Papyrologists Studying Old Grocery Lists

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31462, 31 August 1967, Page 15

Papyrologists Studying Old Grocery Lists

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter)

PRINCETON (New Jersey) Grocery lists and tax receipts more than 2000 years old are among ancient documents being studied by tbe Institute for Papyrologists on the campus of Princeton

University. The aim of the institute, says the programme coordinator, Professor John A. Hanson, is to interest young scholars in the study of papyri and train them in the techniques of deciphering these writings from ancient Mediterranean cultures. Most of the students are now getting their first experience with actual documents—usually small scraps of brown paper-like material, tattered, crumbling and laced with ant holes.

In addition to personal records, the literary material includes fragments of works by the historian Thucydides and the philosopher Plato, as well as a page from a Greek copy of the Book of Psalms.

Typical of the documentary papyri being studied is an Egyptian land-rental agreement dating from 36 A.D. Professor Eric G. Turner, who has come to the institute from the University of London, says such less-fonnal documents give a good insight into the minds of ordinary people thousands of years ago.

The documents, he says, “are the sort of writing that the historian does not usually see because they were thrown in the waste paper basket

“They were hardly written for posterity, but they allow the papyrologist to eavesdrop on a world long since left behind,” he says. Deciphering the tests is a difficult task. The ancient documents are full of imperfections which make them difficult to read. The informal street language which many of them contain is also difficult for scholars who have learned only classical Greek. What is more, there are no breaks or punctuations in the writing, and many of the papyri illustrate bad penmanship.