Dervenion Papyrus

[akritas]

The Dervenion Papyrus, found in 1962 near Thessaloniki, is not only one of the oldest surviving Greek papyri but is also considered by scholars as a document of primary importance for a better understanding of the religious and philosophical developments in the 5the and 4th cen BC.
Proffessor Gabor Betegh aims to reconstruct and systematically analyse the different strata of the text and their interrelation by exploring the archaeological context; the interpretation of rituals in the first columns of the text; the Orphic poem commented on by the author of the papyrus; and the cosmological and theological doctrines which emerge from the Derveni author’s exegesis of the poem.

Today the sceintific team that decephere the Gospel of Judas will try to do the same think in the Dervenion Papyrus with the help of the technology

http://assets.in.gr/dGenesis/assets/Content5/Photo/710188_b.jpg

source
http://www.in.gr/news/article.asp?lngEntityID=710607&lngDtrID=252
http://www.in.gr/news/article.asp?lngEntityID=710188

[akritas]

‘Oldest’ papyrus is decoded

Greek and foreign experts have used cutting-edge technology to decode the Greek text of the world’s oldest literary papyrus more than four decades after its discovery, it was revealed yesterday.

The Derveni Papyrus — which has been in the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki since its charred fragments were found among the remains of a funeral pyre in 1962 — is described as a “philosophical treatise based on a poem in the Orphic tradition and dating to the second half of the 5th century BC.”

”It is particularly important to us as it is the oldest (papyrus) bearing Greek text,” Apostolos Pierris, director of the Patras Institute of Philosophical Research, told Kathimerini.

Experts from the institute, Oxford University and Brigham Young University, who decoded the papyrus and aim to reassemble it, are to hold a press conference in Thessaloniki today.

The papyrus is believed to be an invaluable document for the study of ancient Greek religion, philosophy and literary criticism.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=70297

================================================== ========================
Greek researcher Apostolos Pierris describes...

Greek researcher Apostolos Pierris describes a new venture to decode a charred 2,400-year-old papyrus scroll bearing Greek text during a press conference in Thessaloniki yesterday. Greek, British and US experts are using cutting-edge technology — including advanced photographic techniques and the electronic separation of fine layers of the papyrus — to decode and reassemble the fragmented Derveni

http://www.ekathimerini.com/kathnews/photos/31-05-06/31-05-06_70351_1.gif

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_2109954_31/05/2006_70351


================================================== =================================================

Something that the Greek TV said is the Papyrus found in a Macedonian Tomb. Was burning in pieces but fortunly with the help of the technology will decoded

[Istor]

Everything Macedonian in Greece or all over the world is Greek !!

[Otto]

The oldest Book of Europe: Derveni papyrus - The Greek Text

More than four decades after the Derveni papyrus was found in a 2,400-year-old nobleman's grave in northern Greece, researchers said Thursday they are close to uncovering new text - through high-tech digital analysis - from the blackened fragments left after the manuscript was burnt on its owner's funeral pyre.

Large sections of the mid-4th century B.C. book - a philosophical treatise on ancient religion - were read years ago, but never officially published.

Now, archaeologist Polyxeni Veleni believes U.S. imaging and scanning techniques used to decipher the Judas Gospel, which portrays Judas not as a sinister betrayer but as Jesus' confidant, will considerably expand and clarify that text.

The scroll, originally several meters of papyrus rolled round two wooden runners, was found half burnt in 1962. It dates to around 340 B.C., during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great.

Anaxagoras, who lived in ancient Athens, is thought to have been the teacher of Socrates and was accused by his contemporaries of atheism.

Last month, experts from Brigham Young University, Utah, used multi-spectral digital analysis to create enhanced pictures of the text, which will be studied by Oxford University papyrologist Dirk Obbink and Pierris, and published by the end of 2007, the AP reports.

http://english.pravda.ru/img/idb/200px-codex_novg.jpg
http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/01-06-2006/81410-Europe-0


http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06/01/ancient.scroll.ap/
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/TECH/science/06/01/ancient.scroll.ap/story.ancient.scroll.1.ap.jpg

[akritas]

Associated Press



http://www.hindustantimes.com/on/img/0.gif

Athens, June 1, 2006






By Nicholas Paphitis


A collection of charred scraps kept in a Greek museum's storerooms are all that remains of what archaeologists say is Europe's oldest surviving book - which may hold a key to understanding early monotheistic beliefs. More than four decades after the Derveni papyrus was found in a 2,400-year-old nobleman's grave in northern Greece, researchers said Thursday they are close to uncovering new text - through high-tech digital analysis - from the blackened fragments left after the manuscript was burnt on its owner's funeral pyre. Large sections of the mid-4th century B.C. book - a philosophical treatise on ancient religion - were read years ago, but never officially published.

Now, archaeologist Polyxeni Veleni believes U.S. imaging and scanning techniques used to decipher the Judas Gospel - which portrays Judas not as a sinister betrayer but as Jesus' confidant - will considerably expand and clarify that text.

"I believe some 10-20 percent of new text will be added, which however will be of crucial importance," said Veleni, director of the Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum where the manuscript is kept. "This will fill in many gaps, we will get a better understanding of the sequence and the existing text will become more complete," Veleni told The Associated Press.
The scroll, originally several metres of papyrus rolled round two wooden runners, was found half burnt in 1962. It dates to around 340 B.C., during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great.
"It is the oldest surviving book, if you can use that word for a scroll, in western tradition," Veleni said. "This was a unique find, of exceptional importance."

