At Antinoopolis, in 1906, J. de M. Johnson unearthed the remains of what he believed to have been a library. The texts found were written over several centuries, from the 4th to the early 7thcentury . The documentary papyri found at the same time (which have unfortunately been dispersed without being all identifiable) correspond to the most recent phase of this library.
This library is far from being limited to the usual classical authors, including the inevitable Homer, Menander and Theocritus, whose quotation dates back to late antiquity and peaks in the 6thcentury . It contains, for the first time in our survey, Christian texts as well as a mixture of Greek and Coptic (Coptic being used, with the exception of a gloss in the Theocritus manuscript, for Christian works). The owners of these books were also interested in Latin, as evidenced by the presence of several works in this language, as well as a double alphabet in this script copied after a tachograph manual, evidence of an apprenticeship in Latin. Last but not least, the high proportion of medical papyri is one of the most striking features of this library: Hippocrates (with scholies) and Galen cohabit with various treatises and receptacles, some of which offer magical-medical recipes, as well as a very curious botanical codex.
