
(TM 62674)		back side of a used papyrus rollletters of Alexander (cf. Alexander Romance, Book 3, ch. 28)1st or 2nd cent. CE
PSI 7 743
(TM 63240)		papyrus rollAlexander and the gymnosophists (cf. Alexander Romance, Book 3, ch. 6)1st or 2nd cent. CE
PSI 12 1285
(TM 63399)		back side of a used papyrus rollletters of Alexander (some transmitted in manuscripts of the Romance, others not; cf. Alexander Romance, Book 2, ch. 10)2nd cent. CE
P.Mil.Vogl. 1 21
(TM 65538)		papyrus rollprayer of Alexander to Serapis (cf. Alexander Romance, Book 1, ch. 30-34)2nd or 3rd cent. CE
P.Berol. inv. 21266
(TM 63375)		papyrus rollAlexander’s arrival in Phrygia (cf. Alexander Romance, Book 1, ch. 42)2nd or 3rd cent. CE
Antinoopolis Charioteers
(TM 65096)		papyrus codexAlexander’s chariot race (Alexander Romance Book 1, ch. 19)early 6th cent. CE
Posted in Alexander Romance, Ancient letters, Antinoopolis Charioteers, Rustic Capitals | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Manuscripts of the Alexander Romance

Posted on September 20, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

The Alexander Romance (or The Life of Alexander of Macedon or the Life and Acts of Alexander, or The History of Alexander the Great, King of the Macedonians…) survives in hundreds of manuscript copies in several languages. The Romance has also sometimes been classified as an “open text,” a fluid cluster of narratives that are similar enough to be recognized as versions of the “same” text but different enough to resist reconstruction of any single, fixed “authorial” text. It is thus quite difficult to make an exhaustive collection of manuscripts of the Romance both because of the number of manuscripts in different linguistic traditions and the uncertainty around the question of whether we actually have the transmission of the “same” text or a transformation into a different text.

Nevertheless, what follows is a small collection of links to some of the most important manuscripts connected to the earliest versions of the Romance.

Some manuscripts attribute authorship to Callisthenes, the historian and contemporary of Alexander, but scholars generally agree that the basic text was composed–some would say “compiled”–probably in the third century CE (thus the name “Pseudo-Callisthenes” that is normally associated with the text). The continuous texts of the Romance that survive in Greek preserve several different recensions. The earliest is thought to be the alpha recension, which is represented by a single manuscript of the eleventh century:

“Codex A”: Paris, BnF Grec 1711

Paris, BnF grec 1711, fol. 395r; image source: Gallica

Although no other Greek manuscripts are witnesses of this recension, the Latin translation attributed to Julius Valerius Alexander Polemius and the Armenian translation seem very closely related to it. These translations exist in many medieval manuscript copies. Some of the Armenian manuscripts are lavishly illustrated. One of the more elaborate is University of Manchester, John Rylands Library Armenian Ms 3:

Alexander’s chariot race; University of Manchester, Rylands Library Armenian Ms. 3, pages 42-43; image source: Manchester Digital Collections

The beta recension, generally thought to have been produced between the fourth century and the middle of the sixth century, survives in several manuscripts, some of the more important among them are digitized and online:

“Codex B”: Paris, BnF Grec 1685

“Codex F”: Florence, BML Plut. 70.37

“Codex L”: Leiden VUL 93

Leiden, VUL 93, fol. 183r; image source: Leiden University

The Antinoopolis charioteers papyrus, which I have argued is an early copy of the Alexander Romance, seems to show features of both the alpha and beta recensions.

The gamma recension, a later expansion of the beta recension, also survives in multiple manuscripts, including:

“Codex C”: Paris, BnF Grec supp 113

“Codex D”: Venice, Graecus Hell. lnst. 5 (illustrated)

“Codex R”: Oxford, Bodleian MS. Barocci 20

The epsilon recension is represented by:

“Codex Q”: Oxford, Bodleian MS. Barocci 17 (illustrated)

There are many, many other versions of the story. A good overview of both the illustrated editions and the manuscript tradition more generally can be found in:

D.J.A. Ross, Alexander Historiatus: A Guide to Medieval Illustrated Alexander Literature (2nd ed.; Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1988)

Here are two of the many stemmata provided by Ross that give a sense of the variety of surviving versions and their relationships:


It is a complicated but utterly fascinating history of transmission and transformation.

