The Milan Papyrus is a

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 ...

roll inscribed in

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

in the late 3rd or early 2nd century BC during the rule of the Ptolemaic dynasty. It is currently held by the

University of Milan The University of Milan (; ), officially abbreviated as UNIMI, or colloquially referred to as La Statale ("the State niversity), is a public university, public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Eu ...

(inventory no. 1295 R), and it is also known in scholarship under its label P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309.

History

Originally discovered by anonymous tomb raiders as part of a

mummy A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and Organ (biology), organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to Chemical substance, chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the ...

wrapping, it was purchased in the papyrus "

grey market A grey market or dark market (sometimes confused with the similar term "parallel import, parallel market") is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels that are not authorised by the original manufacturer or trademark proprietor. ...

" in Europe in 1992 by the University of Milan. As the earliest surviving example of a Greek poetry book as well as the largest addition to the corpus of classical Greek poetry in many years, the tale of the discovery made ''

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'' and ''

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.'' Labelled the "Milan Papyrus," it was published in a scholarly edition in 2001, edited by Guido Bastianini, Claudio Gallazzi, and Colin Austin, with contributions by other scholars. The edition included the complete transcription of the recto of the papyrus, with extensive commentary, and high-quality facsimiles of the whole roll. In 2002, Austin and Bastianini published a comprehensive, smaller edition, ''Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omnia'', "all the surviving works of Posidippus of Pella", including the epigrams of the papyrus, the epigrams known through Tzetzes and other epigrams transmitted by the '' Palatine Anthology'', with Italian and English translations. This has been considered the authoritative edition of Posidippus' works ever since. Scholars have rushed to mine this new trove of highly conscious literary productions at the most sophisticated level that were created in a major center of Hellenistic culture. After a "standing-room only" discussion at the

American Philological Association The Society for Classical Studies (SCS), formerly known as the American Philological Association (APA), is a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects of Greek and Roman civilization founded in 1869. It is the pree ...

annual meeting in January 2001, a seminar on the Milan Papyrus was held at Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies in April 2002, and international conferences were held at Milan, Florence and Cincinnati, in November 2002. Scholarly work on the Milan Papyrus, on Posidippus, who is now revealed in a broader range of subjects, and on the Alexandrian literary epigram in general, was invigorated by the discovery and proceeds apace.

Description & contents

Over six hundred previously unknown lines of Greek poetry are on the roll, representing about 112 brief poems, or

epigram An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word derives from the Greek (, "inscription", from [], "to write on, to inscribe"). This literary device has been practiced for over two millennia ...

s. Two of these were already known and had been attributed by the 12th-century AD Byzantine scholar

John Tzetzes John Tzetzes (; , Constantinople – 1180, Constantinople) was a Byzantine poet and grammarian who lived at Constantinople in the 12th century. He is known for making significant contributions in preserving much valuable information from ancien ...

to the

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

matist Posidippus (epigrammatic poet), Posidippus of Pella (c. 310 – c. 240 BC), a Macedonian who spent his literary career in Alexandria. The initial reaction has been to attribute all the new lines to Posidippus, though Franco Ferrari suggests that there is evidence the manuscript is an anthology, in which Posidippus' epigrams predominated. In addition to the epigrams, which are written on the recto (i.e., the inner surface of the roll), the papyrus also bears a mythological text in Greek, heavily damaged, which was written on the verso (the outer surface) and, as of 2023, is still unpublished. In terms of the date, one source suggests that "One side contains approximately 600 lines of verse in a hand that has been dated to c. 230-200 BCE. The other side has some mythological material which dates to the early 2nd century BCE." Another says "All sixteen columns of P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309 are written in a style dating back to ca. 220 BC".

Notes

References

Texts and sources

*Posidippus A.-B. = Austin, C. – Bastianini, G. (edd.), Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omni

LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2002, *Bastianini, G. – Gallazzi, C. (edd.), Papiri dell’Università di Milano - Posidippo di Pella. Epigrammi, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2001, *G.-P., ''HE'' = A. S. F. Gow, Gow, A. S. F. – Page D. L., ''The Greek Anthology'' I: ''Hellenistic Epigrams'', Cambridge 1965. *Tzetzes, ''Chiliades'' L. = Leone, P. L. M. (ed.), ''Ioannis Tzetzae Historiae'', Napoli 1968.

Secondary literature

* Un Poeta Ritrovato. Posidippo di Pella. Giornata di studio - Milano 23 novembre 2001, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2002, {{ISBN, 88-7916-199-7

External links

New Epigrams Attributed to Posidippus of Pella
at the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University, including the Greek text of the poems and English translations Ancient Greek poems Papyri from ancient Egypt Ptolemaic Greek inscriptions Greek-language papyri