History of Ancient Law and Papyrology

The research group »History of Ancient Law and Papyrology« emerged from the former Commission for Ancient Legal History of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The group conducts research into ancient legal history with a focus on the documentary texts surviving in inscriptions and papyri. Its research focuses on the law of the Greek polis and its epigraphic evidence, as well as the legal life and institutions of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt on the basis of the papyrological testimonies. Another focus is on the analysis of written and cultural evidence in a broader context in order to investigate five millennia of ancient Egypt’s art and culture, its intellectual history as well as its history and chronology.