The digital edition of a new book has recently become available:

The volume is the result of a workshop back in 2022 in which I was fortunate enough to participate. It was a somewhat unusual seminar in the sense that we were all assigned a topic to explore, and it turned out to be quite illuminating for me. I have a chapter in the book that is just called “Maintenance,” and it discusses the care of papyrus rolls from the point of production through the life of the roll. I have discussed some of these topics on the blog in the last few years with posts on such things as parchment covers for bookrolls, the storage of rolls, and the alleged stands for holding open scrolls. My chapter touches on these topics and also discusses things like repairs of papyrus rolls and the people who carried out such work.

Here is the abstract:

This essay surveys the surviving evidence for the maintenance of books (papyrus rolls) from the Mediterranean world under Roman rule. After a discussion of an especially well-documented case of damage and repair of papyrus rolls in an archive in Roman Egypt, the essay turns to the steps taken during the manufacture of papyrus rolls to prevent such damage from occurring and the options for mending rolls when such damage occurred. This examination involves literary, documentary, and iconographic evidence that illustrates the storage, transportation, use, and repair of books. The essay closes with an investigation of what we can know about the people, both enslaved and free, who performed these tasks of maintenance. The surviving textual and material evidence that lets us see the results of this labor only rarely allows us to glimpse the people who carried out this work.

If you don’t have institutional access, send me a note, and I can send you an offprint.

Thanks to the editors for organizing this stimulating workshop and seeing the papers through to publication.