The Milan Papyrus is a

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...

roll Roll or Rolls may refer to: Movement about the longitudinal axis * Roll angle (or roll rotation), one of the 3 angular degrees of freedom of any stiff body (for example a vehicle), describing motion about the longitudinal axis ** Roll (aviation), ...

inscribed in

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

in the late 3rd or early 2nd century BC during the rule of the

Ptolemaic dynasty The Ptolemaic dynasty (; grc, Πτολεμαῖοι, ''Ptolemaioi''), sometimes referred to as the Lagid dynasty (Λαγίδαι, ''Lagidae;'' after Ptolemy I's father, Lagus), was a Macedonian Greek royal dynasty which ruled the Ptolemaic ...

. Originally discovered by anonymous tomb raiders as part of a

mummy A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay fu ...

wrapping, it was purchased in the papyrus "

grey market A grey market or dark market (sometimes confused with the similar term " parallel market") is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels that are not authorized by the original manufacturer or trade mark proprietor. Grey market pr ...

" in Europe in 1992 by the

University of Milan The University of Milan ( it, Università degli Studi di Milano; la, Universitas Studiorum Mediolanensis), known colloquially as UniMi or Statale, is a public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Europe ...

. Over six hundred previously unknown lines of

Greek poetry Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today. Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving writte ...

are on the roll, representing about 112 brief poems, or

epigram An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two mille ...

s. Two of these were already known and had been attributed by the 12th-century AD Byzantine scholar

John Tzetzes John Tzetzes ( grc-gre, Ἰωάννης Τζέτζης, Iōánnēs Tzétzēs; c. 1110, Constantinople – 1180, Constantinople) was a Byzantine poet and grammarian who is known to have lived at Constantinople in the 12th century. He was able to p ...

to the

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

matist Posidippus of Pella (c. 310 – c. 240 BC), a Macedonian who spent his literary career in Alexandria. The initial reaction has been to attribute all the new lines to Posidippus, though Franco Ferrari suggests that there is evidence the manuscript is an anthology, in which Posidippus' epigrams predominated. As the earliest surviving example of a Greek poetry book as well as the largest addition to the corpus of classical Greek poetry in many years, the tale of the discovery made ''

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'' and ''

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

.'' Labelled the "Milan Papyrus," it was published in a scholarly edition in 2001, edited by

Guido Bastianini Guido Bastianini (born September 10, 1945 in Florence), Italian papyrologist and palaeographer. Bastianini finished his papyrological studies in Florence 1970. He had participated in various archaeological missions in Egypt organized by the Isti ...

, Claudio Gallazzi and Colin Austin. In 2002, Austin and Bastianini published a more popular edition, ''Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omnia'', "all the surviving works of Posidippus of Pella", including the epigrams of the papyrus, with Italian and English translations. Scholars have rushed to mine this new trove of highly conscious literary productions at the most sophisticated level that were created in a major center of Hellenistic culture. After a "standing-room only" discussion at the American Philological Association annual meeting in January 2001, a seminar on the Milan Papyrus was held at Harvard's

Center for Hellenic Studies The Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS) is a research institute for classics located in Washington, D.C. at 3100 NW Whitehaven Street. It is affiliated with Harvard University. Nestled in Rock Creek Park behind Embassy Row, the Center for Hell ...

in April 2002, and international conferences were held at Milan, Florence and Cincinnati, in November 2002. Scholarly work on the Milan Papyrus, on Posidippus, who is now revealed in a broader range of subjects, and on the Alexandrian literary epigram in general, was invigorated by the discovery and proceeds apace.The first issue of Harvard University's on-line classics journal, "Classics@" was devoted to Posidippus and the papyrus; it was updated March 2007.
Center for Hellenic studies: Classics@ Issue 1

Notes

References

*Bastianini G. - Gallazzi C. (edd.), Papiri dell’Università di Milano - Posidippo di Pella. Epigrammi, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2001, *Austin C. - Bastianini G. (edd.), Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omni

LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2002, *Un Poeta Ritrovato. Posidippo di Pella. Giornata di studio - Milano 23 novembre 2001, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2002,

External links

New Epigrams Attributed to Posidippus of Pella
at the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University Ancient Greek poems Papyrus Ptolemaic Greek inscriptions Greek manuscripts Greek-language papyri {{papyrus-stub

See also

Notes

References

External links