Word Finder - papyri

definition

(usually uncountable) A plant (Cyperus papyrus) in the sedge family, native to the Nile river valley.

definition

(usually uncountable) A material similar to paper made from the papyrus plant.

definition

A scroll or document written on papyrus.

Coptic papyri mainly contain Biblical or religious texts or monastic deeds.

In the Leiden museum there are a number of papyri which were found in a tomb at Thebes, written probably in the 3rd century A.D., though their matter is older.

In an ordinary Greek letter (as the papyri show) we should find the salutation followed by an expression of gratification over the correspondent's good health and of prayer for its continuance.

Here the papyri and ostraca have put a large material .

In the Turin Museum are preserved two papyri with rough drawings of gold mines established by Sesostris in the Nubian Desert.'

The earliest literary papyrus is that known, from the name of its former owner, as the Prisse papyrus, and now preserved at Paris, containing a work composed in the reign of a king of the fifth dynasty, and computed to be itself of the age of upwards of 2500 years B,C. The papyri discovered in Egypt have often been found in tombs, and in the hands, or swathed with the bodies, of mummies.

Besides the ritual and religious rolls, there are the hieratic, civil and literary documents, and the demotic and enchorial papyri, relating generally to sales of property.

The very large number of classical and other Greek papyri, of the Ptolemaic and later periods, which have been recovered in Egypt, are noticed in the article on Palaeography.

An examination of extant papyri has had the result of proving that sheets of large size, measuring about 12 in., were sometimes used.

His figures regarding the width of the different kinds of papyri have generally been understood to concern the width (or height) of the rolls, as distinguished from their length.

The more brittle condition of the Latin papyri found at Herculaneum has been instanced as the evil result of this re-making of the material.

Of medieval literary Greek papyri very few relics have survived, but of documents coming down to the 8th and 9th centuries an increasing number is being brought to light among the discoveries in Egypt.

It is now known to have existed in Aramaic as far back as the 5th century B.C., appearing on Jewish papyri which were lately discovered by the German mission to Elephantine.'

Pliny says that their wood was everlasting, and therefore images of the gods were made of it; he makes mention also of the oil of cedar, or cedrium, distilled from the wood, and used by the ancients for preserving their books from moths and damp; papyri anointed or rubbed with cedrium were on this account called ced ati libri.

Nor was the knowledge confined to these pious circles; the name continued to be employed by healers, exorcists and magicians, and has been preserved in many places in magical papyri.

The scope of the archaeologist's studies must include every department of the ancient history of man as preserved in antiquities of whatever character, be they tumuli along the Baltic, fossil skulls and graven bones from the caves of France, the flint implements, pottery, and mummies of Egypt, tablets and bas-reliefs from Mesopotamia, coins and sculptures of Greece and Rome, or inscriptions, waxen tablets, parchment rolls, and papyri of a relatively late period of classical antiquity.

No fragment of these papyri, indeed, carries us further back than the age of the Ptolemies; but the Greek inscriptions on the statues of Rameses II.

Papyri from a Jewish colony in Elephantine (407 B.C.) clearly show the form which royal permits could take, and what the Jews were prepared to give in return; the points of resemblance are extremely interesting, but compared with the biblical documents the papyri reveal some striking differences.

The extensive discoveries of papyri in Egypt have greatly extended our knowledge of the administration of that country in the times of the Ptolemies, and have materially added to the existing remains of Greek literature.

The case for Alexandria depends partly on the orthography of B, which resembles Graeco-Coptic papyri, partly on the order of the Pauline epistles.

The discoveries of papyri in Upper Egypt during recent years, containing original letters written by persons of various classes and in some cases contemporary with the Epistles of the New Testament, have immensely increased our knowledge of the Greek of the period, and have cleared up not a few difficulties of language and expression.

Ramsay (Was Christ Born at Bethlehem?, 1898, pp. 1 49 ff.) defends the exact accuracy of St Luke's " first census " as witnessing to the (otherwise of course unknown) introduction into Syria of the periodic fourteen years' census which the evidence of papyri has lately established for Egypt, at least from A.D.

