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 work has been preserved in the Berlin papyrus collection.
This small papyrus fragment with remnants of four lines on the front and five lines on the back belongs to the lower margin of a codex leaf from which further fragments have been preserved in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. The Berlin fragment can be directly matched to the Munich fragment. Due to the quite different state of preservation of the two fragments, it can be assumed that they were already separated in antiquity. Originally, it had a writing mirror on both sides, the height of which was twice as large as the width.
The codex leaf contains a copy of Galen’s writing „On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato“ (chapters 88, 29-31 and 90, 20-22 on the Berlin fragment). Galen, a physician from Pergamon in Asia Minor, wrote this work in nine books between 162 and 176 AD in Rome. Based on his own comments on this work in other writings, we know that Galen wrote the first six books between 162 and 166 AD in Rome on behalf of the former consul and later governor of the Roman province of Syria Palaestina Titus Flavius Boethus, who had a great interest in his medical research. Galen accompanied him to his province. After his return in 169 AD, he wrote the last three books of this work.
It is interesting to note that the copy on the papyrus fragments in Berlin and Munich, which was found in the Middle Egyptian town of Ashmunein, the ancient Hermupolis, can be dated to the first half of the 3rd century AD on the basis of the hand-writing. This makes it one of the oldest records of a work by Galen and thus provides valuable clues to the original form of the text.
As a follower of the teachings of the great and famous Greek physician Hippocrates of Cos, Galen deals with his teachings in this work and compares them with the ideas about the nature of the soul of the Greek philosopher Plato. In doing so, Galen is not at all concerned with playing philosophy and medicine off against each other and proving the correctness of one discipline over the other. Rather, he shows that he agrees with the statements of the philosopher and the physician on all points. His aim is to prove that the statements of the physician Hippocrates and the philosopher Plato can agree. He tries to fit Plato’s rather abstract opinions quite concretely into human physiology, which for him is based on Hippocrates‘ ideas.
It is therefore not surprising that in the few remains that have survived on the papyrus fragments we can read Galen’s description of the arteries in the lower parts of the body and the legs, even if the connection to Plato’s metaphysical ideas must remain unclear because this text passage has no longer survived.
Galen claims in his other writings that his works were already read in many provinces of the Roman Empire during his lifetime. This may be an exaggeration and confirmation of his own pride. However, the fragments in Berlin and Munich come from the Roman Hermupolis in Middle Egypt and from a time shortly after the doctor’s death. They may therefore not necessarily confirm Galen’s statements. However, they do show that his works were not only received in the great cultural centres of the Roman world such as Rome, Alexandria, etc., but were also disseminated much further afield.
This papyrus with a part of Gale’s work was on display in the exhibition „Au temps de Galien. Un médicin grec dans l’empire romain“ at the Musée Royal de Mariemont in Morlanwelz in Belgium.
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 have provided us with several such collections, often bringing to light literature otherwise unknown. Among these is the papyrus presented here.
This papyrus, of which two fragments survive, was purchased on the Egyptian antiquities market by Otto Rubensohn for the Berlin Papyrus Collection in 1901, but we do not know where exactly it was found. On palaeographical basis, it can be dated to the 2nd century BCE.
The papyrus is very interesting from a material point of view. The recto side is a palimpsest: this means that it was first used to write a text, which was later washed away to write a new one. This is a not very common phenomenon in papyri, which usually underwent other types of reuse, such as writing on the side left blank. In our case, the previous text was washed away very roughly, so that it is still clearly visible although not completely readable. Of the new text, i.e. the anthology, remnants of two columns are preserved on the first fragment and four columns, three of which are intact, on the second. One more column is written on the verso of the second fragment, which also offers an example of how papyrus rolls were reinforced or repaired in antiquity: some strips from another papyrus were indeed attached to it with this purpose.
As for the content, the anthology includes passages from Greek comedy and tragedy, each introduced by the name of its author (Epicharmus, Menander, Euripides and so on). The selected texts are devoted to the blame and praise of women and are of gnomic type, that is, they contain moral precepts (such as not telling a woman a matter that you want to remain secret, because it would be like telling all the heralds in the assembly, or, on the other hand, that there is nothing better than a good woman). The general topic they refer to is marriage, which is the most represented in Greek gnomic literature.
