Words & WritingGreek → English
Papyrology
/ˌpæpɪˈrɒlədʒi/noun
The study of ancient texts written on papyrus, mostly recovered from the dry sands of Egypt.
The Greek roots
πάπυρος
pápyros
papyrus plant
-λογία
-logía
study of
Literally: “study of papyrus”
The story of the word
πάπυρος is itself a loanword, almost certainly Egyptian, that Greek borrowed and then passed to the world. Greek had a second word for the same material, βύβλος, and that one produced Bible and bibliography. The discipline took shape after 1896, when Grenfell and Hunt began digging the rubbish mounds of Oxyrhynchus and pulled out tax receipts, private letters, laundry lists and lost Sappho by the crate.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- late 19th century
Same family
papyruspaperbibliographyphilology
In a sentence
Papyrology has done more for our picture of daily life in Roman Egypt than any monument.