Learning objectives
<br />The aim of the course is to familiarize students with the basics of Papyrology by introducing them to its various bibliographic tools, its methods and to the main directions of work on the papyri as original products and as sources for the history of ancient literauture. The students are to be guided so that they can analyse papyri as scribal products and use the preserved texts (be they documentary or literary) as sourcs for the various branches of ancient studies at the same time that the students acquire a competence in reading and understanding the texts in the original language (Greek) or in translation.
Prerequisites
<br />Competence in a historical or cultural area such as Greek Literature, Greek History, Roman History, and Classical Archaeology, for which the sources that are to be studied may be applied.<br /><br />
Course unit content
<br /><br /><br />It is planned to illustrate how papyrological documentation can be used for the historical and cultural reconstruction of Egypt in the Hellenistic and Roman periods by examining selected evidence both as manufactured products and as written sources. The course will in part deal with Papyrology as its own special field (history and nature of the discipline, papyrological methodology, recent acquisitions). Places and methods of finding papyri: archaeological context, excavations and finds. Writing materials and the formal typology of books and documents. Languages and scripts as documented in the papyri, and (in the course of concentrating on selected material) presentation of representative examples, and palaeographical analysis as well as the reading and interpretation of fragments of books and documents written on papyrus from the 4th century BC through the 6th century AD (reading will include reproductions of the originals as well as translations)<br /><br />
Bibliography
<br />E.G. Turner, Papiri greci, ed. italiana a c. di M. Manfredi, Roma: Carocci, 2002;A.K. Bowman, L'Egitto dopo i faraoni (Introd. di Edda Bresciani), Firenze: Giunti, 1997;Th.C. Skeat, La produzione libraria cristiana delle origini: papiri e manoscritti, Firenze 1976 (photocopies);G. Cavallo, La nascita del codice, SIFC, ser. III/3 (1985), pp. 118-121;N. Lewis, Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986 (cap. 7)R.S. Bagnall, Reading Papyri, Writing Ancient History. London and New York: Routledge, 1995 (selected pages);H. Maehler, Alessandria, il Museo, e la questione dell'identità culturale, in Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, v.XIV (2003), pp. 99-120.<br /><br />
Teaching methods
Oral and Practical lessons.<br />Projections. PowerPoint.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Oral exam.