Both the material aspect of the papyrus and the writing – a cursive very similar to that used in contemporary documents – make it unlikely that we are dealing with a product intended for the book trade. However, the precise purpose of the anthology escapes us: the passages could have been collected for the elaboration of an exercise on the subject “whether one should get married”, which was customary in schools of rhetoric, or more simply for personal use, to be read privately or in a sympotic context.
At any rate, the papyrus not only offers a fine example of how the topic of marriage was discussed in the Hellenistic age, but, most importantly, it has made an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of Greek literature, yielding some texts that were unknown before it was published.
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 was found in the village of Mellawi. Mellawi is in Upper Egypt, in the ancint administrative district Hermopolites. In 1912, the piece was bought by Wilhelm Schubart, who was the director of the collection at the time, alongside other pieces. The papyrus contains a literary text in Greek, which is dated to the 2. Century AD. In the 2. Century AD Egypt was under Roman rule.
The text consists of two columns with 24 lines each. It is historical prose and written in the ionic dialect. This could be because that was the dialect customary for historical writing. This convention exists because the first Greek historian, Herodotus, wrote in ionic. The text deals with an episode from the Wars of the Diadochi. After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC his followers, the Diadochi, fought over supremacy. Rhodes, too, was dragged into this conflict, which our piece reports.
The island Rhodes with the city of the same name is situated off the coast of Asia Minor. Originally, it was part of the Persian Empire, then, however, it fell under the influence of Alexander the Great. After Alexanders death, the island tried to stay independent and neutral. This worked for a while, but then the diadoch Antigonus subjected the whole of Asia Minor. Because of the spatial closeness, Rhodes was forced to help him. Several times, Antigonus demanded assistance from Rhodes. When they refused and also repulsed his fleet, he sent his son Demetrius Poliorcetes to Rhodes for a punitive expedition. This was in the year 305 BC. Very fittingly, the name Poliorcetes means besieger of cities.
In the first phase of the siege, he set up camp outside the city walls and blocked the city from the outside world. Demetrius then tried to breach the wall. 304 BC he could take the first circle of walls. However, the Rhodians had a second wall, behind which they could withdraw. When Demetrius broke through this second wall, the Rhodians had built a third one in the meantime.
But this one too Demetrius managed to breach eventually. Before he conquered the city completely, he aborted the siege, because he was called to help against Cassander by some Greeks. He made a peace treaty. The Rhodians thanked their patron, the sun god Helios, by building a colossal statue at the port. It is known today as the Colossus of Rhodes as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. So, one of the Seven Wonders of the World has a siege as history.
Diodorus, who wrote a historical work in the first century BC, is the one who predominately informs us about the siege of Rhodes. But our piece, too, is a source. Because our author and Diodorus write so similarly, the question arises whether our author copied Diodor or whether they both had the same source. Since they differ in terminology, the latter is more likely.
Our piece covers only a part of the siege of Rhodes. The beginning possibly is about the Rhodians capturing clothes which the wife of Demetrius sent him, because royal things are mentioned. Then the Rhodians refuse to release prisoners of war, even though Demetrius offers ransom. Therefore, he announces that he too will not release Rhodians in the future. Next, it is described how Demetrius tries to breach the first wall. He bribes Athenagoras of Milet, who was on the side of the Rhodians, to help him. He reveals the plan to the Rhodians. So, the Rhodians start to dig as well, and Demetrius’ plan fails. Additionally, Athenagoras handed over to the Rhodians a follower of Demetrius, Alexander. Athenagoras is rewarded and Alexander is saved from execution in the last moment by ransom.
What makes our text special, is the fact that it is an autograph, meaning the handwriting of the author himself. This can be recognised by the fact that the text is a draft. Again and again, words are crossed out, partly because of grammatical errors, partly because the author wanted to choose different words. We can watch the author work, so to speak. Autographs are extremely rare. Another specialty is the word μεταλλωρύχος. It is a Hapax legomenon, which means it attested only once.
The first editor of the text, von Gaertringen, concludes his essay with: “May the Egyptian soil offer more of such finds!”.
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 were leased to citizens. However, the rent for such a piece of land was often way too high to be paid by a single person. Since many of the poorer citizens were dependent on such an area to be able to feed themselves and their families, they joined together to form so-called lease cooperatives. In these leasehold cooperatives, the land was then divided between the individual leaseholders. The tenant used his land to earn agricultural profit from it, for example, as a farmer. This profit, however, had to be ceded mostly to the ruler. Nevertheless, for many of the poorer citizens it was the best way to ensure their survival. Even today there are still some lists of such lease cooperatives. The following text deals with exactly such a list.