Greek philosophy expert Apostolos Pierris believes the text may be a century older.

"It was probably written by somebody from the circle of the philosopher Anaxagoras, in the second half of the 5th century B.C.," he said Thursday.
Anaxagoras, who lived in ancient Athens, is thought to have been the teacher of Socrates and was accused by his contemporaries of atheism.
Last month, experts from Brigham Young University, Utah, used multi-spectral digital analysis to create enhanced pictures of the text, which will be studied by Oxford University papyrologist Dirk Obbink and Pierris, and published by the end of 2007. "We were now able to read even the most carbonized sections, as there were pieces that were completely blackened and nobody could make out whether there were letters on them," Veleni said. The scroll contains a philosophical treatise on a lost poem describing the birth of the gods and other beliefs focusing on Orpheus, a mythical musician who visited the underworld to reclaim his dead love and enjoyed a strong cult following in the ancient world.

The Orpheus cult raised the notion of a single creator god - as opposed to the multitude of deities the ancient Greeks believed in - and influenced later monotheistic faiths.

"In a way, it was a precursor of Christianity," Pierris said. "Orphism believed that man's salvation depended on his knowledge of the truth."
Veleni said the manuscript "will help show the influence of Orphism on later monotheistic religions."

The Derveni grave, some 10 Kilometers (6 miles) northwest of Thessaloniki, was part of a rich cemetery belonging to the ancient city of Lete.
"It belonged to a very rich man, a Macedonian nobleman, warrior and athlete who had a lot of very important and valuable artifacts in his grave," Veleni said. Finds included metal vases, a gold wreath and weapons.




http://www.hindustantimes.com/wfsf/medium/2006/06.02/images/medium1711505.jpg

[akritas]

The exegesis of the Orphic cosmogony preserved in the Derveni papyrus fills 19 columns out of the 23 that were published anonymously in 1982 ( ZPE 47, after p. 300); only 5 dealt with other matters.


Accordingly, scholars usually refer to its author as the ‘Derveni commentator’ and tend to think of his work as a ‘commentary’ on a par with those on Homer and other poets produced in the age of Aristarchus.

However, this is to misconceive the nature and affinities of the Derveni treatise. K. Tsantsanoglou published a greatly improved text of the first seven columns in 1997 (pp. 93-128 in A. Laks et G.W. Most (edd.),
Studies on the Derveni Papyrus, Oxford). These discuss various matters, including a fragment of Heraclitus, the terrors of Hades and sacrifices to the Furies. Even before their common topic (which is the terrors of Hades) was identified, it became obvious that the purpose of the treatise was not to offer a commentary on the Orphic poem, but rather to insist on the importance of interpretation, whether holy rituals are in question or sacred texts like the Orphic cosmogony. The author holds that taking these scandalous things literally is a danger to one’s faith; to keep one’s faith, one must interpret them, using the methods of allegory and etymology pioneered by Theagenes of Rhegium in the later sixth century.



Such methods flourished in the time of the sophists and the late Presocratics, where the Derveni author belongs; he resembles Empedocles, who likewise combined a physical system influenced by Anaxagoras with a Pythagorean eschatology (so Alcidamas of Elea’s Physics, quoted by D.L. 8.56), since cols. 3 and 6 of the papyrus presuppose the survival of the soul after death.

Accordingly, the purpose of the Derveni author was to advocate a religious viewpoint, rather than to offer a commentary on the poetry for its own sake. In this aim he is far closer to the early philosophers and sophists than to rhapsodes like Stesimbrotus of Thasos or Plato’s Ion, who made their living by both performing and commenting on poets like Homer, Hesiod and Archilochus. Philosophers from Heraclitus to Plato despised the explanations of such rhapsodes. Theagenes and Xenophanes, who were probably both rhapsodes too, rose above this dismal level in that they offered a higher kind of theological interpretation; but even they were concerned above all with theology rather than with poetic exegesis for its own sake. Writers on Homer in the first half of the fourth century like Antisthenes continued this approach. It was only Aristotle who separated commentary on the poets from religious enquiry. The Derveni papyrus still belongs in the earlier phase, and is closer in its purpose to Prodicus’ book On the Terrors of Hades or to Protagoras’ exegeses of Simonides than it is to Aristotle’s Homeric Questions or its Hellenistic successors.

source
American Philological Association (http://www.apaclassics.org/)

[Amyntas]

Translation of the Devreni Papyrus

http://persephones.250free.com/derveni-trans.html

[Flipper]

Is there an original ancient Greek text available? I would like to take a look at it.

By the way...What are the Skops and the skeptics say about this now? When Pella katadesmos was found the skeptics said that they need more than one finding to settle for the macedonian language. Now they have more than one and the derveni papyrous is 26 columns long. :lol:

[Petros Houhoulis]

Is there an original ancient Greek text available? I would like to take a look at it.

By the way...What are the Skops and the skeptics say about this now? When Pella katadesmos was found the skeptics said that they need more than one finding to settle for the macedonian language. Now they have more than one and the derveni papyrous is 26 columns long. :lol:

Still not enough. The second piece of evidence should also be in indigenous Macedonian dialect, like the Pella Katadesmos. What dialect is this Derveni papyrus written at? If it is Ionian, don't count on it. Still, it is just a matter of time before they concede that the Ancient Macedonians spoke a Macedonian dialect of Greek.