PAPYROLOGY. – It is the science that studies papyri (v.) both from the palaeographical point of view and from the point of view of their content; apart from medieval papyri, it concerns itself with ancient papyri written in various languages, including ancient Egyptian (in hieroglyphic, hieratic, demotic and Coptic characters), Aramaic, Persian, Greek, Latin and Arabic; Greek papyri are the most prevalent.
Most papyri come from Egypt; DUBA EUROPOS (v.) on the right bank of the Euphrates, or from Palestine or from Sinai; a notable group, carbonised, was discovered at Herculaneum. This is a science that may be said to be recent, since the papyri of Herculaneum were found in 1752 and the first papyrus from Egypt reached Europe in 1778. Only after Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt in 1798 did interest in these discoveries manifest itself, and numerous texts began to flow into museums and libraries in Turin, Paris, Berlin, Leiden and Rome (Vatican). Systematic excavations in Egypt in search of papyri were begun in 1883 by Flinders Petrie and have since been continued and intensified not only by the English but also by Germans, French, Italians and, more recently, Americans, while many scholarly bodies in Europe and America have acquired collections of papyri and published numerous and important series. From 1921 onwards, Greek and Latin papyri have also appeared from the excavations at Dura-Europos, and in Palestine at ‘Avigia al-Ḥafir the Colt collection was discovered.
Since the papyri, numbering several tens of thousands, relate to almost every aspect of the daily life of the ancients, especially in Egypt and particularly from the 4th century BC to the 10th century AD, it is evident that they make a contribution of the greatest importance to the fields of philology and ancient history, and above all to the history of law, given that documentary papyri far outnumber literary ones.
In particular, since Egypt is one of the countries most directly connected at all times with Palestine, before, during and after the birth of Christ, papyrological documents (together with the ostraca, parchments and wooden tablets preserved alongside them) provide important materials for study, both because of the similarity of the country and because the Christian communities in Egypt multiplied and flourished rapidly, taking advantage of the same Jewish expansion in the Nile valley; Egypt was indeed the refuge of Jesus with the Virgin and St Joseph during Herod’s persecution and certainly received the earliest reflections of Christian preaching, while later the deserts of Nitria, Middle Egypt and Thebaid welcomed the first monastic communities of the followers of St Anthony the Abbot and St Pachomius. It should also be borne in mind that Alexandria, between the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, was a centre of Christian studies, and mention should be made of the didascalium associated above all with the name of Clement of Alexandria; it will also be observed how important in Egypt were the heretical struggles, which recall the names of St Athanasius and Theophilus of Alexandria.
A considerable quantity of Greek papyri, some Latin papyri and all Coptic papyri (sometimes bilingual, Greek-Coptic) bring us into direct contact with Egyptian Christian society from its very origins and with the Egyptian Church, which later adopted Coptic as its liturgical language and still preserves it, even after the Monophysite schism.