This summer the 31st Papyrological Conference was held in Cologne from the 28th of July until the 2nd of August. As this conference is organized only once every three years, this was the only occurrence within the time limits of the Lived Time project, so the team was well represented by Sofie Remijsen, Kevin Hoogeveen, Elsa Lucassen and former colleague Eugenio Garosi. We all presented papers on our current research and Sofie Remijsen introduced the project in a more general manner with a separate talk as well.
In ‘Weekly rhythms of late-antique life’ Sofie Remijsen considered when weekly rhythms started to make an appearance in the papyrological sources, using the precisely dated papyri from the project’s database to make graphs that illustrated this development. One feature she explored in particular was the role of the Sabbath in fourth and fifth century CE.
Elsa Lucassen’s spoke on festive gifts, such as heortika and kalandika in her paper ‘Follow the gifts: blurring lines between festivals from the perspective of gifts’. These formalized gifts appear to stem from an Egyptian tradition, reinforced by Roman customs of giving and continued under the guise of Christianity.
In ‘The rural history of Byzantine Egypt (284-642 CE) from below’ Kevin Hoogeveen introduced his own PhD project, on how mobility might be a way to study how the rural population of Egypt co-shaped the societal developments.
We were eager to see how other scholars are examining aspects of temporality. Eward Tang, for example, combined the team’s interests in temporal pattern and mobility in his paper ‘The shape of moving letters: seasonal mobility and the Oxyrhynchus Papyri’. Petra Sijpesteijn (‘Counting and dating in Arabic papyri’) discussed where exactly we can locate the innovative character of the new Muslim calendar and era. Ágnes Mihálykó’s talk on ‘Feasting after the Eucharist: Agape meals in Late Antique Egypt’ demonstrated how traditional customs influenced these early Christian gatherings, aligning well with Elsa Lucassen’s research into the continuity of traditional practices in new Christian guises. In ‘Food, gifts and festivals: New edition of P. Ross. Georg. II 41’ Elena Chepel likewise brought up many topics essential to Elsa’s research.
Many international colleagues presented editions of unpublished texts, several of which turned out to be of interest for the project. Maria-Jesus Albarran Martinez (‘The materiality of the Bawit papyri: Format of delivery orders’), for example, showed unpublished Coptic ostraca that mentioned a bonus of some sort given at Easter. Susan Fogarty (‘Contract for the services of a wet-nurse’) presented an unpublished contract of a wet nurse that includes a heortika-like stipulation for the Amesysia festival. We look forward to further developments and publications! After five intense days of listening to interesting papers, meeting fellow researchers of the papyri and history of Roman and late-antique Egypt, discussing questions, making plans for future projects, sightseeing in Cologne and enjoying many nice meals, we were thoroughly inspired and more than ready to start our actual summer vacation.
View the full programme here.