Hebrew and Aramaic papyri have increasingly been discovered from the 1960s onwards, although these

papyri 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'' (plural: ''papyri'' or ''papyruses'') can ...

remain rare compared to papyri written in

Koine Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...

and

Demotic Egyptian Demotic (from ''dēmotikós'', 'popular') is the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Nile Delta. The term was first used by the Greek historian Herodotus to distinguish it from hieratic and Egyptian hiero ...

(no relation except in name, "popular," to modern

demotic Greek Demotic Greek (, , , ) is the standard spoken language of Greece in modern times and, since the resolution of the Greek language question in 1976, the official language of Greece. "Demotic Greek" (with a capital D) contrasts with the conservat ...

). The most valuable and religious texts were written on leather scrolls,

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared Tanning (leather), untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves and goats. It has been used as a writing medium in West Asia and Europe for more than two millennia. By AD 400 ...

- such as the literary texts from

Masada Masada ( ', 'fortress'; ) is a mountain-top fortress complex in the Judaean Desert, overlooking the western shore of the Dead Sea in southeastern Israel. The fort, built in the first century BCE, was constructed atop a natural plateau rising ov ...

and Qumran, while

papyrus 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'' (plural: ''papyri'' or ''papyruses'') can a ...

was employed for cheaper, domestic use. A standard work is the ''Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum'' of Victor Tcherikover and Alexander Fuks (Cambridge, Massachusetts Vol.I 1957, II 1960, III ed. Menahem Stern 1964) which is largely of Greek language papyri but includes examples of Hebrew and Aramaic papyri from Israel, Jordan, and Egypt.

In Egypt

In 1909 Joseph Offord remarks that Germany had acquired all the Hebrew papyri found in

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ', shortened to , , locally: ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the Nile River valley south of the delta and the 30th parallel North. It thus consists of the entire Nile River valley from Cairo south to Lake N ...

the previous winter, but that many were still to be found. In 1966 the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in ...

possessed only four Hebrew and three Aramaic papyri.

Qumran

The main corpus, in terms of volume and significance, are the finds at

Qumran Qumran (; ; ') is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, about south of the historic city of Jericho, and adjac ...

(1948 onwards). Very few Biblical papyri (as opposed to scrolls) were found at Qumran.

Aside from Qumran

In January 1952

Gerald Lankester Harding Gerald Lankester Harding CBE (8 December 1901 – 11 February 1979) was a British archaeologist who was the director of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan from 1936 to 1956. His tenure spanned the period in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were ...

and

Roland de Vaux Roland Guérin de Vaux (17 December 1903 – 10 September 1971) was a French Dominican priest who led the Catholic team that initially worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was the director of the École Biblique, a French Catholic Theological S ...

commenced excavations in four caves at Wadi Murabba'at. 173 documents were found. 1 Aramaic and 1 Greek papyri only were found at the Wadi Sdeir. In 1960-1961 Yigael Yadin excavated Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic papyri from the "Cave of Letters" at Nahal Hever (classified by "XHev" manuscript numbers) among which there were 15 letters; 10 in Hebrew, 3 in Aramaic and 2 in Greek. In 1962 further finds of 18 Aramaic papyri from Samaria were made in the Wadi Daliyeh.''The Bible and archaeology'' John Arthur Thompson - 1973 "Hebrew Papyri from Samaria A remarkable collection of papyri evidently from Samaria came to light in 1°62.25 Ta'amireh Bedouin discovered the documents in a cave in a desolate area north of Jericho in the Wadi Daliyeh." The 4 papyri from Nahal Se'elim (Wadi Seiyal) are in Greek.

References

{{reflist Hebrew papyri Aramaic papyri Archaeological sites in Israel Hebrew language Egyptian papyri in Aramaic

In Egypt

Qumran

Aside from Qumran

See also

References