Actes du XXXe Congrès international de papyrologie

Every three years, papyrologists from around the world gather to announce their new discoveries, present the research programmes they are launching, or submit innovative approaches to their peers. The congress held in Paris in 2022 was the thirtieth of its kind—a high number that testifies to the maturity of a discipline which, though relatively recent within the field of Classical studies, remains attentive to advances in new technologies and committed to the continuous publication of unpublished papyri lying dormant in collections or uncovered through excavation, and thus is constantly renewing itself. This volume brings together the proceedings of that congress; it therefore offers a valuable snapshot of the trends and contours of a discipline in perpetual motion.

Following four papers delivered in plenary session, which reflect on developments in papyrology and on the directions it would be desirable for the field to pursue—or, conversely, to avoid—the reader will find seventy-four contributions of a highly varied nature. Alongside presentations of new collections or newly published documentary and literary papyri from Egypt, as well as studies pertaining to Herculaneum papyrology, are found works on institutional, social, religious, and cultural history, as well as historiography; linguistic and lexicographical surveys (notably in the field of material culture); bibliological and palaeographical investigations; reflections on the contribution of new technologies; and much more.

All the languages spoken during the “papyrological millennium” are represented in this volume: Greek and Latin, of course, but also Demotic, Coptic, and Arabic. From Hellenistic-era bandits to astronomy between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, via the care of horses in the Roman period and the magic of Late Antiquity, these proceedings—by expressing the diverse sensibilities of such a wide-ranging discipline—offer something to satisfy every curiosity.