Online Exhibition: Diversity in the Desert

University of Michigan Papyrus Collection

Thanks to the What's New in Papyrology blog for the link to the online exhibtion Diversity in the Desert, Daily Life in Greek and Roman Egypt. This is an excellently presented and informative website, linking the individual papyri with the bigger picture of Egypt in the Graeco-Roman period. Well worth a visit even if this isn't your particular period of interest. Here's the introduction:

Documents such as letters, accounts, and contracts provide an intimate view of people's daily lives. That is the case for us today, as it was for people in history. We are therefore very fortunate that the dry sands of Egypt have preserved tens of thousands of written documents on papyrus and other writing materials that provide evidence for people's lives over a period of several thousands of years.

This exhibit brings together examples that show how documents can help scholars reconstruct people's lives in ancient Egypt in the ten centuries after Alexander the Great arrived in 332 B.C.E. After Alexander's conquest, Egypt became a Hellenistic (Greek) kingdom under the dynasty of the Ptolemies. Three centuries later, when the Romans defeated the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, Egypt became part of the Roman Empire and later Byzantine Empire.

All of the texts shown here form part of the Papyrus Collection of the University of Michigan.

See the above page for the full story.