The New Papyrological Primer.

• Author: Farber, J. Joel

Of all the separate disciplines that serve as pathways for research into ancient Egypt, it is now papyrology that serves its English-speaking neophytes best. They will find in Pestman's new version of an old standby a reliable and even entertaining way to become engaged in the vast labyrinth of periods, styles, and resources confronting the papyrologist. Dealing exclusively with Greek documents, this sampler, like its model, spans 1000 years of the Egyptian experience, beginning with the marriage contract from Elephantine of 310 B.C.E., going through the Ptolemaic, Roman and Byzantine eras, and even ending with one (a tax statement) from the early Arab period.

Pestman incorporates in his collection of 81 documents - 58 out of the 96 found in the fourth edition (1965) of David and van Groningen - and restores one that had been omitted from it (the sympotic elegy, B. K. T 5.2 62), so he gives us 22 that are new. But even those carried over from before are treated to a much fuller commentary; for example, P. Cornell 9, the hiring of a dancing girl, had 10 lines of notes in David and van Groningen, but 20 lines here. Similarly, the older editors annotated P. Lugd Bat. 6.33, an application for a child-allowance, with 25 lines, while Pestman gives it 45 plus a 9-line note on Antinooupolis, where it was written and where the citizens were granted this privilege of a child-allowance by Hadrian to bolster the population of his new city. As well as helping to interpret social, juridical, and economic implications, the notes give far more aid in translating the Greek terms than had the earlier versions. References to the scholarly...