Papyri

The initiative to start a collection of papyri in Munich goes back to Georg von Laubmann, the director of the Royal Court and State Library from 1882 to 1909. The first purchase of around 16 literary fragments and around 110 deeds or fragments of deeds was made by the archaeologist Hermann Thiersch in the year 1900. Among the purchased items, there were already Pap.graec.mon. 89 (Herodot I 115 – 116) and Pap.graec.mon. 90 (Xenophon, De Vectigalibus I 5 – 6). As of 1909, the Royal Court and State Library was a member of the division B for Greek literary papyri of the German Papyrus Cartel, acquiring further important pieces in the course of this membership.

Among the around 630 papyri of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, there are almost 490 Greek ones (Pap.graec.mon.), which are of a predominantly documentary character. However, some also contain fragments of literary texts.

• Herodot: Histories, book I, 115 – 116 (fragment)  (Pap.graec.mon. 89)
• Galen: De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis I, p. 88, 20 – 31; 90, 12 – 22 De Lacy  (Pap.graec.mon. 329)
• Xenophon: Symposium III, 9 – 10 (2 fragments)  (Pap.graec.mon. 160)
• Xenophon: De vectigalibus I, 5 – 6 (fragment)  (Pap.graec.mon. 312)

Further information and bibliographic references with regard to the papyri can be found on the pages of the "Manuscripts" collection.

Manuscript collection, papyri

Arnold, Erwin: Die Papyrussammlung der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek: ein historischer Abriß. In: Heisenberg, August; Wenger, Leopold (ed.): Byzantinische Papyri der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München. 2nd, amended edition, by Dieter Hagedorn. Stuttgart, 1986. p. 9-16. Die Papyri der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München. Griechische Papyri. 1: 1-18.

Wilcken, Ulrich: Zu den griechischen Papyri der königlich bayerischen Hof- und Staatsbibliothek zu München. In: Archiv für Papyrusforschung 1 (1901), p. 468-491.