4 ms·

Dating Ancient Papyri

38 points by r0muald 10y ago

gus_massa 10y ago
Interesting, but with a few photos this would be even more interesting. (See for example the post from https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=medievalbooks.nl https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=medievalbooks.nl )
tsaprailis 10y ago
Now that's a weird fetish. I obviously don't have anything meaningful to add to the discussion.
- mathgeek 10y ago
  I can't personally see the appeal, but to each their own. I'd be more concerned with knowing how old the papyri is so that we can steer clear of any ancient laws regarding underage paper.
- bayesian_horse 10y ago
  I wanted to say "Are ancient papyri fun to date?"
Aelinsaar 10y ago
"But, as with all such judgement-activities, experts can disagree, often by several decades, even a century or so, and sometimes even more." That sure escalated in a hurry! Decades... Century... More than a Century. Still, I get it, when the next best tool (radiocarbon dating) deals in millennia.
- r0muald 10y ago
  > "carbon-14 testing can’t really do more than offer a certain probability for a timeframe of approximately a century or so: about the same timeframe that palaeographers can offer" The main takeaway is that the scale of both methods is essentially the same, and will rarely span more than 100 years, for the time frame of interest to papyrologists.
  - Aelinsaar 10y ago
    I find it oddly comforting that the most sophisticated dating techniques are no better than what amounts to academic consensus.
dangom 10y ago
I remember reading recently that humans started dating documents relatively late in history, and that even as late as in the Renaissance most people wouldn't have been aware of the current calendar year. [Ong 1982] Given that paleographists estimate how old ancient papyri are by means of dated documents I wonder: Where these documents explicitly dated or are datings mostly extracted from the context (e.g., names of rulers / geographical references)? Are "documentary" papyri always reliable for comparisons? In any case very interesting.
fernly 10y ago
The reason that methods of papyri dating have become of interest lately is the controversy over the so-called "Jesus' Wife" fragment. The question of its authenticity is right in Hurtado's wheelhouse, so to speak, and he has addressed it in several posts: https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/?s=wife https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/?s=wife
- Natsu 10y ago
  I'm still amazed at how such a blatant forgery was not called out more strongly, given the obvious flaws, not the least of which was its provenance from the same mystery source as another known fake.
Bromskloss 10y ago
"Hmm… Yep, it's ancient."

38 points by r0muald 10y ago

Interesting, but with a few photos this would be even more interesting. (See for example the post from https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=medievalbooks.nl https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=medievalbooks.nl )

tsaprailis 10y ago

Now that's a weird fetish. I obviously don't have anything meaningful to add to the discussion.

mathgeek 10y ago
I can't personally see the appeal, but to each their own. I'd be more concerned with knowing how old the papyri is so that we can steer clear of any ancient laws regarding underage paper.
bayesian_horse 10y ago
I wanted to say "Are ancient papyri fun to date?"

Aelinsaar 10y ago

"But, as with all such judgement-activities, experts can disagree, often by several decades, even a century or so, and sometimes even more." That sure escalated in a hurry! Decades... Century... More than a Century. Still, I get it, when the next best tool (radiocarbon dating) deals in millennia.

r0muald 10y ago
> "carbon-14 testing can’t really do more than offer a certain probability for a timeframe of approximately a century or so: about the same timeframe that palaeographers can offer" The main takeaway is that the scale of both methods is essentially the same, and will rarely span more than 100 years, for the time frame of interest to papyrologists.
- Aelinsaar 10y ago
  I find it oddly comforting that the most sophisticated dating techniques are no better than what amounts to academic consensus.

dangom 10y ago

I remember reading recently that humans started dating documents relatively late in history, and that even as late as in the Renaissance most people wouldn't have been aware of the current calendar year. [Ong 1982] Given that paleographists estimate how old ancient papyri are by means of dated documents I wonder: Where these documents explicitly dated or are datings mostly extracted from the context (e.g., names of rulers / geographical references)? Are "documentary" papyri always reliable for comparisons? In any case very interesting.

fernly 10y ago

The reason that methods of papyri dating have become of interest lately is the controversy over the so-called "Jesus' Wife" fragment. The question of its authenticity is right in Hurtado's wheelhouse, so to speak, and he has addressed it in several posts: https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/?s=wife https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/?s=wife

Natsu 10y ago
I'm still amazed at how such a blatant forgery was not called out more strongly, given the obvious flaws, not the least of which was its provenance from the same mystery source as another known fake.

Bromskloss 10y ago

"Hmm… Yep, it's ancient."