Object of the Month

T.Berl.Möller 125 (ÄM 11843) It was an ancient Egyptian custom to provide mummies with a small tablet that gave information about the deceased. At first, one would not expect such a mummy label for a Christian. However, several examples have… Read More→

SB I 1206 (ÄM 11826) From the 1st century AD at the latest, it was customary in Egypt to attach small wooden labels to mummies that were inscribed in Greek and/or Demotic. This custom continued to enjoy great popularity in… Read More→

BGU II 385 (P. 6901) „I want you to know that I am alone.“ This sentence raises at least as many questions as the letter it came from. It was written by a certain Serenilla to her father Socrates. The… Read More→

P. 16595 Music without notation? Hard to imagine. But even when notes were not yet developed, people wanted to be able to write down musical instructions. One example of this is the duplication of vowels that can be found in… Read More→

P. 11765 Embezzlement, fraud, selfishness and divine punishment are the central themes of the displayed text fragment. Already over 2,000 years ago, people had to deal with these problems, which are still current today. Also, the here presented excerpt from… Read More→

BGU I 16 (P. 6889) Long hair, woolen robes? This is not how a priest was allowed to walk around in Roman Egypt. This papyrus tells us about the charge of a Pasis against the priest Panephremmis. But beyond the… Read More→

P. 16389 “Holy is God“, “holy and strong” and ”holy and immortal” is not just a Three-Times-Holy-Call to the Holy Trinity. It also gives the hymn its name. Trishagion-hymn. It is one of the oldest hymns of the Christian church…. Read More→

PGM XXI (P. 9566 V) Magic with snakes and frogs? Both appear as parts of magical recipes, whereby the animals are sometimes threatened with a very drastic fate. It is quite different in the papyrus text presented here, in which… Read More→

P. 10582 Anyone who spends time in language classes and thinks that everything used to be better in the past, because they did not have to speak so many languages, is wrong. In the past it was also very advantageous… Read More→

BKT II, S. 52–53 (P. 9809 R) What does a good speech have to do with lust and love? This philosophical treatise seems to deal with some principles of how to make good speeches. For this purpose, quotations from two… Read More→