Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
I’ve just come across this rather marvellous blog post, “The Libellus of Hormisdas and the Failure of Policy”. This is at the Ubi Petrus Ibi Ecclesia blog, previously unknown to me.
The following are translations of key letters in the Acacian Schism and will be added to over time.
A fairly niche subject, but wonderful to have these texts!
In November 2022 a Colorado classical scholar, Yvona Trnka-Amrhein, was sent a digital photograph of a papyrus containing 98 lines of text, and measuring 10.5 inches square, by Basem Gehad, an Egyptian archaeologist with the ministry of tourism and antiquities. The papyrus came from Philadelphia, and the two scholars had been working together also at Hermopolis Magna.
Investigation of the find using the TLG quickly revealed that the material was Greek tragedy: 22 of the lines proved to be a slightly different version of material from two plays by Euripides, the Polyidus and the Ino. The rest was new, and probably from the same source.
There is a little more information here. Unfortunately there is no photograph of the papyrus, or other details of the find. Let us hope that this swiftly becomes available.
It’s out there, people. There is more of the literature of antiquity just sitting there, awaiting discovery. Rather good news, all the same.