Derveni papyrus
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Some fragments of the Derveni papyrus
The Derveni papyrus - Archaeological museum of Thessaloniki
The
Derveni papyrus is an
ancient Greek papyrus roll that was found in 1962. It is a philosophical treatise that is an allegorical commentary on an
Orphic poem, a
theogony concerning the birth of the gods, produced in the circle of the philosopher
Anaxagoras
in the second half of the 5th century BC, making it "the most important
new piece of evidence about Greek philosophy and religion to come to
light since the Renaissance" (Janko 2005). It dates to around 340 BC,
during the reign of
Philip II of Macedon, making it Europe's oldest surviving
manuscript.
[1][2] It was finally published in 2006.
Style of writing
The text of the papyrus contains a mix of dialects. It is mainly a mixture of
Attic and
Ionic Greek; however it contains a few
Doric
forms, which need further explanation. Sometimes the same word appears
in different dialectal forms e.g. cμικρό-, μικρό; ὄντα, ἐόντα; νιν for
μιν etc.
[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derveni_papyrus
THE PAPYRUS OF DERVENI
Thessaloniki, Archaeological Museum, from 4.4.98
A unique model of writing in antiquity, the "Papyrus of Derveni", is
being exposed with other findings of the same excavation. The papyrus
roll was found carbonized among the remains of the funeral pyre upon the
slabs of Derveni Tomb A. It is probably the
single one had been found in Greece and the script is dated to
approximately the third quarter of the fourth century B.C. From scores
and scraps, mostly tiny, it has been possible to reconstruct 26 columns
of writing, of which only the upper part survives.
After an account of funeral rites and eschatological beliefs, the main
part of the text consists of a prose allegorical-philosophical
interpretation of a theogonic poem written in dactylic hexameters and
ascribed in antiquity to the mythical poet Orpheus. The
unknown author seems to have composed the book at the close of the fifth
century B.C. His language abounds with Ionic elements, but this does
not speak necessarily for Ionic origins, since Ionic was the dialect
typical for scientific prose. He seems well conversant with Ionic
philosophy and the likeliest candidate seems to be the Athenian mantis
Euthyphron.
http://books.google.gr/books?id=5HaKQFeYSBEC&pg=PA56&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.metafysiko.gr/forum/archive/index.php/t-1336.html
