The Turin Papyrus Collection – Past, Present and Future research projects on DeM papyri

This upcoming Liverpool Egyptology Seminar, is presented by Dr Susanne Töpfer (Museo Egizio di Torino).This is a hybrid event, and we encourage in-person attendance which facilitates discussion and fosters a sense of community among the ‘Liverpool’ Egyptologists.

• Thursday 7 March 5pm (UK time)
• Hybrid event - in person at Rendall SR4 or online on Zoom
• Register to receive Zoom link

Abstract

The Museo Egizio holds one of the world’s most significant papyrus collections. The Papyrus Collection comprises nearly 700 whole or reassembled manuscripts and over 20,000 papyrus fragments; documenting over 3,000 years of written material culture in seven scripts and eight languages. The vast majority of the papyrus manuscripts in the Museo Egizio date from the Ramesside period and are highly likely to originate from the settlement of Deir el-Medina, which housed the families of the workmen who built the royal tombs. The papyri probably belonged to members of the administration of the royal necropolis.

The lecture consists of two parts: the first part will focus on the research done on that material within the last 200 years, since the first documents came to Turin in 1824. In the second part, the ongoing and planed research projects will be presented, emphasising the use and content of the “Turin Papyrus Online Platform (TPOP)”, an open-access repository enabling the community of experts based at different European locations to contribute data. Furthermore, at the front end it adapts to the needs of different users, from the interested layman to the highly specialized philologist and papyrologist.

Links to suggested readings

We thrive to encourage scholarly debate around the presentation. For that purpose, the speaker has provided a range of readings that would help the public and student audience gain familiarity, if and where needed, with the context in which the specialized research is embedded.

• Polis, St. et al., “Crossing Boundaries: Understanding Complex Scribal Practices in Ancient Egypt (with a 2019 Progress Report)”, Rivista del Museo Egizio 4 (2020).
• Töpfer, S., “The Turin Papyrus Online Platform (TPOP): An Introduction”, Rivista del Museo Egizio 2 (2018).
• Del Vesco, P. and F. Poole, “Deir el-Medina in the Egyptian Museum in Turin: An Overview, and the Way Forward”, in Dorn, Andreas and Stéphane Polis (eds.), Outside the Box: Selected Papers from the Conference “Deir el-Medina and the Theban Necropolis in Contact” Liège, 27-29 October 2014, Liège 2018, pp. 97–130.

 

Other resources:

https://collezionepapiri.museoegizio.it/en-GB/

 

'Goldmine Papyrus' image used has been sourced from Museo Egizio online under the CC BY 2.0 IT DEED licence.