Posted in Alexander Romance, Antinoopolis Charioteers | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Machine for Casting Lots for Positions at the Chariot Races

Posted on September 19, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

In an earlier post I noted the publication of an article in which I propose that the Antinoopolis Charioteers papyrus is a leaf from a codex containing an illustrated copy of the Alexander Romance. The illustration is broken off on the left side, and in the article I suggest that the lost portion of the painting may have contained an image of the machine used for drawing lots to determine who gets the inside track in a chariot race. The bits of text that survive on the papyrus occur just a couple lines after the moment when the lots were drawn:

“Everything for the competition was in place, including the urn, from which the lots were now drawn…” (Alexander Romance 1.19)

This machine for drawing the lots (the urn) appears in iconography associated with chariot races.

Relief showing the machine for drawing lots in the chariot races (upper register) and a charioteer in action (lower register) on the side of the Berlin “Kugelspiel”; image: Brent Nongbri 2025

In the relief above, which is usually assigned to the fifth or sixth century, a charioteer stands to the right of the machine for drawing lots while another figure to the left of the machine seems to be operating it. A scene of racing appears in the lower register. The machine seems to have been a ceramic urn that was suspended on a rectangular frame. It could apparently be rotated by a handle on the side (which is what seems to be occurring in the relief).

We get some sense of the operation of the machine from an account in the De ceremoniis of Constantine Porphyrogennetos (a compilation of the 10th century) preserved in Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek Rep. I 17, fol. 130 recto:

Image source: Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek

+  Concerning the Urn: How it should be Turned Over : ~

…the director (ὁ θεωρητής) takes the balls from the tray, tosses them into the urn (τὴν ὄρναν), and turns it over three times. When he opens it, a ball, whichever one, drops out. Immediately they determine the order and everyone designates the names of the teams on the inner track…

The drawing of lots before chariot races seems to have itself been part of the performance. Tertullian scoffs at crowds in the circus: “Look at the populace coming to the show—mad already! Disorderly, blind, excited already about bets! The praetor is too slow for them; all the time their eyes are on his urn, in it, as if rolling with the lots he shakes up in it…” (De spectaculis 16).

We also see imagery of the lot machine on contorniate medallions. These apparently commemorative issues were produced in the fourth and fifth centuries. Many of them feature scenes from the chariot races, and also, interestingly enough, Alexander the Great. One example is this piece at the British Museum with a head of Alexander on the obverse and a racing scene on the reverse:

Contorniate medallion depicting Alexander the Great (obverse) and a chariot race (reverse); British Museum R.4814

On the reverse of a couple issues of these kinds of medallions, we find the machine for casting lots. It is flanked by two figures. The one on the right is definitely a charioteer. The one on the left I am less sure how to best identify. A third figure who appears to holding up the chosen ball stands behind the machine:

Contorniate medallion reverse showing the machine for drawing lots; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France AF.17308; image source: Gallica

The imagery of the lot machine seems to have been part of the larger visual vocabulary of the Late Antique world. It shows up not only in connection with the chariot races, but also in the context of mythology. In the illustrations of Vergilius Vaticanus, the lot machine makes an appearance as Minos oversees the casting of lots to reconsider the fate of those wrongly condemned to death (Aeneid 6.432):

Minos and the lot machine; Vergilius Vaticanus (Vat.Lat. 3225 fol. 48v)

Christians also picked up on the imagery, apparently in connection to Psalm 22:18 (“They cast lots for my garment”), which became associated with the crucifixion of Jesus (Matthew 27:35, John 19:24). The machine appears in a fresco in the Via Latina catacombs (4th century?), in which two soldiers stand on either side of the machine, which is positioned in front of a building that looks like a tomb (an imagination of the tomb of Jesus?):

The machine for casting lots in the Via Latina catacombs (cubiculum M, arcisolium); image source: A. Ferrua, Le pitture della nuova catacomba di Via Latina (Vatican City, 1960), plate LXXIII

Similar imagery makes an appearance in the Utrecht Psalter (9th century) in connection with the Psalm in a more literal sense with two figures pulling on either side of a garment in front of the machine:

The lot machine in the Utrecht Psalter; image source: Utrecht University Library Ms. 32

The device for drawing lots seems to have been a relatively recognizable item that could be used in different contexts. This is perhaps not so surprising since fate was an important concept throughout the ancient Mediterranean world.

