‡ Quotations from Isocrates and Menander, in Attic Greek, wooden tablet [Egypt, 4th or 5th century]

‡ Short quotations from Isocrates, Ad Demonicum, 9, and Menander, Sententia, in Attic Greek, in Greek cursive and capitals, manuscript on large polished wooden tablet doubtless produced as part of a scribal teaching exercise[Egypt, late fourth or early fifth century] Rectangular wooden tablet, used lengthways, with single column of 5 long lines plus a single word on a sixth line in a clear and sloping Greek cursive on one side and a further 2 lines in large Greek capitals on the reverse, one hole at head of board in middle (perhaps for suspension), wood with slight scuffing in places and one small loss of a section at its foot (without affect to text), 140 by 138 by 10mm.; in blue cloth covered folding case A remarkably rare ephemeral witness to the practical teaching of novice scribes in Graeco-Roman Egypt, on wood, a material of such value in Egypt that few survive Provenance:1. Prof. Dr. Pieter Johannes Sijpestein (1934-1996) of Baarn, near Amsterdam; his collection known as the Moen collection (his wife's maiden name), and almost certainly acquired by him in the European and American trade in the 1960s to early 1980s. Much of his collection passing after his death to the University of Austin, Texas, as well as Syracuse University, New York. This his inventory no. 78, and published in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik in 1983 (see below).2. Bonhams, 29 April 1991, lot 77, to Sam Fogg.3. Schøyen Collection, London and Oslo, their MS 1359, acquired June 1991. Text and script:This is a 'wooden leaf tablet' employed in Antiquity as a writing master's template for scribal teaching in an important and wealthy scriptorium. Cribiore comprehensively discusses their use from pharaonic Egypt onwards (pp. 65-72), and the value of the raw material - as Egypt produced little wood. Here we have the refined master-scribe's hand copying out the quotation from Isocrates (436-338 BC.; here "... and he exposed his spirit to dangers. Nor did he display an ill-timed craving for wealth, but he enjoyed the good things present like one who was going to die, yet cared for his property as if he was immortal"), the father of rhetorical Greek and founder of the Athenian academy in the Lyceum, on one side in cursive, for students to copy onto papyrus. The pierced hole at the top of the board allowed it to be strung together with other such templates, and handed around the class for copying time and time again. To this, a student has added on its reverse the extract from the Greek dramatist Menander (c. 342/41-c. 290 BC.) in slightly clumsy capitals with a few erasures, finishing this with his initials. The format of such teaching aids has remained relatively unchanged in the region from the Ancient World until the last century (see the 'cricket bat' shaped writing tablet produced in Morocco in the early twentieth century, offered as lot 46 in our 31 March Islamic sale this year [auction moved to 12 June]). As noted by Sijpestein and Agosti (the latter in Pintaudi, p. 38) the combination of Isocrates and Menander here is also found in a poem of Dioscorus of Aphrodito (d. sixth century) and their use together in teaching may well have been ingrained in Ptolemaic Egypt and the Byzantine world. Sijpestein in 1983 dated this piece to the seventh century, and that date was followed by Cribiore in her survey, but it has been recently and convincingly redated to "la fine del IV o addirittura l'inizio del V seculo" by G. Agosti (in Pintaudi, no. 11). This accords well with other surviving examples which appear to cluster in those centuries (see Cribiore, nos. 83, 146 and 317, with slightly earlier examples in 292, 296 and 333). Published:P.J. Sijpestein, 'Isokrates, Ad Demonicum 9 und Ein Monostichon Menandri auf Einer Holztafel', Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 52 (1983), pp. 291-92.R. Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt, 1996, no. 229.R. Pintaudi, Papyri Graecae Schøyen, 2005, no. 11, pp. 37-40.C. Pernigotti, Menandri Sententiae, 2008, p. 48 and no. 895.P. Pruneti and M. Menchelli, Corpus dei papyri filosofici, 1.2.2, 2008, pp. 922-24.L. Maurice, The Teacher in Ancient Rome: The Magister and His World, 2013, p. 102.C. Pernigotti, Corpus dei papiri filosofici, 2.2, 2015, pp. 244-46. The present artefact is Mertens-Pack 2736.2, and is published online as TM 61405 and LDAB 2549.