* Long-ago folks didn’t have Post-it notes or Smartphones. Instead, they wrote on papyrus paper, wood, pottery shards, wax tablets, whitewashed walls.
* Their birthday invitations, doctor bills, love letters, work agreements, prayers, and to-do lists still exist. Often in hiding. And sometimes recycled in astonishing ways.
* Inside this mummified crocodile, for instance.
* Why should we care?
* Because these small jigsaw pieces of the past speak directly to us.
They reveal the hopes, fears, and realities of men and women
very much like you and me.
* Let’s eavesdrop.
What: it’s a papyrus document, written in Greek, listing the questions put to an oracle located in Greco-Roman Egypt
Who: the queries come from 15 unnamed Greek-speaking individuals who visited this oracle
Why: For a millennium or more, people from slaves to senators sought answers at oracles, especially at crossroads moments
Where found: in the rubbish dumps of Oxyrhynchus, an ancient town about 150 miles south of Cairo
When: the questions date to circa AD 300
To learn more: Select Papyri, Vol. 1, item 195, in the Loeb Classical Library; 1970 edition translated by A. Hunt & C. Edgar.
Testaments of Time, by Leo Deuel. (Knopf 1965). Out of the Past of Greece and Rome, by M. Rostovtzeff. (Yale U. Press 1932).
I really love this! And that picture of the crocodile is amazing. Who knew they could seem so “cute” and “cuddly?” Imagine having a job where you had to cut open a croc to read notes and letters thousands of years old. How cool is that!
absolutely fascinating!
what would your question to the oracle be Vicki?!
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@Vicky, glad you like this…there will be more soon about the crocs and their contents, including examples from croco-fied papyrus. Plus we’ll get into the why papyrus was recycled in this fashion. And aren’t we glad they did!
@ hasan: your question took me aback……I’m not sure I would want to know the answers to those questions! OK, maybe the ‘am I being poisoned’ one. knowing what the future holds seems wrong but I do understand the ancient Greek and Roman fears about beginnings, and crossroads. And their longing to achieve their human desires while pleasing the gods as well. At least, that’s my strange little take on the topic.
Hi Vicki!
As I leave work today, thinking about your name, I realize I met you before.
I came home to confirm, you autographed my “Uppity Women o the New World” book!!!!
So thank you! I read about the book and drove to Morro Bay for your book signing July 2001 and so now I meet you again!
Enjoy the ipad and please come back to the store for more info when needed!
Happy Eve and Good Day to you and Paul…
Dawn from the Apple Store on 19 Oct 2010