Posted in Alexander Romance, Antinoopolis Charioteers, Charioteers | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Antinoopolis Charioteers Papyrus and Alexander the Great

Posted on September 18, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

One of the most famous illustrated papyri is a scrap that was found in a garbage heap in the Egyptian city of Antinoopolis. The papyrus contains a painting of a group of charioteers wearing brightly colored racing outfits.

The papyrus was discovered during excavations sponsored by the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1914.1 The illustrated side of the papyrus was published in 1931.2 But it wasn’t until 1973 that Eric Turner pointed out that there was text on the other side of the fragment.3

We can see traces of the beginnings of several lines of Greek text. So, we have here a folium from what was once an illustrated codex. But what is the text that accompanied this image?

In an article that just came out in Classical Quarterly, I try to solve this problem:

“The Antinoopolis Charioteers Papyrus: A Leaf from an Illustrated Codex of the Alexander Romance,” Classical Quarterly 76 (2026)

I make the case that this papyrus is a leaf from a codex that contained the Alexander Romance, an ancient novel about the life and adventures of Alexander the Great. It was a very popular work in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It existed in multiple Greek recensions and was translated into many other languages (including Latin, Syriac, Armenian, Persian, Arabic, and the European vernaculars). Some editions were illustrated, occasionally quite lavishly. In some versions of this story, Alexander takes part in a chariot race, and it just so happens that the little bits of text on this papyrus can be aligned quite nicely with this chariot racing scene in a couple of the Greek recensions of the Alexander Romance.

In the narrative of the Alexander Romance, nine racers participate. In the fragment, only five figures and part of a sixth are visible, but the image clearly continued past the broken edge on the left. Stanisław Jan Gąsiorowski, the art historian who first published the papyrus, noticed a couple important details–without knowing the text that accompanied the picture. He observed that the charioteers were simply standing, meaning the scene would likely be before or after the race, and he suggested the drawing of lots for racing positions. This is in fact the point in the narrative that is preserved in the surviving text on the papyrus. Second, Gąsiorowski pointed out that the picture appears to emphasize two of the charioteers, the figure on the front left and the central figure with the whip: “These two charioteers appear to be more important than the others, not only by their position in the front line of the group, but also by their gestures.” In fact, this description would be fitting for the situation in the Alexander Romance. While the race involves nine charioteers, the focus in the narrative is clearly on the rivalry between just two–Alexander and his nemesis Nikolaos of Akarnania. Here is Ken Dowden’s English translation with the approximate surviving contents of the back of the papyrus in bold:

“…Everything for the competition was in place, including the urn, from which the lots were now drawn. Nikolaos drew first place, Xanthias sec­ond, Kimon third, Kleitomachos fourth, Aristippos of Olynthos fifth, Pieros of Phokaia sixth, Kimon of Lindos seventh, Alexander of Mace­don eighth, Nikomachos of Lokroi ninth. Next they took up position for the race. The trumpet rang out the signal to begin. The starting gates on the stalls were opened up. They all leapt forward at an enormous pace— first lap, second and third and fourth. Now those at the back slackened as their horses gave out; but Alexander was driving in fourth position, and behind him was Nikolaos, not so much trying to win as to kill Alexander…”4

So the papyrus may provide us with an image of Alexander the Great, although it is difficult to know which charioteer he is. If it is an image of Alexander, he has been hiding in plain sight for almost a century. Whether or not any of these figures is meant to depict Alexander, if the identification of the text as The Alexander Romance is correct, we now have evidence for a deluxe illustrated papyrus novel in sixth-century Antinoopolis. And we push back the evidence for an illustrated edition of the Alexander Romance by seven centuries.

The article makes some educated guesses about what the rest of the illustration may have contained and some of the characteristics of the manuscript, which must have been a luxurious edition.

For those with institutional access, the full article can be accessed here.

If you don’t have institutional access, contact me, and I will send along a pdf.

The abstract for the article is below:

This essay argues that the illustrated papyrus fragment known as the “Antinoopolis charioteers” is a folium from a codex containing an episode from the Alexander Romance. The few letters on both sides of the papyrus neatly align with the text of a chariot racing episode present in some versions of the Alexander Romance. The identification of the text in turn sheds light on the lost portions of the illustration and the codicology of the manuscript from which the fragment came. The identification of this papyrus pushes back by several centuries the tradition of illustrated manuscripts of the Alexander Romance and adds new data to the challenging textual history of this cluster of stories.

