THE EXCAVATIONS AT ABUSIR, EGYPT. 679 



temple described above. There were mastaba tombs of the old empire 

 with the statues of their former occupants, and nonviolated tombs of 

 the middle empire (2500 b. c.) with all the paraphernalia which those 

 left behind had once placed for the departed in his grave. The tombs 

 of the flourishing period of later Egypt were very poorly fltted out, 

 and it is only with the Greek settlements in the country that costly 

 interments again come to light. 



• THE TIMOTHEUS PAPYRUS OF THE PERSAI. 



In one of the graves of this Greek period at Abusir was discovered, 

 on February 1, 1902, a papyrus roll containing a large portion of the 

 poem Persai of Timotheus. The papyrus was found in a wooden 

 coffin still containing its corpse, together with a pair of sandals, a 

 broken leather bag, a piece of rust-eaten iron, and a fragment of 

 burned wood. All these objects arc now at the Royal Museum of 

 Berlin, and the papyrus has been published with a transcription, para- 

 phrase, comments, and a facsimile reproduction in heliogravure, by 

 Prof. Dr. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff." The papyrus meas- 

 ures 18.5 centimeters in height and when unrolled has a length of 1.11 

 meters. It is inscribed with six columns of varied width and unequal 

 number of lines in archaic Greek characters, resembling the style of 

 monumental inscriptions, so that in the opinion of Professor Wilamo- 

 witz this papyrus' represents the oldest book known, antedating the 

 founding of the library of Alexandria and the establishing of the 

 Alexandrian book trade. The four last columns are on the whole 

 well preserved, while the first column, not protected by cover- 

 ing, is crumbled into minute fragments, and of the second column 

 the lower half is for the most part destroyed. A narrow margin 

 on the first column, showing traces of having been cut through, 

 proves that only part of the scroll had been deposited in the grave. 

 We have, therefore, in this papyrus only the latter portion of 

 the work. The fact, however, that Timotheus names himself as 

 its author and that it treats of the naval defeat of a Persian 

 king suffices to establish its identity with the Persai of Timotheus, 

 which celc])rates the naval victory of the Greeks over Xerxes, the 

 King of Persia, in 480 b. c. at Salamis, which was one of the decisive 

 l)attles in the GrtKco-Persian wars. Timotheus is known to have been 

 a celebrated poet and musician, ])orn at Miletus, Asia ]Minor, and died 

 at an advanced age about 357 b. c. He was cspeciall}' distinguished 

 as a composer of the so-called "nome," an ancient song or ode in the 

 epic style, consisting of a narrative interwoven with speeches of 



«Der Timotheus-Papyrus: Wissensc'haftliche Yeroeffentlichungen der Deutschen 

 Orient-Gesell8chaft, Leipzig, 1903, pj). 15, 4t()., with 7 platc'8; and Timotheus, Die 

 Perser, au3 einem Papyrus von Abiiwir. Ini Auftrage der Deutschen Orient-Gesell- 

 schaft herausgegeben, Leipzig, 1903, pji. 12(), 8vo., with 1 plate, 



SM 1903 44 



