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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
I DO not think that it is at all generally known that among the Egyptian antiquities given by Grant Bey to the Museum at Aberdeen there are a considerable number of papyrus fragments, Greek, Coptic,1 Hieratic, Demotic, and even Latin and Arabic, which except for an inspection by Prof. Sayce and a passing visit of Dr. Grenfell have up till now been left unexamined. That indeed is my only reason for trespassing in a branch of Palaeography with which I am quite unfamiliar; and it is in the hope of inciting some experienced papyrologist to turn his attention to them that I publish the following fragments. In the case of the Greek fragments lack of time combined with a mistrust of my powers of deciphering the more illegible non-literary hands forbade me do more than select the most promising literary fragments. Among these Homer naturally predominates; but the gem of the collection is a lyric fragment, which may fairly certainly be ascribed to Alcaeus, though Dr. Grenfell who first noticed it attributed it to Sappho. A fragment of Demosthenes, a fragment of Dioscorides, and a vellum fragment of a Latin Bible, were the only others which I succeeded in identifying; but these, with the few tragic, comic, and medical fragments which I also reproduce, are, I think, first-fruits sufficient to show that the crop would not be barren, if it found a competent gleaner.
page 257 note 1 The Coptic fragments I examined, and found that, with the exception of one Achmimie fragment already known to specialists, they are too small and ill preserved to be of any value.
page 261 note 1 M.Reinach is wrong in calling it ‘deux lambeaux’: it is really one, though almost severed into two.
page 262 note 1 Revue des Ittudes grecgues xviii. 81 (July 1905) 295, and a later article in the same Revue. It has since been reproduced by U.von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff in Berliner Klassiker Texte, Heft V, Theil II (1907) pp. 148–149. He recognises that it is connected with a fragment published by Schubart Site. Berl Akad. 1902, p. 195; and suggests for the last line of the Aberdeen fragment the reading Mύρσιλος ⋯λεσεν, which fits very well with the trace of letters visible on the photo. This fragment seems, judging from Schubart's photo, to fit on to the bottom of his fragment.