  1. J.d.M. Johnson, “Antinoë and its Papyri: Excavation by the Graeco-Roman Branch, 1913–14,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 1 (1914) 168–181. ↩︎
  2. S.J. Gasiorowski, “A Fragment of a Greek Illustrated Papyrus from Antinoë,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 17 (1931) 1–9. ↩︎
  3. E.G. Turner, “The Charioteers from Antinoe,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 93 (1973) 192–195. The images in this post come from Turner’s article. ↩︎
  4. Dowden’s translation can be found in B.P. Reardon, Collected Ancient Greek Novels
    (University of California Press, 1989), 650–735. ↩︎
Posted in Alexander Romance, Antinoopolis Charioteers, Charioteers, Codices, Codicology, Illustrated Papyri | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

A New Article the Production and Date of P.Bodmer 14-15 (P75)

Posted on September 16, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

The latest issue of Novum Testamentum has an article that I wrote on the production and date of P.Bodmer 14-15 (a.k.a. P75, a.k.a. Pap.Hanna 1, Mater verbi, TM 61743), a papyrus codex containing the Gospel According to Luke and the Gospel According to John:

“The Construction and Date of P.Bodmer 14–15 (P75): The Length of kollemata as a Criterion for Dating Papyrus Codices,” Novum Testamentum 68 (2026) 518–538.

It’s open access.

This is not the first time I have addressed the question of the date of this codex. In 2016, I published an article in the Journal of Biblical Literature, which argued that the standard dating of the papyrus (“ca. 200 CE”) was based on surprisingly weak palaeographic evidence and that a more realistic approach that combined palaeography, codicology, and alleged archaeological provenance would allow for a date of production in the fourth century.

In the new article, I’ve tried to come at the problem from a different angle. In a blog post from 2025, I briefly mentioned a change that took place in the manufacture of papyrus rolls in the fourth century. In the early imperial period, the kollemata (papyrus sheets) that were pasted together to form papyrus rolls usually had a breadth that did not exceed about 30 cm. In the fourth century, however, we begin to find papyrus rolls that were made up of much longer kollemata, up to and beyond a meter in breadth.

Part of a kollema of the Bodmer Menander Codex digitally reassembled; original images from the Bodmer Lab

Because the bifolia of papyrus codices were cut from papyrus rolls, this datum is a neglected tool for helping to assign dates to papyrus codices.

Here is the abstract for the new article:

This article describes an underutilized criterion for assigning dates to papyrus codices, the presence of very long sheets (kollemata) in the rolls from which the bifolia of papyrus codices were cut. In the 1970s, Eric Turner argued that a shift in the production of papyrus rolls took place in the fourth century, at which point rolls began to be manufactured using kollemata much longer than the 10–30 cm kollemata normally used in the early Roman imperial period. The present article briefly discusses the manufacture of papyrus rolls, gathers evidence for longer kollemata, and places this evidence in conversation with P.Bodmer 14–15 (P75). The date of this manuscript has been the subject of some debate in recent years, and consideration of the length of its kollemata adds another, perhaps decisive, piece of evidence that this codex was produced no earlier than the fourth century.

This was a fun article to research and write. It assembles a corpus of codices whose bifolia are cut from papyrus rolls with very long kollemata (greater than about 80 cm):

  • Berlin Gnostic Codex (P.Berol. inv. 8502, TM 107765), usually assigned to the 5th century
  • Nag Hammadi Codices I, II, III, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XIII, after the middle of the 4th century
  • British Library Ms. Or. 7594 (TM 107763, “Budge’s Deuteronomy”), after the middle of the 4th century
  • PGM IV (Paris, BnF Suppl. grec 574, TM 64343), usually assigned to the 4th century
  • Bodmer Codex of Visions (TM 59994), after the middle of the 4th century (usually assigned to the 5th century)
  • Bodmer Menander Codex (TM 61594), now usually assigned to the 4th century
  • P.Bodmer 3 (TM 107758), usually assigned to the 4th century
  • Crosby-Schøyen Codex (TM 107771), now usually assigned to the 3rd or 4th century
  • Chester Beatty Ac. 1499 (now CBL BP XXI, TM 61873), usually assigned to the 5th century
  • Ambrosian Josephus (TM 61316), assigned to the 6th century

The examples that can be relatively securely dated (Budge’s Deuteronomy, at least three of the Nag Hammadi codices, and the Bodmer Codex of Visions) were produced no earlier than the middle of the fourth century. Radiocarbon analysis of the Crosby-Schøyen Codex allows for a date of production from the middle of the third century to the middle of the fourth century; indications of the contents of the last tractate suggest the second quarter of the fourth century may be the most likely date of production.1 The other codices are all usually assigned to the 4th or 5th century (or the 6th century in the case of the Ambrosian Josephus).

