Berichtigungsliste der griechischen Papyrusurkunden aus Agypten, vol. 9.

• Author: Bagnall, Roger S.

In reviewing the previous volume of this series I described its general characteristics and use: the BL records for all Greek documentary papyri and similar objects the reeditions, corrections, and interpretations put forth since the appearance of the text in its original or subsequent edition. It is thus a cornerstone of scholarly work, allowing scholars to trace a text through the scholarly literature, to avoid using "evidence" that has already been shown to be different, doubtful, or wrong, and to have the most current thinking available (see JAOS 114 [1994]: 517-18, where a fuller description is given).

Over the years the volume of critical writing about papyrological texts has grown enormously, and in the preface to volume eight the editors called attention to the growth in the number of pages required on average to contain the material from a year's publications, from 12.5 pages in volume three to 67.6 in volume eight. Some of this growth, it should be said, reflects the editors' more ambitious scope, fuller entries, and better coverage. The trend line has accelerated for the current volume, with 418 pages required for four years' work, over one hundred pages per year. This growth poses severe challenges to the editors and their staff (F. A. J. Hoogendijk has primary responsibility for this volume, with N. Kruit and A. Verhoogt also credited on the title page; a fuller list of contributors is given on p. vi), not only of keeping up with the publications in the field, but of publishing their volumes in a timely and affordable fashion.

The ninth volume is a remarkable tribute to the entire BL team's ability and willingness to respond realistically and responsibly to these challenges. The time lag between the last year of publications covered and the year of the volume's appearance has actually been cut from six years to five, despite the fifty percent increase in material, and we are promised (p. v) that the tenth volume, scheduled for the next papyrological congress in 1998, will reduce the lag to three years. The drop in the maximum gap (in the year before a volume's publication) is equally dramatic, from thirteen years in 1991 to six years in 1997. It should also be noted that another provisional BL Bulletin, prepared by N. Kruit, listing complete reeditions of texts (for the years 1991-95) was published in time for the Berlin papyrological congress in August, 1995. This, too, is welcome. (As with its predecessor, it is available...