One of the research projects that I have in mind is a study of the reuse of papyrus manuscripts in ancient Egypt during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. There has been some debate in scholarship as to whether there was such a wastepaper trade. I would like to find out. I would  like to find out especially because I am interested in where the thirteen Nag Hammadi Codices (NHC) were produced: in a Christian monastery or not.

The Nag Hammadi Codices were produced somewhere in Egypt during the late 300s or early 400s and then buried together for some reason in a cemetery (you can see images of the site here, searching the subject index under the heading of ‘caves’ for instance). The codices contain copies of non-canonical Christian texts like the Gospel Thomas as well as some pagan texts like the Hermetic Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth. Since the time of their discovery near the city of Nag Hammadi in the 1940s, scholars have debated who produced and read the codices, where, and why.

Perhaps the most common scholarly view is that the codices were produced in a Christian monastery or two or three. Several scholars go on to speculate that Christian monks were reading  the non-canonical and pagan texts in these codices for devotional purposes alongside canonical Christian texts, until a church authority banned non-canonical texts, and so the monks took the codices out of the monastery and hid them where they would not be destroyed (but never went back for them?).

Another view is that the codices were not produced or read in a Christian monastery. They were produced and read within what might be called an esoteric community or network of communities whose members may or may not have been Christians of one kind or another. These esotericists collected and read Hermetic texts alongside non-canonical Christian texts, and they may have been Hermetists themselves, one of whom was buried with the esoteric library of the Nag Hammadi Codices. Admittedly the sociological identity of such a community or network of communities is debatable, but it is striking that there are no canonical texts in the codices; if Christian monks were reading both non-canonical and canonical texts for devotional purposes, it is difficult to explain why they did not put a single canonical text in any of these thirteen codices.

The only canonical text in the Nag Hammadi Codices is a fragment of Genesis that was not copied there and read for devotional purposes; it was used as wastepaper.  When the codices were produced, their leather covers were reinforced with reused papyri. A total of 172 of these reused papyri survives, including the fragment of Genesis. Some of the reused papyri are indeed monastic documents. However, many others are not monastic at all:  accounts, lists, deeds, loans, etc.

In order to begin to evaluate the significance of these reused papyri that are monastic and those that are not, it is necessary to understand how papyri were reused generally in ancient Egypt during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, which is something that is not well understood in scholarship. What kinds of papyri were reused? What were they reused for? Who reused them? Where did people in ancient Egypt get used papyri? Were papyri often used and then reused in the same village or city or region? Were they sometimes used and then reused many miles away? Was there a wastepaper trade?

There are a number of digital humanities resources and tools available to get at answers to these questions. I’ll be exploring and describing some of them in a few posts. Here I want to link to a map that I created in class this week using ArcGIS. It is just an initial map. The only contents so far are the  seven reused papyri from the Nag Hammadi Codices that can be located geographically: nos 1, 22, 23, 28, 31, 64, 153. Nos 22, 23, 28, and 31 can be located to the same place, so there are not seven points on the map but only four. Along with these four orange points, you’ll see a yellow arrow marking the approximate find spot of the Nag Hammadi Codices.

For each of the four points, in the popup box you’ll see a link to the entry in the Trismegistos database of places related to the ancient world. Trismegistos is where I got the coordinates for each location. I’ll say more about it in another post. The coordinates on Trimegistos are degrees minutes. In the CSV file that I used to make my map on ArcGIS I needed to convert them to decimal degrees. I used this calculator to do that (thanks for the help Wright!).

Before I interpret the map, I should mention that the locations of these seven reused papyri may not be exactly where they came from. No 1 involves a contract that workers from a certain village (name missing) have with the city of Diospolis Parva, which is in the same district as the village. Nos  22, 23, 28, and 31 probably come from the city of Antinoopolis, according to the scholar who was in charge of editing them.  No 64 is a loan between a borrower from the little-known village of Techthy (no coordinates on Trismegistos) and a lender from the city of Tentyris (he used to be magistrate there anyway). No 153 is a letter from the city of Chenoboskia, modern-day Nag Hammadi, the largest city near where the thirteen codices were found. The letter was written from Chenoboskia. It is unknown where it was written and delivered to before being reused to strengthen the covers of the Nag Hammadi Codices.

The measuring tool on ArcGIS gives  me the following distances between locations:

~3 miles between Nag Hammadi (reused papyrus no 153 from NHC XI) and Diospolis Parva (reused papyrus no 1 from NHC I)

~25 miles between Nag Hammadi and Tentyris (reused papyrus no 64 from NHC VII)

~148 miles between Nag Hammadi and Antinoopolis (reused papyri nos 22, 23, 28, 31 from NHC V)

The most interesting datum is the last one. It could be that nos 22, 23, 28, and 31 were brought some 150 miles from Antinoopolis to the area of Nag Hammadi where they were used to reinforce the cover of NHC V as it was produced and then buried with the rest of the thirteen codices.  But a better interpretation might be that NHC V was produced in the area of Antinoopolis itself, while perhaps other codices were produced elsewhere, such as in the area of Nag Hammadi. Scholars have grouped the codices together based in part on the handwriting of the non-canonical and pagan texts that were copied onto their pages. The same scribes copied the texts of NHC I, VII, and XI (one group); and the covers of these codices were all reinforced with papyri from locations within 25 miles of the eventual find spot. But the texts of NHC V (from another group) were copied by a different scribe, who may have been working in the area of Antinoopolis, 150 miles away.

If it is assumed that NHC I, VII, and XI were produced in about the same place as well as by the same people near Nag Hammadi, it would still need to be explained how used papyri from as far away as 25 miles were brought together to strengthen the covers of these codices. Was there a local wastepaper trade that sold used papyri, both monastic and non-monastic? Alternatively, did monks go out and get wastepaper from the closest trash heaps whenever they needed to supplement what they had at hand in the monastery?  An explanation is also needed, if NHC V was produced 150 miles away by someone else. Did monks in different areas produce the codices and then gather them together?

An additional layer to have on my map would be the locations of Christian monasteries in Egypt. However, the question remains: why would Christian monks not put a single canonical text in the Nag Hammadi Codices?

I also want to map the reuse of papyri generally, which I’ll post more about next time.

Tags: wastepaper trade

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 13th, 2013 at 11:52 am and is filed under wastepaper trade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.