Core Curriculum : Literature Humanities

Homer > Papyrus Fragments

The majority of surviving papyrus fragments contain non-literary texts but Homer is the most frequently encountered literary author.  Each of the 23 Homeric papyrus fragments held by the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University contains just a small section (from under ten to just over forty lines) from the Iliad or Odyssey. The two images on the left show lines from the Iliad written on papyrus between the first century BCE and the second century C.E. The image on the right show lines from the Odyssey; columbia.apis.p236 was executed in the second century BCE. These fragments are imaged in the APIS (Advanced Papyrological Information System) database begun at Columbia and now hosted by New York University.  APIS advances scholarship on papyri by bringing together high-resolution digital copies of fragments housed in a number of American and European research libraries and centers.

Displaying above are (from L to R): Columbia RBML: columbia.apis.p231, columbia.apis.p234, and columbia.apis.p236

Columbia University Libraries / Rare Book & Manuscript Library / Butler Library, 6th Fl. / 535 West 114th St. / New York, NY 10027 / (212) 854-5590 / rbml@libraries.cul.columia.edu