DATING ANCIENT PAPYRI
To understand why dating a papyrus is important, it is useful to consider why we are studying antiquity at all. Of course, the main reason is because there is so much to be amazed about, so much to enjoy. There’s nothing wrong with this historical hedonism. Still, studying the past may offer some intellectual benefits too. We can try to understand ancient ideas and notions, compare them to our own ways of thinking, look at the differences, and thus strive to better understand our ideas.
This is all well and good, but the problem is that the ideas of most ancient people are incompletely known. After all, the central problem of the study of antiquity is the devilish shortage of data. So scholars do everything in their power to supplement what little they know with additional information. If you come across a strange idea in,
