New Papyri Found

[antiochus]

Wait, so do the papyri exist, or no?

Is there an article on the matter?

I'll have to ask Adrian what has happened. In all seriousness I have forgotten about it until this came up. I learnt of the papyri during a conversation with Adrian.

I wonder if the anyonomous poster will reveal his real identy? My bet is no.

[SigniferOne]

It's not really a scandal that the poster is Anonymous. If you look back to the very end of the Roman Military subforum (I'm talking page 130, and over), a lot of threads seem to be started by Anonymous. The reason from what I understand is that RAT migrated from an old forum software years ago, and the names of the earliest posters got scrambled in the process.

But in any case, the papyrus is the most important issue here. Aside from Herculaneum and Vindolanda, Egypt seems to be the most promising place for more new manuscripts. If a manual for fighting steppe horse archers was found, it would be a real treasure indeed.

[D B Campbell]

At the moment we are gathering (very succesfully till now) academic support. We'll be releasing a prospectus pretty soon and hope to get the first issue of the press in 2004. ... And yes, it will be academically oriented, but modern academics do translate their quotes - or we will ask them to.

And thus was Ancient Warfare magazine born (I presume)!

[Praefectusclassis]

Errr, no. That was / is another plan for an purely academic journal. Surprisingly, that seems to be harder to get off the ground.

[A_Volpe]

Ooooh what a tease

Anything about Roman-Egypt 1-2 centuries I am *very* interested in reading about! 8)

[arklore70]

I wonder how hard it would be to get it published in Ancient Warfare ?

Mike

[Tarbicus]

I wonder if the anyonomous poster will reveal his real identy? My bet is no.

I thought it was obvious.

[antiochus]

I have just received this from Adrian Goldsworthy about the papyrus.

Adrian wrote:

"Afraid it has not been published. A French team is in charge of the ostraka from Mons Claudianus and they are much more interested in linguistics than history. The volume probably won't come out for years. There is a summary in Maxfield's article in the volume of papers in honour of John Wilkes called something like Roman Army Documents - it's an ICS publication from a year or so ago."

[jho]

"Afraid it has not been published. A French team is in charge of the ostraka from Mons Claudianus and they are much more interested in linguistics than history. The volume probably won't come out for years. There is a summary in Maxfield's article in the volume of papers in honour of John Wilkes called something like Roman Army Documents - it's an ICS publication from a year or so ago."

He may be referring to:

Maxfield, Valerie "Ostraca and the Roman Army in the Eastern Desert."in: John J. Wilkes: Documenting the Roman Army. Essays in Honour of Margaret Roxan, London: Institute of Classical Studies 2003

Has anybody read that?

[Praefectusclassis]

I've heard the original lecture, six years ago, but I don't have any useful memory of that anymore. :oops:

[D B Campbell]

Has anybody read that?

I ought to have -- I reviewed it here.

But, like Jasper, I have no useful memory of Val Maxfield's paper. I'll look tonight.

[D B Campbell]

Adrian wrote:
"Afraid it [the papyrus] has not been published. A French team is in charge of the ostraka from Mons Claudianus and they are much more interested in linguistics than history. The volume probably won't come out for years. There is a summary in Maxfield's article in the volume of papers in honour of John Wilkes called something like Roman Army Documents - it's an ICS publication from a year or so ago."

Maxfield's article is about the desert outpost of Mons Claudianus, where some 10,000 inscribed pottery fragments (ostraka) were found. On p. 154, she writes: "Papyrus is attested, though relatively rarely, while the wooden tablets familiar in Egypt from the Nile Valley and the Fayum, are unknown."

But every cloud has a silver lining. Near the end, she mentions the site of Krokodilo (El Mweih), about 100km south of Mons Claudianus.

Copies were made of dispatches received at the site. One concerns an attack by 60 barbarians on the unidentified praesidium site of Patkoua. The barbarians, we are told, attacked at 2pm and the soldiers fought them off until nightfall, resuming the combat the next day. Civilians, who lived around the praesidium had to shift for themselves during the night. On the first day one soldier was killed, a woman and two children taken off (one of the children was subsequently executed). The casualties of the next day are not known. Antonius Celer, a cavalryman of II Ituraeorum, who took part in the incident made a report on it to his superior, the centurion Cassius Victor; this report was passed on 'to the prefects, centurions, decurions, duplicarii and curatores of the Myos Hormos route'.

Shades of Beau Geste!

[SigniferOne]

Well I'm glad I got the ball rolling. If Mons Claudianus is indeed the origin of the report, that's that much more definite information about the possible provenance and content.

[Dan Diffendale]

Well I'm glad I got the ball rolling. If Mons Claudianus is indeed the origin of the report, that's that much more definite information about the possible provenance and content.

Not Mons Claudianus, but Krokodilo, 100 km south, if you read Duncan's post...

thanks Duncan!

[SigniferOne]

Ah right, Krokodilo it is...

But I'm wondering, is this report by a local legionary the same famed "anti-horse-archers" manual which we've been teased by since the first post?