The papyrus is not an ordinary sheet, but a roll which is 160×23 cm in size and apparently also completely written. The text came to the Berlin Papyrus Collection in 1912/13 by an exchange from the London British Museum. However, the text was written around 196–198 AD in Theadelphia, a Greek village in the Arsinoites, the modern Fayum. The age and place of manufacture of the scroll could be determined because the strategos Bolanos is mentioned in the text. It is already known from other documented sources that he lived around 196 AD. Moreover, there is a relationship with another text, which is housed in Belgian Ghent nowadays. The production of this text is also dated to 196–198 AD in Theadelphia. The other piece is also a list of tenant cooperatives, partly mentioning the same people as in the Berlin piece. Therefore, a relationship between the texts is also suspected, where one also assumes that the Berlin piece is the older of the two texts.
The list includes 50 leasing cooperatives with their members, and the size of the leased land is also added for each cooperative. However, the members are not listed in alphabetical order, which indicates a topographical arrangement. This means that the members were probably sorted according to their place of residence. The number of members, in the individual leasehold cooperatives, varies from case to case. The most common is seven members, which is the case in 28 of the 50 listed leasing cooperatives. The remaining 22 cooperatives all have between five and nine members. On the other hand, there are not so many differences in the size of the leased land. In 41 cases, exactly an area of 80 arouras is leased, one arouras being equivalent to 100×100 royal ells at that time. In the remaining nine cases, the area is always slightly smaller or larger than 80 aruras. However, this balances out in the end so that the total area is about 4000 aruras. But it cannot be concluded exactly from the text whether it is a single large area or several smaller ones. This results from the fact that the text gives a location only in the 154th line and this line is apparently only loosely connected with the rest of the text.
The purpose of the piece is not entirely clear, as there is no indication in the text of how much land each tenant was entitled to. A possible explanation for this is that the list was created only as a directory of leasehold cooperatives and their members. From today’s point of view, the text is nevertheless very informative. Since in the list not only includes farmers, but also other occupations such as fishermen, miller or shepherd, it offers a good insight into the economic and social conditions of ancient Egypt.
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 future. For this purpose, priests would perform rituals, which contained various anthems to the gods, in order to receive an oracle. However, for these rituals to be successful, the priests had to follow certain instructions, which were written down in magical texts. Such a text is in the exhibition at the “Neues Museum” in Berlin.
The Greek papyrus dates to the late second or the early third century AD and was most likely written in the city of Thebes, located by the Nile River. In 1857, Richard Lepsius bought the papyrus from the collection of Giovanni Anastasi, a Greek salesperson in Paris, for the collection in Berlin. The papyrus is a fragment of what was originally an entire scroll, and includes the end of a magical guide. Another fragment of this magical guide, which has been directly linked to the papyrus in Berlin, is in the British Library in London at the moment. It appears that the once coherent text was cut apart at an unknown date before the sale.
Four columns of text remain on the papyrus in Berlin. The first three of these span the entire height of the papyrus, while the fourth is notably shorter. However, the papyrus mainly includes a drawing of a headless spirit of the dead (akephalos). There are more little drawings scattered throughout the rest of the text, either directly in the text, along the edge or, in the case of the scarab in the third column, under the text. These drawings are not merely illustrations but served as a template for magical drawings, which had to be adapted to different mediums. Additionally, the fourth column was written in a different ink than the previous columns. The reason behind this is still being investigated. Apart from a crack spreading the length of the papyrus and obscuring a few letters in the first column, the text on the papyrus in Berlin is complete.
The text at hand includes a collection of instructions, anthems and prayers. They seem to be an attachment to a description of a ceremony, which intends to summon a dream oracle from the god of the sun Apollo-Helios-Harpocrates and the ghost of a person, who died a violent death, in one´s sleep. The ghost of a dead person may seem confusing at first. However, dead people and gods, who appear in the dreams, were given almost the same level of meaning and importance. The power of a human grew significantly after his death and even his knowledge became nearly unlimited. Humans, who had died very early, unmarried or violent deaths, were assumed to be more vengeful and vicious. However, if one managed to convince a violently murdered dead soul to provide help in the shape of an oracle, this oracle was considered to be of greater value.
