Ancient Documents

The term ancient documents covers a wide range of materials which were used for the preservation of texts. Whether stone, potsherds (ostraca), papyrus, leather, bone, wood or paper all these materials served as a support for carved, scratched, painted or written texts. The curation of such documents involves storing them in an appropriate manner and making their content available to scholars and the public. Traditionally this type of documentation has been achieved through the publication of the texts in the form of articles or books and through the display of individual objects in exhibitions. In recent years it has increasingly been adapted to the digital realm.

Heidelberg Papyri

The latter decades of the 19th century saw the beginning of the discovery of large numbers of texts preserved on papyri, ostraca, and other portable media in Egypt and beyond. They were purchased and excavated and became the basis of many collections throughout Europe, Egypt and North America. A collection in the University of Heidelberg has grown since the early 20th century. It was originally housed in the University Library, and has since 1976 been part of the Institut für Papyrologie. Together with the University Library, the Institute recently launched a complete online guide to its collection holdings (in Greek, Arabic, Coptic, Latin, Demotic, Syriac, Hebrew, Aramaic).

Basic projects in the 20th century

Publication of material from this collection began at the same time in a new scholarly field known as Papyrology. Very early in the life of the young discipline of papyrology, scholars recognized the need for not only lexica (Preisigke, Woerterbuch 1925), but also for curation tools, e.g., for a way of gathering together disparately published texts on papyrus, wood and ostraca (Sammelbuch 1913, Vol. 4, Heidelberg 1931), and a way of keeping track of corrections made to texts, which had already been published (Berichtigungsliste 1913, Vol. 2, Heidelberg 1931). These projects were initiated at the beginning of the 20th century only some 20-30 years after the systematic publication of papyri and ostraca had started. Heidelberg and people employed in Heidelberg (Preisigke, Bilabel) played an important role in these services.

Further developments in recent decades

In the last 30 years the advent of computers and databases has changed and continues to change the way in which we curate. Pioneering in Heidelberg in the digital age was the database of information concerning published papyri and ostraca, HGV under the direction of Prof. D. Hagedorn. With the arrival of Prof. A. Jördens, two pillars of papyrology, the Berichtigungsliste, which is now produced in PDF from a database located in Heidelberg and as a print-on-demand service through the publisher Brill (in partnership with a team in Leiden, Netherlands), and the Sammelbuch are now based in Heidelberg once again.

Foundation projects in the digital world

Members of the Institut für Papyrologie have also been heavily involved in the development of the online editing platform papyri.info, which provides open access worldwide to the most up-to-date digital version of the editions of documentary texts. This was followed by the creation of the Digital Corpus of Literary Papyri, a platform for literary texts based very closely on the model of papyri.info. A spin-off of the online maintenance of published texts through the use of papyri.info is an annual Bulletin that collects improvements to texts made through the system, and thus only accessible in digital form. The Bulletin of Online Emendations to Papyri (BOEP) is produced in the form of PDFs, the Institut oversees the palaeography resource known as PapPal, which provides images of dated papyri with a view to supplying the basis for palaeographical work.

Publications and digital services in the field of curating ancient documents are to be presented here with the intention of providing a central landing point for interested parties.