Papyrus rolls with shorter kollemata continued to be produced during and after the fourth century, but the production of rolls with very long kollemata seems to be an innovation of the fourth century. The upshot, as I phrase it in the article: “We may formulate a tentative rule of thumb: Papyrus codices with bifolia cut from rolls made up of shorter kollemata are not necessarily older than the fourth century, but papyrus codices with bifolia cut from rolls made up of long kollemata are more likely to have been made in the fourth century or later.”

As it turns out, the two kollemata of P.Bodmer 14–15 that can be confidently reconstructed are also quite long (at least 1.28 m and 1.34 m).

A portion of a reconstructed kollema of P.Bodmer 14-15

That the bifolia of P.Bodmer 14–15 were cut from papyrus rolls with such long kollemtata is an important piece of evidence for establishing the date when the codex was made. As I phrase it at the end of the article:

“On its own merits, this argument would be reason enough to establish the fourth century as a terminus post quem for the production of P.Bodmer 14–15. Yet, in the specific case of this codex, the long kollemata add to an already substantial amount of evidence pointing to a date of production in the fourth century:
– the palaeographic similarity of the script of P.Bodmer 14–15 to the script of documents securely dated to the fourth century;
– the similarity of the format of P.Bodmer 14–15 to that of codices securely dated to the fourth century;
– the likely association of P.Bodmer 14–15 with the Bodmer Papyri, which consist mostly of codices of the fourth and fifth centuries.
New discoveries and perhaps further study of known papyrus codices may reveal that the use of rolls with very long kollemata developed earlier than the fourth century. Pending such studies, however, the presence of very long kollemata should probably be taken as a reasonably strong indication of manufacture in the fourth century or later. The production of P.Bodmer 14–15 should now be assigned with some measure of confidence to the fourth century.”

  1. See the detailed discussion in Hugo Lundhaug, “The Date of MS 193 in the Schøyen Collection: New Radiocarbon Evidence,” BASP 57 (2020) 219–234 ↩︎
Posted in Codices, Codicology, P.Bodmer 14-15, Palaeography, Voluminology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Erasing Wax Tablets in the Sun

Posted on August 19, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

I’ve had waxed tablets on my mind for the last few months. In 2025, I had the opportunity to meet up with the ERC TabulaRasa project, which is doing some very interesting cross-cultural work on erasable media from antiquity to the early modern period.

I’ve used models of wax tablets in my teaching in the past. When working with several students writing, erasing, and rewriting in tablets, I’ve found that at the end of the session, I had to clean up a lot of wax shavings. This is because the students used the blunt end of the stylus to erase writing that has been scratched into the wax.

Metal stylus for use with wax tablets; image source: The British Museum

Depending on how thick the wax is and how deeply the writing is incised, this process can involve gouging out quite a bit of wax, which eventually needs to be replaced. A more efficient method involves heating the blunt end of the stylus over a flame to erase the writing by melting the wax and working it into a smoother surface without loss of wax. This is clearly a better method, unless you happen to be using a bone stylus instead of a metal one. And open flames probably run afoul of normal classroom safety rules.

I was discussing these topics with a colleague who said that her grandmother had actually used waxed tablets in school, and it was customary to just leave the tablets in the sun in order to erase them. The warm summer weather encouraged me to give it a try.

I inscribed a couple lines on a the inner side of a waxed diptych (bound together with a link stitch, in deference to Georgios Boudalis), and then left it out in the sun.

According to the weather report, it was about 34° C (about 94° F). After three hours in the sun, the wax was liquified (to the point that it was visibly seeping into the wooden frame).

After a couple hours cooling off in the shade, it solidified into a smooth, clean slate with no wax lost (aside from what was absorbed into the wood.

This seems like a good method for achieving a fresh reset of wax tablets, at least in warm climates. It’s probably a bit impractical if one needs to reuse the tablets quickly (the whole melting-and-hardening process took about five hours).

For more on erasing and reusing wax tablets in antiquity, see Anna Willi, “Refill, Reuse, Recycle Reusing Wax Tablets in the Roman North-western Provinces,” in Erasing and Rewriting in Manuscript Cultures Practices of Text Obliteration and Manuscript Reuse in a Global Perspective, ed. Michele Cammarosano (De Gruyter, 2025).

