Studia Papyrologica et Aegyptiaca Parisina (StudPAP)

Studia Papyrologica et Aegyptiaca Parisina (StudPAP) is dedicated to works in Greek, Latin or Coptic papyrology (editions or studies) or monographs on post-Pharaonic Egypt (mainly Byzantine or early Arab). This collection is supported by Jean-Luc Fournet's Chair in Written Culture of Late Antiquity and Byzantine Papyrology (Collège de France), and is part of the publications of the Institut d'histoire et civilisation de Byzance (UMR 8167).

Studia Papyrologica et Aegyptiaca Parisina n° 5 | 2023

Valérie Schram
Trees and wood in Greco-Roman Egypt

A vast desert bisected by the Nile Valley, Egypt is certainly not one of those countries renowned for its forest resources. Yet, far from the clichés that make Egypt a massive importer of cedars from Lebanon, Greek documentation from its sands enables us to consider in a new light the importance of local tree species in the running of the country throughout the millennium covered by papyrological sources.

Bringing together ancient textual sources and archaeobotanical remains, the book presents the investigations that sought to restore the nature of these local essences under the veil of their names in Egyptian Greek. Through the snapshots of life provided by the papyri, it is possible to reconstruct, step by step, the place of these trees in the landscape, the resources allocated to their management by the authorities, the supplements provided by imports, and the ways in which the material was exploited to satisfy needs for timber, construction or fuel.

Studia Papyrologica et Aegyptiaca Parisina n° 4 | 2022

Coptica Sorbonensia
Texts from the ^6thSummer School of Coptic Papyrology, Paris, July 2-11, 2018 (P. Sorb. Copt.) compiled by Anne Boud'hors & Alain Delattre

The collection of Coptic texts at the Sorbonne Papyrology Institute is rich in around one hundred and eighty items, illustrating various types of texts and covering a chronological arc from the ive to the ^twelfth centuries. The 6th Summer School of Coptic Papyrology (July 2018) provided an opportunity for participants to study a number of them, and this volume is the fruit of their labors. It contains annotated editions of forty-five texts, mostly documentary (legal deeds, accounting documents, letters), written on papyrus and ostraca, to which are added a biblical text and a magical text. In addition to the discovery of new documentary types or words attested for the first time, these documents help to flesh out certain monastic and village files from Middle Egypt (Apa Apollô monastery in Baouît, Apa Sabinos monastery, villages in the Hermopolitan nome).

Studia Papyrologica et Aegyptiaca Parisina n° 3 | 2022

Christel Freu
Wage-earners in Romano-Byzantine Egypt : Essay on economic history

For a long time, ancient societies were described as slave societies, where the work of free men was marginal and only seasonal. Over the past generation, however, new research has nuanced this overly monolithic picture of ancient economies and societies: we now know that work was organized differently according to place and time. The present study therefore sets out to identify the traces of free salaried work in the society of Romano-Byzantine Egypt, whose papyrus documents are without equivalent in the rest of the ancient world. Employment contracts, accounting records, receipts and payment orders are re-read to identify the main areas and sectors of salaried employment. From the employment of domestic servants to work in workshops or on building sites, from transport services to irrigation networks, the traces collected finally outline the contours of a particular type of mercantile society, in which salaried employment was driven by urban and state demand.

Studia Papyrologica et Aegyptiaca Parisina n° 2 | 2021

Jean-Luc Fournet (ed.)
Horapollon'sHieroglyphica fromancient Egypt to modern Europe: history,fiction and reappropriation

Horapollon is known as the author of a treatise on hieroglyphics(Hieroglyphica), the only one in Greco-Latin literature to have survived into modern times. Identified with the famous Alexandrian grammarian and philosopher of the^5th century A.D., from a family of Greek intellectuals known for their militant paganism, Horapollon's work may have been one of the most eloquent testimonies to the last pagan attempts to resist Christianity, which had become the state religion, by combining the exaltation of a profane Hellenism with the defense of an endangered Pharaonic culture. This biculturality is at the heart of the Hieroglyphica: the value of more than half of the hieroglyphic signs Horapollon treats is confirmed by modern Egyptology, while the purely allegorical exegesis he gives is dependent on traditions specific to late Hellenism. Although this treatise, which since its rediscovery in 1419 has served as the basis for modern attempts to decipher the hieroglyphs, has led to nothing but dead ends and misunderstandings, it has had a profound influence on Renaissance symbolism and the vogue for emblematic literature.

The aim of this volume is to put an end to some of these misunderstandings and to place this work in its true light. It seeks to put the work back into the thick and complex context of its history, which has its roots in distant ancient Egypt and culminates in modern Europe, without ceasing to interweave Pharaonic and Greco-Roman traditions in a network that is sometimes difficult to untangle, before crystallizing the chimeras of a "hieroglyphilic" West.

Studia Papyrologica et Aegyptiaca Parisina n° 1 | 2020

Jean Gascou
Churches and chapels in Byzantine Alexandria. Recherches de topographie cultuelle

Research into the Christian topography of Alexandria relies on Greek, Latin and Eastern literary sources. They are often legendary, contradictory and tendentious, even if they are not very explicit about their aims, and have sometimes led modern scholars astray. However, through comparison, literary analysis and textual commentary, we can draw some serious conclusions. This, at least, is what the present work aims to show, with the new locations it proposes. It also deals with the history of Alexandria's many Christian buildings and certain aspects of local Christian life.