• About Us
• Plan A Visit
• Events & News
• Exhibitions
• Collections
• Education
• Image Gallery
• Support The Library
• Shop

• Back to Homepage

• Introduction
• The East Asian Collection
• The Islamic Collection
• The Western Collection
  • Papyri
    • History
    • Egyptian
    • Biblical
    • Witness
    • Greek
    • Merton
    • Coptic
    • Manichaean
  • Manuscripts
  • History of the Book
  • Prints & Drawings
• Reading Room
• Archives
• Preservation & Conservation
• Researchers

Egyptian

In comparison with later periods, the collection of Ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts is small. Apart from the single roll containing the Love Poems and other texts from Deir el-Medina, the remaining manuscripts are largely a collection of miscellaneous funerary or business texts from 1800 BC to the Roman period.

The earliest items - a number of fragmentary Lahun documents - have been dated to 1800 BC and there are several books of the dead (c. tenth-ninth century BC to first century AD), but most are in a fragmentary state except for one (Book of the Dead of the Lady Neskons c. 300 BC). Other documents include accounts, contracts and registrations.

Publications

Fowler, Barbars H. (1994) Love Lyrics of Ancient Egypt, Chapel Hill, NC and London: University of North Carolina Press.

Gardiner, Alan H., F. B. A. (1931) The Library of A. Chester Beatty: Description of a Hieratic Papyrus with a Mythological Story, Love-Songs and other Miscellaneous Texts. The Chester Beatty Papyri No. 1, first printed by John Johnson at The Oxford University Press. London: Emery Walker, Ltd.
-- (1935) Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum. Third Series: Chester Beatty Gift, London: British Museum. (Describes the donation of Papyrus Chester Beatty II-XIX to the British Museum.)

Glanville, S. R. K. (1933) 'The Admission of a Priest of Soknebtynis in the Second Century BC. Merton Demotic Papyri I', Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 19, Parts I and II.

Lichtheim, Miriam (1980) Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings. Vol. III: The Late Period, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.

Manniche, L. (1987) Sexual Life in Ancient Egypt. London and New York: Kegan Paul International.

Montserrat, Dominic (1996) Sex and Society in Graeco-Roman Egypt. London and New York: Kegan Paul International.

Pestman, P. W. (1982) 'Who Were the Owners, in the "Community of Workmen", of the Chester Beatty Papyri?' in R. J. Demaree and Jac J. Janssen (eds) Gleanings from Deir El-Medina. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten.

Thomas, J. David (ed.) (1982) 'Unedited Merton Papyri II', Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 68.