A school text |
unknown |
The folio appears to be a school exercise book in Bohairic Coptic |
Husselman EM, JNES 6, 129-51, 1947 |
P.Mich.inv. 926 |
Pap ; |
The codex in its original form was probably made up of four double leaves. Of these,
two have been broken away, but two remain together, sewed on the middle line with
a single loop of light-brown two-strand cord, ca. 4.5 cm. long and 9 cm. from the
bottom of the page, tied at the back with a rather elaborate knot. It is possible
that more folios might have been included in the original quire, but from the contents
it seems unlikely. The size of each folio is 17. 5 x 22 cm. where the complete width
and height are preserved. The papyrus is light-brown in color and is of rather poor
quality, being marred by strips of varying thickness and by discolored streaks. One
would naturally not expect to papyrus of the highest quality used for a school work
book.;Folios 1 and 8, 3 and 6, and 4 and 5 are joined. The blank piece of papyrus
listed as folio 7 is probably the right half of the double spread of which folio 2
forms the left half, but it is not possible to be sure of this, since the edges of
both are broken and the fibers cannot be traced across with certainty. Since folios
6 and 8 are entirely blank, it is entirely probable that folio 7 also was not used. |
Source of description: recto-verso |
In the usual manner of preparing the early papyrus codices the sheets were laid down
with the surfaces on which the fibers were horizontal on top. They were then sewed
down the center and folded, so that the fibers on the outside of the codex or quire
were vertical and those on the inside horizontal. As a result the writing on the recto
of any leaf in the first half of the quire is across the fibers, and that on the verso
is parallel to them, while in the second half the reverse is true. Folios 1, 3, and
4 in this quire, with the corresponding folios 8, 6, and 5, follow this pattern, but
folio 2 has the writing parallel to the fibers on the recto and across them on the
verso. Although folio 2 is detached and broken, there is no question of its position
in the manuscript, since the series of syllables contained on folio 2v is continued
on folio 3r.;Each group of syllables that includes the seven vowels is in most cases
separated from the preceding and following groups by a roughly drawn line or by a
space left between the groups. Sometimes there is no division, and sometimes the line
is carelessly drawn all the way across the page, making the divisions in the wrong
places.;The writing of folio 2r and of the first two lines of the first column on
the verso is in a different and more cursive hand than the rest of the manuscript,
perhaps the hand of the teacher, who may have written it as a sample for the pupil
to copy. This hand is, indeed, very like Greek cursive hands of the late third-fourth
century, although there are too many uncials and and too few ligatures to establish
its character with certainty. The rest of the text, although it is in a school hand,
large and inexpert, is not without calligraphic pretensions, particularly in the biblical
texts, which are written carefully, with shading and occasional knots to finish off
the letters. There are no supralinear lines or dots except over the abbreviations
of a few divine names and one instance on folio 6r. Instead of a straight line over
phi psi there is an angle, very much like the letter gamma. |
Theadelphia, Themistou meris, Arsinoite nome, province of Egypt (?)
|
Coptic |
IVth century A.D. (?)
|
Location: Ann Arbor |
- |
-; Bible.--O.T.; Bible.--N.T.; Coptic language--Egypt--Kharabat Ihrit.; Bohairic dialect--Egypt--Kharabat Ihrit;vProblems, exercises, etc.; Coptic language--Orthography and spelling.; Papyrus; subliterary; school-exercise |
Recto thumbnail |
Recto medium |
Recto large |
Verso medium |
Verso large |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License. |