Object of the Month

P. 8687 Most definitely, you have heard of Christmas, perhaps you often even celebrated it and sang carols while doing so. But what have thorns to do with Christmas? What was it like 1400 years ago? Were there the same… Read More→

SB XXII 15312 (P. 11702) An odd drawing, a multiplication-table and a bird! All of this can be found on a Berlin papyrus and gives puzzles. What does that mean? In what context are these elements related to each other?… Read More→

P. 16511 V Anybody who is eager to determine the precise position of stars or planets in the sky, can nowadays open their computer and find everything they seek with a few clicks through modern software. In antiquity, this was… Read More→

BKT IX 42 (P. 21141) Reason in the head, bravery in the heart, desire in the liver – the famous ancient physician Galen tries to build a bridge between Hippocratic medicine and Platonic philosophy. A small fragment from this great… Read More→

BKT V.2, S. 123–128, Nr. XX A (P. 9772) How to get an idea of what Greeks thought about marriage? Go to the anthologies! An anthology is a collection of selected literary passages by one or more authors. Greek papyri… Read More→

FGrHist 533 F 2 (P. 11632) Who can name all Seven Wonders of the World, let alone say, when and why they were built? With the Colossus of Rhodes, a papyrus can help us to understand its creation. The papyrus… Read More→

BGU IX 1900 (P. 11642) If you have ever been annoyed by the high rent of your apartment, house or land, then you are basically no different from the people of ancient Egypt. Already at that time pieces of land… Read More→

GEMF 30/PGM II (P. 5026) Dreams played an important role in ancient Egypt and the ancient world in general. Only in a dream could a dead person appear to a living one. Furthermore, people believed that dreams could predict the… Read More→

P. 11766 + P. 14046 What happens when one defies the will of God, the Pharaoh of that time was soon to find out in a not too pleasant way. „With the staff in my hand I will strike the… Read More→

SB III 6221 (P. 12682) Teutons in Egypt? One can hardly imagine that. And yet there are some testimonies from the Roman period that prove the stay of Germanic people in Egypt. One such example is the object presented here…. Read More→