The project, which has existed since 2010, aims to make the huge potential of the papyrus collection, which is one of the largest of its kind in the world, accessible and usable for a specialist audience and a broader public.
The Berliner Papyrusdatenbank (BerlPap) currently presents almost 9000 fully searchable data sets with illustrations, detailed information, further literature and the original texts.
The texts are among the most important testimonies for the history of Greco-Roman and Byzantine Egypt. Thus, the decrees, contracts, letters, receipts, notes, etc. give us valuable insights into everyday life and culture of the people of this time.
The relevant objects are scanned in high resolution and quality on a reflected-light scanner. For each text, all important information on the content and the writing material and its acquisition are collected from the inventory books of the collection, the excavation diaries and all relevant publications, checked on the original and, if necessary, supplemented and corrected by own research of the project staff. At the same time, the collection is put into its international context by reciprocal linking of the individual texts with other papyrological and classics databases. The content and technical results of the project are being used by many other projects, e.g. the "Rubensohn-Bibliothek" and the ERC project "Elephantine", which is based on it.
The results of the project are continuously updated and maintained.
Project directors: Prof. Dr. Friederike Seyfried, Dr. Fabian Reiter (until 2014), Marius Gerhardt
Project staff: Paul Bartels (IT), Mariachiara Franceschini (research assistant), Kathleene Kerth (conservation), Myriam Krutzsch (conservation), Anna Monte (research assistant), Markus Resel (research associate), Anne Schorneck (storage) und freelance collaborators and student assistants
Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Projektwebsite: berlpap.smb.museum
Duration: November 2010 until March 2017, continuous updates, additions and maintenance of data