Posted in Tablets | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Realistic Renderings of Papyrus Rolls in Stone

Posted on August 8, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

I’m always very interested to see renderings of papyrus rolls in ancient art, whether it is in fresco, manuscript illumination, or carved stone. When it comes to stone reliefs or statues, one needs to be careful to make sure that the papyrus roll is actually ancient and not a Renaissance addition (hands grasping papyrus rolls are frequently later additions to fill lost pieces). And ancient carvings of papyrus rolls can often be disappointingly impressionistic.

But I recently saw a carved artifact that shows papyrus rolls with a surprisingly high level of detail. The depiction occurs on the lid of a sarcophagus in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens:

Sarcophagus lid with bundle of papyrus rolls; Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 1497; image source: Brent Nongbri 2026

There is a lot going on in this artifact. I quote from the museum’s didactic tag:

“Attic sarcophagus in the form of a couch. Pentelic marble. Found in Athens. The sarcophagus was used twice. A reclining married couple was originally depicted on the lid, which has the form of a mattress. When economic difficulties dictated its reuse at a later date, the male figure was cut back and replaced by a group of papyrus scrolls (byblos), and the female head was replaced by a head of a man. The second use of the sarcophagus dates from 230–240 A.D.”

It is the large group of papyrus rolls that were re-carved, apparently in the third century, that caught my attention (I’m not sure what is the basis for the very precise date of “230–240 A.D.”).

Sarcophagus lid with bundle of papyrus rolls (detail); Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 1497; image source: Brent Nongbri 2026

I checked Theodor Birt’s classic book on the depiction of papyrus rolls in art, and he of course also took note of the fine carving of these papyrus rolls:

“The large sarcophagus in the Athens Museum (inv. 1497) is like a marble illustration of Pliny’s account of the manufacture of papyrus: On its lid, a reclining male figure leans with his shoulder against a massive bundle of papyrus rolls, the outer edge of which alone contains no fewer than 18 rolls. These rolls depict the composition of the papyrus in horizontal and vertical strips, rendered with great care. On the rolls located on the back side of the lid, only the vertical strips are visible; on those on the front, both are visible. It was not possible to take a photograph due to the lighting in the room.”1

But the rendering may be even more clever than Birt describes. The rolls that show fibers oriented in both directions do not show overlap. Rather, they seem to depict the closed roll, showing the point of attachment of the protokollon. Recall that papyrus rolls were made up of a series of sheets (kollemata), with each sheet (kollema) pasted to the next with a slight overlap (kollesis) The writing would be along the horizontal fibers of the roll, and the roll was rolled up with the horizontal fibers on the inside and the vertical fibers on the outside. But the outermost kollema of the closed roll, the protokollon (“first sheet”), would be reversed in its fiber orientation.

Diagram of the parts of a papyrus roll; image: Brent Nongbri 2025

Thus, the outermost kollema of the roll, the protokollon, would have horizontal fibers on the outside and vertical fibers on the inside, while all other sheets would have vertical fibers on the outside. If the width of the protokollon was less than the circumference of the closed roll, the kollesis between the protokoolon and the second kollema would be visible. I think that is what we are seeing in the relief of these closed rolls. Here is a model papyrus roll next two one of the carved rolls:

Model papyrus roll next to a carved roll from the sarcophagus lid, showing the kollesis at which the protokollon attaches to the second kollema

Horizontal fibers on the outside on the left, then vertical fibers on the right where the second kollema is attached. The level of attention to detail here is almost unbelievable. But, as in the depiction of sets of tablets, artists sometimes seem to have taken great care in trying to get the details as correct as possible in their chosen medium.

  1. T. Birt, Die Buchrolle in der Kunst (Teubner, 1907), 227: “Der große Sarkophag im Athenischen Museum Nr. 1497 ist wie eine marmorne Illustration zu dem Fabrikationsbericht des Plinius: auf seinem Deckel lehnt sich eine liegende männliche Gestalt mit ihrer Schulter an ein gewaltiges Rollenbündel, das allein an seiner Außenseite nicht weniger als 18 Rollen zählen läßt. Diese Rollen zeigen die Komposition des Papiers in Quer- und Vertikalstreifen mit redlichem Fleiß ausgeführt. An den auf der Rückseite des Deckels befindlichen Rollen erkennt man nur die Vertikalstreifen, an den auf der Vorderseite beide. Eine photographische Aufnahme war bei der Beleuchtung des Raumes nicht ausfahrbar.” ↩︎
Posted in Book covers, Papyrus Making, Sculpture, Voluminology | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Early Publications on the Nash Papyrus

