Free Republic

Only a few poems of the Greek poetess Sappho’s work have survived but thanks to a leading scholar’s investigation two new works have just been recovered—and gives experts hope to find more. A chance inquiry by an unidentified collector has led to a spectacular literary discovery: Parts of two previously unknown poems by Sappho, the great Greek poetess of the 7th Century B.C. One of the poems is remarkably well preserved and adds greatly to what is known about Sappho and her poetic technique. The two poems came to light when the owner of an ancient papyrus, dating to the...

A recently deciphered Egyptian papyrus from around 1,900 years ago tells a fictional story that includes drinking, singing, feasting and ritual sex, all in the name of the goddess Mut. Researchers believe that a priest wrote the blush-worthy tale, as a way to discuss controversial ritual sex acts with other priests... the Egyptians were known to discuss other controversial matters using fictional stories. Containing writing in a form of ancient Egyptian known as Demotic, the papyrus is likely to have originated in the Fayum village of Tebtunis at a time when the Romans controlled Egypt... Researchers know the story is...

A University of Cincinnati-based journal devoted to research on papyri from Egypt sheds light on job training, prayer, dream interpretation and belief in magic in the ancient world.Education, jobs, religion and even the cultural effects of bilingualism were as topical in the ancient world as they are today. All of these topics and more are featured in translations of ancient papyrus in the University of Cincinnati-based journal, “Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists,” due out Dec. 2. The annually produced journal, edited since 2006 by Peter van Minnen, UC associate professor and head of classics, features the most prestigious...

The director of MRI and radiology at Kadlec Medicl Center watched a TV documentary years ago about efforts to read the ancient scrolls and the story stuck with him. This week, Iuliano is using his expertise to scan fragments of the charred scrolls in hopes of discovering what they say... The papyrus scrolls were discovered more than 200 years ago in a villa in what was the Roman town of Herculaneum. The town was buried along with the more famous city of Pompeii when Vesuvius erupted. The scrolls make up the only surviving library from antiquity, Iuliano said. Scholars have...

“As I was going to St. Ives I met a man with seven wives..” You may know this singsong quiz, But what you might not know is this: That it began with ancient Egypt’s Early math-filled manuscripts. It’s true. That very British-sounding St. Ives conundrum (the one where the seven wives each have seven sacks containing seven cats who each have seven kits, and you have to figure out how many are going to St. Ives) has a decidedly archaic antecedent. An Egyptian document more than 3,600 years old, the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, contains a puzzle of sevens that bears...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife ...’ ” The faded papyrus fragment is smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass. Just below the line about Jesus having a wife, the papyrus includes a second provocative clause that purportedly says, “she will be able to be my disciple.” The...

    Summer 2000 (8.2) Scandinavian Ancestry Tracing Roots to Azerbaijan by Thor Heyerdahl Above: Thor Heyerdahl with Peruvian children who still construct traditional boats made of reeds, the principle material that enabled early migrations on trans-oceanic voyages. Courtesy: Thor Heyerdahl. Archeologist and historian Thor Heyerdahl, 85, has visited Azerbaijan on several occasions during the past two decades. Each time, he garners more evidence to prove his tantalizing theory - that Scandinavian ancestry can be traced to the region now known as Azerbaijan. Heyerdahl first began forming this hypothesis after visiting Gobustan, an ancient cave dwelling found 30 miles ...

Oxford University is asking for help deciphering ancient Greek texts written on fragments of papyrus found in Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of images have gone on display on a website which encourages armchair archaeologists to help catalogue and translate them. Researchers hope the collective effort will give them a unique insight into life in Egypt nearly 2,000 years ago... The collection is made up of papyri recovered in the early 20th Century from the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, the so-called "City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish". At the time the city was under Greek rule. Later the Romans settled the...

Irish scientists have found fragments of Egyptian papyrus in the leather cover of an ancient book of psalms that was unearthed from a peat bog, Ireland's National Museum said on Monday. The papyrus in the lining of the Egyptian-style leather cover of the 1,200-year-old manuscript, "potentially represents the first tangible connection between early Irish Christianity and the Middle Eastern Coptic Church", the Museum said. "It is a finding that asks many questions and has confounded some of the accepted theories about the history of early Christianity in Ireland." Raghnall O Floinn, head of collections at the Museum, said the manuscript,...

'They Show No Respect for Their Caesars'by Gerald A. HonigmanDec 18, '06 / 27 Kislev 5767  E-mail This  Print  Homepage The year was 1887. An Egyptian woman discovered a treasure trove of over three hundred clay cuneiform tablets that would shake the world of religion and the study of ancient history. Named for a local Bedouin tribe, the Tel El-Amarna tablets (which can now be found mostly in the Berlin and British Museums) were mostly the official correspondence between Pharaoh Amenhotep IV - Akhenaten - and his governors and vassals from places such as Canaan, Syria, Babylonia, etc. They date mostly from...

A draft congressional report has called for the investigation of Canadian Maurice Strong’s role in the United Nations Oil-for-Food program. Page 35 of the 54-page report, written by Republicans on a House International Relations subcommittee states: "Maurice Strong should be examined for his role in the OFFP." Strong is a long-time advisor to both UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and to Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. On Sept. 7, 2005 it was revealed by the Independent Inquiry into the Oil-for-Food scandal that Strong had received a $1-million cheque from North Korean lobbyist Tongsun Park for the acquisition of shares in Cordex...

Classical Greek and Roman literature is being read for the first time in 2,000 years thanks to new technology. The previously illegible texts are among a hoard of papyrus manuscripts. Scholars say the rediscovered writings will provide a fascinating new window into the ancient world. Salvaged from an ancient garbage dump in Egypt, the collection is kept at Oxford University in England. Known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, the collection includes writings by great classical Greek authors such as Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides. Using a technique called multi-spectral imaging, researchers have uncovered texts that include • parts of a lost tragedy...

Ancient vessel retraces voyages of the past By Stefanos Evripidou IT LOOKS like a tree house stuck on a bamboo banana. In reality it's the incarnation of a pre-Pharaonic reed boat, designed and built to unravel the mysteries of prehistoric navigation. The Abora II drifted in to Larnaca marina yesterday. Weighing in at six- tonnes, the vessel is a totra-reed boat. It is 11.5 metres long, 3.5 metres wide and 1.5 metres deep. The man responsible for building the huge boat is Dominique Goerlitz, a biology teacher at a school in Germany. As a student, Goerlitz was fascinated by the...

Heading'>Why doesn’t the translation of the Egyptian papyri found in 1967 match the text of the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price? Michael D. Rhodes, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, July 1988, 51Michael D. Rhodes, researcher in ancient scriptures, Brigham Young University. The papyri in question are a part of the collection of Egyptian mummies and papyri that the Prophet Joseph Smith bought from Michael Chandler in 1835. After the Prophet’s death, the papyri were lost to the Church. But in 1966, Dr. Aziz S. Atiya, a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Utah,...