The Michigan Daily

Papyrologist Arthur Verhoogt and LSA junior Rob Stephan look at a collection of papyrus at the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library. (JEFF LEHNERT/Daily)

A University undergraduate has unearthed a collection of unpublished ancient Egyptian manuscripts forgotten among the musty library shelves of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library.

LSA junior Rob Stephan discovered more than a dozen unpublished texts during an independent study with classical studies Prof. Arthur Verhoogt. His find almost doubles the size of a previously known and extensively studied archive of papyrus. An archive is all the papyrus — hand-printed ancient documents on paper made from reeds native to Egypt — found in a single house during an archaeological excavation.

“Michigan has the biggest collection of papyrus in the Western Hemisphere, so it’s very possible that they just got overlooked somehow,” Stephan said. The University collection contains more than 12,000 individual fragments of papyrus.

The new texts belong to an archive consisting mainly of personal letters from a Roman soldier to a retired soldier, probably his father, both of whom were stationed in Egypt during the Roman occupation which dates back to 30 B.C.

Former University Prof. Francis Kelsey originally uncovered the papyri during an excavation of the Egyptian town of Karanis in the 1920s and ’30s. He returned them to Michigan along with artifacts now housed at Kelsey’s namesake, the University’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.

Verhoogt and Stephan decided to re-examine the papyri in context of the archaeological artifacts. “I wanted to look at the papyrus and the artifacts that were brought back to try to find out what life was like for the average Joe in Egyptian society,” Stephan said.

While poring over records of the excavation at the Kelsey Museum, Stephan realized that many of the manuscripts that had been brought back did not have associated publication numbers.

“So we went to the vaults in the Papyrology Library and there they were,” he said. “It’s really a thrill to be one of the first people to read these texts in almost 2,000 years.”

Verhoogt dubbed their find an example of “museum archaeology.”

“Instead of going to the field to start digging, you go to the museum to start digging, and there’s a lot of nice stuff to be discovered there as well,” he said.

“This is one of those wonderful experiences when you actually have an undergraduate contributing to the progress of the field,” Verhoogt added.

The new texts contain some surprising information about the soldiers. One of the fragments, for example, is a copy of Thucydides’ “The History of the Peloponnesian War,” an ancient Greek classic still read today by students in Great Books classes. The fragment, dating from the 2nd century A.D., may be one of the oldest copies of Thucydides ever found, Verhoogt said.

“What’s a Roman veteran doing with Greek literature?” he asked. According to classical studies Prof. Traianos Gagos, president of the American Society of Papyrologists, the fragment may indicate that the older soldier came from an educated family, especially coupled with Latin texts in the archive that suggest he could read multiple languages.

The letters paint a picture of an ordinary young man, Stephan said, who writes to ask for warm socks and boots and to ask his reluctant father for permission to marry his girlfriend.

The Karanis papyri are unusual because they are associated with artifacts from the same house, said Kelsey Museum curator Susan Alcock. Most papyri are purchased from dealers and can only be examined out of context since the exact location of origin is usually unknown.

“What Karanis offers is a chance to reconstruct daily life in this perfectly ordinary little town, which is impossible almost anywhere else in the world,” she said. The artifacts include a toy sword, pots and pans, fragments of clothing and other bric-a-brac, rendered precious by their 2,000-year history. These and other artifacts from the town of Karanis are currently on display in an exhibit at the Kelsey Museum, “Archaeologies of Childhood: The First Years of Life in Roman Egypt.”

Of Stephan, who works at the Kelsey Museum, Alcock said, “Rob’s a real live wire — enthusiasm personified. He’s going to make a mark on the field, I suspect.”

In March, Stephan won the Phillips Classical Prize in Greek translation, for which he translated part of the New Testament from Greek similar to that in which the new papyri are written. Although he has never been to Egypt, he has taken part in archaeological excavations in southwest New Mexico and Tennessee.

Stephan plans to continue his independent study and to follow up with graduate work after senior year. “The Indiana Jones movies made me want to be an archaeologist,” he said. “I want to be Indiana Jones when I grow up.”

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