Posted on August 6, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

Thanks to the several readers who pointed out that the early issues of The Cambridge Review are available at HathiTrust (for those in the US). In the 1903 issue, F.C. Burkitt provides an account offering basically contemporary evidence for 1902 as the date of purchase of the Nash Papyrus:

“The fragments came into the possession of Mr. W. L. Nash, the Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, in the course of 1902, having been bought in Egypt from a native dealer together with some papyrus fragments of the twelfth book of the Odyssey. …And now Mr. Nash, in recognition of the part that Cambridge has played in the publication of the fragments, has with very great generosity presented the Papyrus itself to the University Library.”

This is all very good, but I’m still not able to say what the source is for the date of purchase in 1898 that sometimes pops up in scholarship. I’m also unclear about the condition of the papyrus when Nash acquired it. In his 1903 article in The Jewish Quarterly Review, Burkitt describes the papyrus in the following way:

“In its present state, the Nash Papyrus consists of four fragments, all of which fit together. …The material is now very brittle, and it would be hazardous to detach it from the card upon which the fragments have been gummed, but Mr. Cook and I have managed to ascertain that there is no writing on the other side.”

Does this mean that the papyrus fragments were glued to separate pieces of cardboard already when Nash bought them? If so, it may be the case that it was not Nash who bought the pieces in Egypt but someone else (note the odd wording in Burkitt’s statement above: “came into his possession…having been bought in Egypt”). In any event, Burkitt does not mention any such treatment of the Odyssey fragments said to have been purchased with the Nash Papyrus. Interesting. Nor does Burkitt say anything about how the Odyssey fragments came to be his own property before he donated the fragments to Cambridge in 1903. So there are still some unsolved mysteries here.

For the benefit of those outside the US, here is the full article from The Cambridge Review (and below are links to the other early publications on the Nash Papyrus):

Cook, S.A. “A Pre-Masoretic Hebrew Papyrus.” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 24 (1902) 272.

Cook, S.A. “A Pre-Masoretic Biblical Papyrus.” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 25 (1903) 34–55.

Burkitt, F.C. “The Hebrew Papyrus of the Ten Commandments.” Jewish Quarterly Review 15 (1903) 392–408.

Burkitt, F.C. “The Nash Papyrus: A New Photograph.” Jewish Quarterly Review 16 (1904) 559–561.

Albright, W.F. “A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabaean Age: The Nash Papyrus.” Journal of Biblical Literature 56 (1937) 145–176

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The Purchase of the Nash Papyrus, Again

Posted on August 5, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

I continue to be puzzled by the problem of the purchase of the Nash Papyrus. In an earlier post, I noted that one finds two different dates in the literature, 1898 and 1902. I cited Emanuel Tov among those who have given the 1902 date. But I now see that in a more recent volume (2020) Tov has also noticed the problem already:

“the Nash Papyrus…purchased in Egypt in either 1898 or 1902”1

No reference is given, but I really am curious about the source of this 1898 purchase date. The earliest reference to it that I have been able to find is a 1962 article about the Jewish materials in the Cambridge University Library. There we find the following statement:

“The most prized possession is the Nash Papyrus, one of the greatest relics of antiquity. It was acquired in 1898 by W. L. Nash, Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology.”2

There is no reference cited to support the claim. It is interesting, however, that the earliest explicit reference to the papyrus being purchased in 1902 seems to be a bit later, J.A. Sanders, The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll (Cornell University Press, 1967), 9:

“One of the oldest Bible fragments emanating from Egypt, but not from the Geniza, was acquired there in 1902 by W. L. Nash. The ‘Nash papyrus’ contains a variant form of the Ten Commandments and Deut. 6:4-5. Paul Kahle dates it in the first century A.D. and W. F. Albright in the second century B.C.”

Again, no reference supports the claim for the 1902 purchase.

And I’ve run into the problem (again) of a Cambridge publication that is potentially relevant but not accessible to me [[Update 6 August 2026: I now have a copy; thanks to those who sent links!]]:

The Cambridge Review: A Journal of University Life and Thought (1903)

If anyone has access, I would be grateful for a copy, and that still holds true for this piece:

Reif, S.C. “The Nash Papyrus.” Cambridge 15 (1984) 41–45 (I believe the periodical is Cambridge: The Magazine of The Cambridge Society).

