THE ARTEMIDORUS PAPYRUS

THE ARTEMIDORUS PAPYRUS

Artemidorus of Ephesus wrote a geography treatise around 100 BC believed to consist of eleven books making it the longest work on the subject to date The work is known primarily from citations by Strabo in the early 1st century BC and Pliny in the 1st century BC supplemented by Stephanus of Byzantium in the 6th century BC. Artemidorus appears to have contradicted Eratosthenes perhaps in an attempt to update the work of his predecessor by providing more detail. 

Artemidorus of Ephesus an ancient Greek geographer was a prominent Greek geographer who flourished around 100 BC. His work in eleven books is often cited by Strabo What is believed to be fragments of his work is considered by some scholars to be a forgery In 1998 the discovery of a papyrus believed to contain the second book of Artemidorus's Geography was announced and the editio princeps was published in 2008 This papyrus is known as the Artemidorus Papyrus There is also the first map of the Iberian Peninsula and numerous illustrations

Papiro di Artemidoro (Artemidorus papyrus)

Strabo 64 or 63 BC – ca. 24 BC was an ancient Greek geographer who lived in Asia Minor during the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire He is best known for his work Geographica which presented descriptive histories of people and places from various regions including Eratosthenes of Cyrene ca. 276 BC – ca. 195/194 BC. He was an ancient Greek philosopher

This 10-foot 3.0-meter papyrus scroll is believed to have been written in the 1st century BC possibly in Alexandria It is believed that the copyist left space for the map illustrations and sent them to the artist's workshop to insert them. However the artist only designed a portion of the map which appears to be the shape the author believes to be the southwestern Iberian Peninsula The papyrus is believed to have been sold as scrap paper

Front view of two heads, reprinted with permission from Gallazzi et al. 2008.

Due to the completeness of the inscription some scholars claim that the papyrus is a highly valuable document one of the few ancient maps to survive to the present day Others claim that it is merely a forgery dating back to the late 19th century a time when papyrus collecting was popular in Europe Critics have even suggested the possibility of the forger being a Greek named Costantinos Simonides The documents were found to be part of a specific document reconstructed in the form we now call the "Papyrus of Artemidorus" The title of the document refers to the subject of the text on the front of the papyrus: a dissertation on the meaning of geography and a description of what is now recognized as the Iberian Peninsula It also contains a sketch map likely referring only to the Iberian Peninsula

Two fighting animals from the rear reprinted with permission from Gallazzi et al. 2008

Some papyrus historians interpret this text as the earliest known transcription of the work of Artemidorus of Ephesus the renowned Greek geographer who gave the scroll its name The text and map are not simply inscribed on papyrus In addition to the text the front contains numerous drawings of heads hands and feet The back is full of animal sketches including real ones like tigers giraffes and some

In the early 1900s it was discovered in the form of a Konvolut cardboard box used as some sort of filler material. The cardboard box was sold to an Egyptian collector who kept it for fifty years The papyrus then traveled throughout Europe before being purchased by a German collector who opened it and found the remains of a papyrus scroll. Although there were some holes due to it being damp even though there were some holes the drawings on different parts of the papyrus were visible on the front of the scroll