The "argenteus" (as Revillout transcribes a sign in the papyri) (35) was of 5 shekels, or 1090; it arose about 440 B.C., and became after 160 B.C. a weight unit for copper.

It does not occur in the Papyri in this sense.

All these were found amongst the great mass of papyri acquired by the Egyptian Exploration Fund from the ruins of Oxyrhynchus, one of the chief early Christian centres in Egypt, situated some 120 m.

The papyri of the " sayings " date from the 3rd century and most scholars agree that the " sayings " themselves go back to the and.

The second theory, which maintains that the papyri represent an independent collection of " sayings," seems to be the opinion which has found greatest favour.

See the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, part i.

Whether the Hebrew names of angels came to him direct from the Jews or not we cannot tell, but they were, as the Greek magical papyri prove, widely diffused among the Gentiles long before his age.

The word is not found in pre-Christian writings except in the Septuagint, though as Deissmann has shown it is found on the Papyri as an official title for the village magistrates of Egypt and the members of the yEpovoia, or senate, of many towns in Asia Minor.

Three fragments ascribed to her have been found on Egyptian papyri within recent years.

The papyri show us habitual marriage of Greeks and native women and a frequent adoption by natives of Greek names.

But the genuine Arab meaning of Rahim is " gracious," and thus, the old Mahommedan Arab papyri render this word by cAiXavOpunros.

The museum is entirely devoted to antiquities of Pharaonic times, and, except in historical papyri, in which it is excelled by the British Museum, is the most valuable collection of such antiquities in existence.

Aramaic papyri written principally by Jews of the Persian period (5th century B.C.) have been found at Syene and Memphis.

The non-literary Greek remains in papyri and inscriptions which are being found in great abundance throw a flood of light on life in Egypt and the administration of the country from the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus to the Arab conquest.

On the other hand, papyri and inscriptions in Latin are of the greatest rarity, and the literary remains in that language are of small ifnportance for Egypt.

Theoretically, as its name Heptanomis implies, this division contained seven nomes, actually from the Hermopolite on the south to the Memphite on the north (excluding the Arsinoite according to the papyri).

A nunTher of papyri have been discovered containing medical prescriptions.

Little has yet been accomplished in identifying the diseases and the substances named in the medical papyri.

As early as the Middle Kingdom, papyri are found containing classified lists of words, titles, names of cities, &c., and of nomes with their capitals, festivals, deities and sacred things, calendars, &c.

The above-mentioned nucleus, combined with other chapters of more recent origin, is found in the papyri of the XVIIIthXXth Dynasties, and forms the so-called Theban recension, which has been edited by Naville man important work.

The funerary ritual is known from texts in the Theban tombs (XVIIIthXXth Dyn.) and papyri and sarcophagi of later date; older versions are contained in the Pyramid texts and The Book of the Dead.

The ritual observed during the process of embalmment is preserved in late papyri in Paris and Cairo published by Maspero.

Chabas, but other papyri of as great or greater importance are to be found in the Leiden, Turin and other collections.

Apart from their philological interest, as giving the history of a remarkable language during a period of several thousand years, the grammatical studies of the last quarter of the I9th century and afterwards are beginning to bear fruit in regard to the exact interpretation of historical documents on Egyptian monuments and papyri.

The mistaken readings of the old inscriptions by the priests at Abydos (Table of Abydos), when attempting to record the names of the kings of the 1st Dynasty on the walls of the temple of Seti I., are now admitted on all sides; and no palaeographer, whether his field be Greek, Latin, Arabic, Persian or any other class of MSS., will be surprised to hear that the Egyptian papyri and inscriptions abound in corruptions and mistakes.

The former is found chiefly in tales, letters, &c., written in hieratic on papyri of the XIIIth Dynasty to the end of the Middle Kingdom; also in some inscriptions of the XVIIIth Dynasty.

Late Egyptian is seen in hieratic papyri of the XVIIIth to the XXIst Dynasties.

The comic papyri of the XXth Dynasty have also a very strong sense of character, even through coarse drawing and some childish combinations.