Link
tba [https://awk.nrw.de/die-krokodil-und-menschenmumien-von-tebtynis]
Runtime
2026–2041
Project participants
Project lead: Prof. Dr. Charikleia Armoni (Papyrology, University of Cologne), Prof. Dr. Jürgen Hammerstaedt (Papyrology, University of Cologne), Prof. Dr. Patrick Sänger (Ancient History, University of Münster). CCeH staff: Claes Neuefeind, Marcel Schaeben, Börge Kiss, Moritz Eßer, Prianka Schmidt.
Funding
Funded by the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.
Description
The aim of the project is to study several thousand texts written in Greek using a combination of traditional textual criticism and new digital methods. The texts date from between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC and were extracted from so-called mummy cartonnage, which has resulted in them being heavily fragmented. These fragments of inscribed papyrus sheets were reused for the mummification of humans and crocodiles. They were buried in the necropolis of the Egyptian city of Tebtunis (near present-day Umm el-Baragat), an important cult centre of the ancient Egyptian crocodile god Sobek. They were discovered during excavations carried out at the beginning of the 20th century and are now kept at the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri in the Bancroft Library (Berkeley).
The texts cover a wide range of subjects: official and private correspondence, petitions and complaints from the public, official announcements, contracts, official registers of various kinds, lists drawn up for private purposes, official reports, receipts, various notes, etc. As is customary with papyrological evidence, these sources provide details of everyday life in antiquity. The papyri in the Bancroft Library collection are particularly revealing regarding the living conditions of the immigrants who, from the 4th century BC onwards, flocked to Egypt from various parts of the Greek world and constituted a significant proportion of the population of this region.
The unique fact that all the papyri in the collection originate from the same excavation context opens up the prospect of bringing together numerous unexplored fragments through the use of information technology, thereby fully realising the great documentary value of this papyrus collection. The digital component of the project essentially comprises two main areas of focus: (1) digitally cataloguing the collection of fragments using established standards and making it available via a working and publication platform, and (2) providing IT support for the reunification of related fragments – in particular by testing and adapting promising AI-based methods for fragment matching.
Picture credits
A crocodile mummy, part of the ‘Object Lessons’ exhibition at the Bancroft Library Gallery, photographed on 15 October 2019 (photo by Violet Carter for UC Berkeley Library).