The Papyrus-Collection at The Department of Greek and Latin, of the SAXO Institute

University of Copenhagen. (P.Haun)


The Copenhagen papyrus collection is a small one with some 400 inventory numbers. It consists of several lots, bought a different times. The first lot (inv. 1-255) was bought in the early twenties, originally for the Royal Library, but soon after deposited here. The second (inv. 300-327c) and third (inv. 400-407) lot were bought in the late twenties and early thirties, apparently with the help of Fr. Zucker and W. Schubart. All papyri, both in this collection and in the Carsten Niebuhr collection are bought with money given by the Carlsberg Foundation. Most of the papyri from the later acquisitions are mounted in Berlin in the characteristic Hugo Ibscher way. The most famous papyrus we have, I suppose, is the Copenhagen Sappho-fragment inv. 301, but better known as L&P frg. 98, or P.MilVogl. II 40. The other half of the fragment is in Milan (Castello Sforzesco) and I have an unpublished photograph taken on an occasion when the two originals were together for the first and only time since antiquity.
The collection also contains 5 distributed Oxyrhynchus papyri:
inv. Oxyrhynchus 1 =  P.Oxy 1622  and P.Oxy 1710 ;
inv. Oxyrhynchus 2 =  P.Oxy 1490  and its unpublished recto;
inv. Oxyrhynchus 3 =  P.Oxy 1525  and  P.Oxy 1530
The images of these are in 300 dpi.

 The collection does not contain any unpublished marvels. All Ptolemaic texts are published and all the literary ones too. A fourth volume of P.Haun. is half-finished and will appear, one day.

 Papyri in the collection have occasionally shown affiliations with other collections mostly, one would suppose, through the hazards of the papyrus market. Thus the Sappho, which has already been mentioned was bought at about the same time as Achille Vogliano was bying in Egypt. But also P.Haun 14+15 which were discovered by P.J. Sijpesteijn to belong with P.Mich. 679, see AB-J and Vincent McCarren "P. Haun. 14, P. Mich. 679 and P. Haun. 15. - A Re-edition", ZPE 58, 1985, pp. 71-79.

 An as yet unpublished fragment (inv. 319) of a codex-leaf is the other half of the leaf published as P.Bon. 1 (somebody is working on it and it will be published).
Some papyri from the Hauniensis collection have also been published outside the series:

inv. 400 was published by M.W. Haslam as P.Turner 8
inv. 21 AB-J as P.Turner 25
inv. 326c by I. Andorlini in Greek Medical Papyri I. Firenze 2001. No 11, pp. 119-129
inv. 25 by AB-J in Papyri in honorem Johannis Bingen octogenarii (P.Bingen) ed. Henri Melaerts (Studia varia Bruxellensia ad orbem Graeco-Latinum pertinentia V), Leuven, 2000. 241-243. = P.Bingen 58.
inv. 182. i A.J.B. Sirks & K.A. Worp Papyri in Memory of P.J. Sijpesteijn.( = American studies in papyrology 40) 2007, pp. 77-78. = P.Sijp. 14.

 The three published volumes are:

 Papyri graecae haunienses, fasciculus primus. Literarische Texte und Ptolemäische Urkunden. Herausgegeben von Tage Larsen. Copenhagen 1942.

 Papyri graecae haunienses, fasciculus secundus. Letters and mummy labels from Roman Egypt edited with translation and commentary by Adam Bülow-Jacobsen. Bonn 1981 (= PTA Band 29)

 Papyri graecae haunienses, fasciculus tertius. Subliterary texts and Byzantine documents from Egypt edited with translation and commentary by Tage Larsen (deceased) and Adam Bülow-Jacobsen. Bonn 1985 (= PTA Band 36)

Adam Bülow-Jacobsen
To my Homepage
You can go to the description and index of the collection of negatives of the AIP.
In case you were thinking of the Greek and demotic papyri in the Carsten Niebuhr Institute, they are called P.Carlsberg
Last updated 3/10-2007