The British Library Papyrus of the Constitution of the Athenians

Sean Bonawitz, Neel Smith, and Christopher Blackwell are working during the summer of 2012 on the first steps of a comprehensive publication of only surviving witness to the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians. The papyrus is B.M. Pap. 131, that is, British Museum Papyrus number 131. Christopher Blackwell and Amy Hackney Blackwell, working with Chris Lee of the British Library, photographed this papyrus in November of 2011. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. EAGER–1041949. The images of the papyrus are undergoing automated analysis using new algorithms developed by Dr. Constantin Papaodysseus of the National Technical Institute of Athens. This summer’s work is being supported by the Furman Advantage Program.

The papyrus exists in five fragments. The five fragments show four different manuscript hands. The hands differ in appearance and in their use of abbreviations. According to John Edward Sandy’s 1893 commentary, pp. xxxvi–xxxix,, the first hand “extends over Columns 1–12” the second columns 13 to 20, the third hand runs from 20 to 24 and columns 31–37, while the fourth scribe includes columns from 25 to 30. Hands one and four are most similar to each other, but certainly not identical; Sandy’s came to this conclusion by counting the occurrence of abbreviations. While the first and fourth scribes used a significant amount of short-hand (“tachygraphy”) and abbreviations, the second hand hardly uses any, and in the columns written by the third hand they are scarce. Perhaps the most important thing about the change of hands are the editorial notes that occur throughout the piece. Who was this editor, and why did he make these notes?

Images of the papyrus are here.

Athenian Democracy

 

Students taking Greek 230 in the Spring Semester of 2012 will be reading the essay on the history and workings of Athenian Democracy as described in a text by Aristotle, or a student of Aristotle, the Ἀθηναίων Πολιτεία, The Constitution of the Athenians. In addition to studying the language of this 4th Century BCE text, and the political history it describes, they will be working with a true primary source, reading directly from the papyrus fragments that are the only surviving witnesses to this fundamentally important text.
The papyrus is P. Lond. 131, now at the British Library and formerly in the collection of the British Museum; it was purchased for the Museum in 1888, and F.G. Kenyon identified it as the Ath.Pol. in 1890. He announced his discovery in The Times of London on January 19 of 1891—the announcement ran on page 9. Kenyon published a first edition of the text in 1891.

With funding from the National Science Foundation (Grant  No. EAGER-1041949), we were able to collaborate with the British Library to take new digital photographs of the five  papyrus fragments, which range in length from three feet to five feet long. These photographs will be used as test-data for new methods of automated analysis of Greek scribal hands, using techniques developed at the National Technical University of Athens by Dr. Constantin Papapodysseus and his research team. In addition, they will provide a unique opportunity for Furman undergraduates to create a new digital edition of this priceless text.

The photography took place on November 14, 2011 at the British Library. The images will go into the BL’s digital collection of Greek Manuscript data, but Furman University will enjoy an open-content license to use them freely and to share the fruits of our use with other students and scholars. We are deeply grateful to the entire staff of the British Library, and particularly to the experts in Preservation, Photography, and Curation who worked hard on this project.

Today, November 15, 2011, we are photographing the Bankes Homer, a 9-foot long papyrus fragment of Book 24 of the Iliad. This will become part of the Homer Multitext, Casey Dué and Mary Ebbott, edd.

Further updates on this work will appear here!

Hercules Vanquishing the Hydra

The Department of Classics at Furman is deeply honored and grateful to be the caretakers of the painting “Hercules Vanquishing the Hydra”, by Yvonne Arrowood of Greenville, South Carolina. This large oil painting is after a work by Guido Reni (1575–1642), which hangs now in the Louvre. On this painting, Hercules wears his distinctive lion-skin and is brandishing his club at the many-headed serpent. Furman is fortunate to have this striking work in our collection of fine art, and we are delighted that it now lives in our suite!

Vitruvian design for scholarship in the humanities: Access to scholarly work

More insight on scholarly openness from Neel Smith at Holy Cross:

Vitruvian design for scholarship in the humanities: Access to scholarly work

At Furman, our undergraduates are pursuing important research. The vast majority of them will go on to important positions and rewarding careers outside of the academy. They value their research now because they see that it will increase the amount of useful knowledge in the world. Anything other than strict adherence to the principles of open access would destroy that value. That would be a grave disservice to the dedication and energy of the young scholars whose talents we are privileged to borrow for a few years.

Vitruvian design for scholarship in the humanities: Druids in Oxford?

Correct thinking from Neel Smith at the College of the Holy Cross:

Vitruvian design for scholarship in the humanities: Druids in Oxford?

A new papyrus!

Read about the newly published Bankes papyrus here. See it here. Congratulations to David Creasey, Kylie Elliott, Talley Lattimore, and Brett Stonecipher!

New Testament Transcriptions · Matthew

We are excited to announce the publication of transcriptions of the Gospel of Matthew from two medieval manuscripts. Leah Elder has finished transcribing and editing Matthew from the 1410 Wycliffe translation of the New Testament (see this earlier post). Tucker Hannah has completed an edition of Matthew from the St. Chad Gospel.

Both texts were encoded in TEI-conformant XML and are available through the Furman Classics Canonical Text Service.

Work progresses on indices associating chapter and verse from the transcriptions to regions-of-interest on images of the manuscripts. Our goal is to publish complete digital editions of both manuscripts with closely interrelated images, texts, translations, and other data.