The remaining section of text enumerates many instructions for the process of the oracle-ritual. It includes, for example, a description of a recipe for remembering the words said in the dream. First, the mouth had to be cleaned with frankincense. The next step was to make a balm out of honey, the forb Artemisia and a loadstone from the heart of a Eurasian hoopoe, and apply this on the lips of the oracle´s intended recipient. Another recipe to help memorize the dream used a mixture of water with laurel, caraway and solanum. This mixture had to be drizzled in the right ear of the oracle´s intended recipient on the evening of the dream oracle. In addition to this, there are a few directives detailing how to sketch magical drawings. The ink used to write down the magical words had to be made out of the herbs myrrh, potentilla reptans and Artemisia vulgaris. Even the location of the ritual needed to be appropriately prepared. The mattress had to lay on the floor under the open sky and the place would be cleansed with the milk of a donkey. Furthermore, the sacrificial offerings had to be brought to the altar prior to sleeping. The person seeking the oracle was to lay on their right side, holding a laurel crown in their right hand. The laurel crown also needed to be produced in accordance with specific instructions.
When looking at the papyrus, the large drawing of the headless spirit of the dead, in Greek akephalos, catches the eye. According to ancient understanding, he was a figure representing neither good nor bad. This differs from the more ominous interpretations prevalent in many other cultures. Surrounding the spirit of the dead human are magical words, so-called voces magicae, which were believed to strengthen the spell. Written on his body are Greek vowels with further magical significance. This drawing was placed next to the head of the sleeper.
During the dream-ritual, anthems were sung to a specific god, in order to compel him to send the soul of the respective dead person, of which the sleeper would have a body-part or some clothes, and let his soul appear in the dream of the sleeper. This particular magical text includes two anthems, dedicated to Apollo, the god of light and wisdom, and Helios, the god of the sun. In regards to a meeting with the gods, specific directives and even means of coercive action are provided. Initially, the god was asked to permit the sleeper an oracle. Should the ritual fail, it would be repeated the following day with additional sacrificial offerings. For every following failure of the ritual, another sacrifice would be placed upon the altar until the god brings the dead soul from the underworld and into the dream of the sleeper. When meeting the god, the sleeper would have to offer him the sacrifices. Now he was able to talk to the dead soul. After hearing everything he needed to know, the god was released and the last magical words spoken. Upon waking, the sleeper would share his dream and be counselled by special priests.
Many oracles were received in this manner and frequently influenced the course of ancient history. Therefore, this text provides us with a valuable insight on ancient dream-literature.
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 water in the Nile, and it will turn to blood“. (Ex 7:17). These are the last words on the fragmentary leaves of this parchment codex, which contains excerpts from the 2nd Book of Moses (Exodus) of the Old Testament in Greek.
This section of the Old Testament describes the events leading up to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. It deals with conflicts between the Israelites and Pharaoh as well as the first of the ten plagues: the turning of the waters of the Nile into blood. When the Pharaoh of Egypt enslaved the Israelites and drowned them in the Nile, God (Yahweh) chose Moses to lead his people to the promised land of Canaan in the area of present-day Israel, „the land flowing with milk and honey“. After Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go, God sent Moses to deliver the first of the plagues to Pharaoh.
All this can be read on the remains of this small parchment codex, which probably originated around the 4th century AD. In its form, this codex resembled modern books. It consisted of several layers of double leaves which were laid on top of each other and bound. They were written on both sides, the hair side and the flesh side. But codices were not only made of parchment. A few copies made of papyrus have also survived from antiquity.
The pages preserved from the codex were each inscribed with 12 lines, of which only a few have been preserved in their entirety. The text on the individual leaves is not continuous. Some leaves are missing between them and have not survived. The miniature codex can at most have contained the Book of Exodus, which alone would fill about 400 leaves of this format.
The story told in the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament goes even further. As the last of the ten plagues sent by Yahweh, Moses announced the death of all the firstborn in Egypt. When Pharaoh lost his son to this last plague, he finally gave in and let the Israelites go. Later, however, he persecuted them, which ended tragically for him and his soldiers. Moses had been given the ability by God to lead his people safely to the other side of the Red Sea. He stretched out his hand and immediately a wind arose that parted the water so that the Israelites could pass by on dry ground. But when Pharaoh wanted to follow them, the sea closed again and destroyed Pharaoh and his army.
