Tracking Papyrus and Parchment Paths: An Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature. Literary Texts in their Geographical Context: Production, Copying, Usage, Dissemination and Storage

Project Information

PAThs

Grant agreement ID: 687567

DOI

10.3030/687567

Project closed

EC signature date 20 May 2016

Start date 1 November 2016

End date 31 October 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 2 192 507,00

EU contribution

€ 2 192 507,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - PAThs (Tracking Papyrus and Parchment Paths: An Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature.Literary Texts in their Geographical Context: Production, Copying, Usage, Dissemination and Storage)

Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2022-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The “PAThs” project aimed at providing an in-depth diachronic understanding and effective representation of the geography of Coptic literary and manuscript production, and in particular of the corpus of literary writings, almost exclusively of religious contents, produced in Egypt between the 3rd and the 13th cent. in the Coptic language.

Its main outcome, the (digital) Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature (https://atlas.paths-erc.eu/) represents an exhaustive and versatile tool that is now acknowledged by the scholarly community as a pivotal resource for Coptology.
It allows detailed and focused research and correlation of chronological, regional and thematic data. It illustrates the relationship between settlements uncovered by the archaeological and topographical investigations and intellectual activity revealed in manuscripts.
It is based on a central web database that is easily maintainable from the scientific and economical point of view. In the future, therefore, it will be regularly updated, thus remaining a trustable and valuable resource for Coptic Studies.

Technically speaking, the “PAThs” central web database is composed of eight sections, respectively dedicated to 1. Places, 2. Manuscripts, 3. Works, 4. Authors, 5. Titles, 6. Colophons, 7. Persons attested in colophons, and 8. Collections. Each section addresses specific issues and follows its own methodological guidelines and descriptive protocols, which are closely linked to each other in a network pattern that draws its strength from these same links.

By taking into account a large corpus of works (c.1,070) authors (c. 110), manuscripts (c. 6,100), titles (c. 990), colophons or scribal subscriptions (c. 260), prosopographical elements (c. 490), and archaeological sites (c. 480), and interrelating them, the final purpose of “PAThs” was to produce a new state of the art of Coptic Studies.

The Atlas, that can be considered the user-friendly output of the database, gives full access to all information and provides different types of search experience, from the easiest (and easy to perform) to the most refined and granular one.
To help and guide user towards research results some default search filters were prepared and made available ("Saved queries").

The nature of the numerous scientific disciplines involved in “PAThs” is well summarized by its logo, that is inspired by the devotional footprints inscribed by pilgrims, monks, and devout people all-over Egypt, to mark their presence in places that were considered important for the religious life (PAThs < Coptic ⲣⲁⲧ = “footprint”, “trace”). Exactly like these devotional footprints, Coptic literature left a real and concrete sign on the Egyptian landscape.

Any scientific choice taken within the project is thoroughly explained and motivated (https://docs.paths-erc.eu/; https://github.com/paths-erc/).
More information at: [e-mail]; https://atlas.paths-erc.eu

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the entire lifespan of the project, all the envisaged scientific activities and goals have been achieved. Moreover, especially in the last months, several additional actions have been introduced and unexpected results have been obtained:

• Construction and implementation of the relational web database on which the Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature is built and setting of the GIS to be used for the geographical representation of the atlas.
• Complete classification of the Coptic manuscript tradition, by means of the attribution of stable identifiers to each manuscript dated or datable to the 3rd-13th cent. This classification will be expanded in the future, as new manuscripts are discovered.
• Elaboration of a protocol of detailed codicological description applied to the collected manuscripts (additional result compared to the original proposal).
• Complete classification of Coptic literature, by means of the attribution of a Clavis Coptica (CC) entry for each work (c. 1,070 items) and a classification of the literary phases of production.
• Complete classification of Coptic authors, with a brief annotated cultural profile (110 items).
• Complete census of the relevant places, where individual manuscripts or entire ‘collections’ have been found; major Late Antique and Mediaeval archaeological sites; other places of political, religious, and cultural importance, even when they have left no specific physical trace or evidence, have also been classified (c. 480 items).
• Elaboration of an accurate form of description of the classified places (additional result compared to the original proposal).
• Census, edition, and translation of Coptic titles (c. 990 items).
• Census, edition, and translation of Coptic colophons (c. 260).
• Census and analytical of Coptic bookbindings (c. 250 items, 81 of which are detached from the original codex). (additional result compared to the original proposal).
• Archaeometric analysis of the inks of a selected corpus of Coptic manuscripts preserved in different collections (additional result compared to the original proposal).
• Marking up, in XML version, of a selected corpus of hagiographic and homiletic texts, consistent and homogeneous in terms of cultural and literary milieu, period and genre.
• Complete archive of names of copyists, commissioners, donors, institutions and places involved in the production of manuscripts (c. 490 items).

The documentation related to the scientific results of “PAThs” is regularly updated and published in https://github.com/paths-erc/ and https://docs.paths-erc.eu/

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

"PAThs" is in itself an innovation, since nothing similar existed before.
Even though geography-based platforms (GIS) have been in use for a long time in the archaeological field for collecting, organising and sometimes also publishing data, they have only been sporadically used in literary and linguistic studies and certainly never in Coptic Studies.
On the occasion of the 12th International Congress of Coptic Studies (Brussels, 10-16 July 2022), the Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature have been defined by Anne Boud’hors—one of the most renown Coptologists—as a tremendous resource for Coptic Studies, mainly due to its innovative ‘global approach’.

Another meaningful achievement is the elaboration of a detailed and ad hoc protocol of codicological description.

Coptic bookbindings have hardly received any attention until now. Thanks to the recruitment of a specialist of ancient bookbindings, an ad hoc terminology and a classification of the physical features—based on autoptic analysis —was elaborated. This is another new field that “PAThs” has explored.

Last but not least, thanks to the collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, Hamburg, and the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und Prüfung, Berlin, we focused on the archaeometric analysis of Coptic inks, pigments, and dyes. This pioneering systematic study of writing materials, from a specific area and time frame (4th-13th cent.), aimed not only at a better understanding of the complex Christian Egyptian multicultural society, but also and mainly at clarifying the links among the Coptic and other manuscript cultures.

The results of the project were disseminated by means of numerous publications (see section "Publications"), several round tables/workshops and four main conferences, whose proceedings have been published (or are in the process of being published).

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