Anna Dolganov, ancient historian and papyrologist at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, unveils a new blog on papyrology that presents new findings from the study of ancient documents. The blog is dedicated to ancient texts in Greek and Latin that have been preserved on papyrus, parchment, clay fragments, and wooden, waxed or lead tablets. These original documents provide direct insight into everyday lives in the ancient Mediterranean. They contain, for example, contracts, trial records, letters, magical spells and medical prescriptions. The blog will feature contributions by papyrologists in Austria, as well as guest posts by international experts, and will be published in both German and English.
The first blog post is a report by Anna Dolganov on a newly discovered Greek papyrus from the Judaean Desert: »Romans go home!«. The text from Israel was written during Hadrian's reign in the years between two bloody Jewish uprisings against Roman rule: the rebellion of the Jewish diaspora (115–117 AD) and the Bar Kochba revolt (132–136 AD). This sensational document illustrates a criminal trial for forgery, tax evasion and possibly rebellious activity in the Roman provinces of Iudaea and Arabia, on the territory of modern Israel and Jordan, immediately before the outbreak of the Bar Kochba revolt.