Digitization and Indexing of Coptic Papyri (K-Tafeln) from the Collection of Papyri and Ostraca at the Leipzig University Library
Final Report Abstract
In the framework of the project, October 2020 – November 2022, 776 hitherto unknown Coptic literary fragments were investigated for the first time and catalogued in the online database Papyrus Portal. The fragments had been acquired together in the early 20th century and seem to derive from a common source in the Fayyum oasis—likely a Coptic monastic library. The overwhelming majority of fragments (about 95 %) are written on papyrus (datable to the 6th to 8th centuries), but the assemblage contains also parchment (9th to 10th c.) and paper fragments (10th to 12th c.). Most of the papyrus fragments (about 85 %) are written in the Fayyumic dialect of Coptic, whose literature is still comparatively poorly understood. The remaining papyrus fragments as well as all pieces on parchment and paper are written in the better known Sahidic dialect. Biblical, hagiographical and apocryphal texts could be identified among the fragments—in some cases constituting their first attestations in the respective dialects. With the Martyrdom of Saint Apa Prau, there are even fragments of an entirely unknown text in the assemblage. Possibly, some of the as yet unidentified fragments, which often appear to be apocryphal in nature, also contain hitherto unknown texts. The project has shown that the group of fragments known as “K-Tafeln” constitutes an important—and in its composition unique—assemblage of literary fragments, which will surely improve our understanding of Coptic literature in general and Fayyumic literature in particular.