  1. E. Tov, “Papyrus Nash and the Septuagint,” in A Necessary Task: Essays on Textual Criticism of the Old Testament in Memory of Stephen Pisano, Analecta Biblica 14, ed. Dionisio Candido and Leonardo Pessoa da Silva Pinto (Roma: Pontificia Università Gregoriana and Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2020), 33–50, at 34. ↩︎
  2. H. Rabinowicz, “Cambridge University Library,” Jewish Quarterly Review 53 (1962) 69–76, quotation at 69. ↩︎
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The Purchase of the Nash Papyrus: Two Different Dates

Posted on August 4, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

In my earlier post about a papyrus containing the Odyssey at Cambridge, I mentioned that this piece was purchased together with the Nash Papyrus, but I noted that I could not figure out the precise date of the purchase. There seem to be two different stories.

Recall Burkitt’s report about the purchase of these papyri in his 1903 article: “The recent history of the [Nash] Papyrus is involved in some obscurity. It came into the possession of Mr. W.L. Nash, the Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, having been bought in Egypt from a native dealer along with some very early uncial fragments of the Odyssey. Mr. Nash thinks it very probable that the whole ‘find’ comes from somewhere in the Fayyum.”1

The current webpage for the Nash Papyrus at the Cambridge Digital Library mentions no specific date of purchase: “Purchased from an Egyptian dealer in antiquities by Dr Walter Llewellyn Nash, and presented to the Library in 1903, the fragment was said to have come from the Fayyūm.”

Older versions of this page, however, do mention a date of purchase: “Purchased from an Egyptian dealer in antiquities in 1902 by Dr Walter Llewellyn Nash and presented to the Library in 1903, the fragment was said to have come from the Fayyum.” The date of 1902 occurs elsewhere in the literature. For example, Emanuel Tov writes that the Nash Papyrus “was discovered in Egypt in 1902,”2 but no reference is provided.

And there is some conflicting information. A different webpage for the Nash Papyrus was created in association with Cambridge University Library’s “Lines of Thought” online exhibition in 2016. This exhibition also included a page for the Odyssey papyrus (with zoomable digital images!). While the current version of the exhibition page lacks the Odyssey papyrus, an archived version of the page for the Odyssey papyrus gives this information about purchase: “In 1898 W. L. Nash, Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology (SBA), acquired from a native Egyptian dealer in Egypt the papyrus fragments of the Hebrew Bible now known as the Nash Papyrus. …From that same dealer at the same time he also acquired eleven papyrus fragments bearing Greek text that he sent ‘for description’ to Francis Crawford Burkitt.”

The reference for this information is Larry Stone, The Story of the Bible (Thomas Nelson, 2010). There (p. 23), we read that the Nash Papyrus “was acquired from an Egyptian antiquities dealer in 1898.” I also find this date on the British Museum’s page for Nash and in the edition of the Nash Papyrus in CPJ 4 609 published in 2020 (“This papyrus was purchased in Egypt in 1898 by W. L. Nash”). But nowhere do I find references to any late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century documentation of either of this date or the 1902 date.

I can see how one could deduce from the earliest reports that both the Nash Papyrus and the Odyssey papyrus were purchased in 1902. Cook’s first report on the Nash Papyrus is dated 19 October 1902, and Burkitt’s first report on the Odyssey papyrus is dated July 1902.3 It is perhaps reasonable to assume that Nash purchased the pieces in the winter of 1901–1902 and sent them to Burkitt and Cook for analysis in early 1902.

The 1898 purchase date is still a bit of a mystery to me.

One item of bibliography that I failed to locate is cited as:

Reif, S.C. “The Nash Papyrus.” Cambridge 15 (1984) 41–45

I think the periodical must be Cambridge: The Magazine of The Cambridge Society, but I have not been able to track down the issue in question. If anyone has a copy, I would be grateful to see it.

  1. F.C. Burkitt, “The Hebrew Papyrus of the Ten Commandments,” Jewish Quarterly Review 15 (1903) 392–408, quotation at 392. ↩︎
  2. E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (2nd rev. ed.; Fortress, 1992), 118. ↩︎
  3. S.A. Cook, “A Pre-Masoretic Hebrew Papyrus,” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 24 (1902) 272; F.C. Burkitt, “Fragments of Some Early Greek Mss. Written on Papyrus,” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 24 (1902) 290–292. ↩︎
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