‡ Homer, Iliad XI:1-5, in Greek, epic verse, manuscript on papyrus [Egypt, 2nd century AD.]

‡ Homer, Iliad XI:1-5 (with Zeus sending Strife to the Achaean fleet, bearing a war-banner in her hands, at the break of dawn), in Greek, epic verse in dactylic hexameters, manuscript on papyrus [Egypt, second century AD.] One rectangular papyrus fragment, with remains of a single column of six lines in an excellent Greek half uncial script, here written as prose but with diagonal dividing lines marking the ends of lines of verse or noting punctuation (as no other examples of such lines are known their intended function remains speculation: see literature cited below), single line in unidentified Greek cursive hand on reverse, 51 by 45mm.; set in glass, and within a folding cloth-covered case An important early witness to one of the fundamental works of Western literature, with this fragment being the first recorded witness to this part of the text, and the only example on papyrus Provenance: 1. Erik von Scherling, Leiden (1907-1956), son of the Swedish consul in Rotterdam, who worked for the bookseller Jacob Ginsberg in Leiden, learning Latin and Arabic while there, and then opened up a dealership there issuing regular bulletins and a sale-catalogue/gossipy journal named Rotulus from the 1930s until the 1950s; almost certainly acquired from his "Egyptian correspondent" in the early 1930s or directly by him in Egypt during his manuscript collecting trip to Cairo in 1934-35.2. Maggs Bros., London (1964-1988), and among the clutter of material left by von Scherling on his sudden and untimely death in 1956, a small part of these offered for sale to various institutions and the remainder divided between Maggs and Laurence Witten of New Haven, CT, USA. 3. Sam Fogg, London, acquired from Maggs.4. Schøyen collection, London and Oslo, their MS 112/80, acquired June 1988. Text and script: A fragment of the single-most influential literary text in the Western world, in a copy contemporary with Suetonius, Martial and Pliny the Younger. Homer's account of the siege and fall of Troy is the foundation stone of European culture. The text is usually dated to c.850 BC., and consensus agrees that it was composed some decades before the Odyssey. It was extremely popular in antiquity, and remained so throughout the Greek speaking world in the early Middle Ages. This is most probably the work of an inexperienced scribe practising their copying in a scribal school, but is still of great importance as it is the earliest recorded witness to this section of the Iliad. As this fragment includes the first example of any form of uncials in this catalogue, a few words must be said here about this crucially important script. Around the second or third century AD. rustic capitals had evolved into large stately rounded capitals that St. Jerome named 'uncials'. Among modern readers the script is most well-known for the baffling effect it produces in having no breaks between words. It had raw austere beauty, and signalled authority, and quickly became the script of fundamental texts, especially the Bible (see also examples of Coptic Uncial and Armenian Uncial used to copy the Bible, below in lots 11 and 16). Published: G. Ucciardello in R. Pintaudi, Papyri Graecae Schøyen, 2005, no. 2, pp. 5-6.