About

Since 2003, the American Society of Papyrologists has helped organize routine intensive summer programs in papyrology. (See list below.) Through the generosity of its members and friends, ASP has raised a substantial amount towards an endowment to subvent the summer institutes in perpetuum, and encourages its members and supporters to continue contributing towards that goal. We now expect the institutes to run on a regular biennial program, starting in 2018.

​The principal objective of the summer institutes is to provide participants with sufficient instruction and practical experience to enable them to make productive use of texts on papyrus in their research and to become active scholars in the field of papyrology. Each seminar has a distinctive linguistic, chronological, or thematic focus, reflecting the interests and available resources of the host institution. Some seminars will involve forms of the Egyptian language and scripts as well as Greek.
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​The seminars are directed at advanced graduate students and younger faculty in relevant fields, including Classics, Ancient History, Egyptology, Archaeology, Ancient Religions, and Biblical Studies. Approximately 10 participants are chosen for each seminar by the host institution. The programs are intensive and 4-6 weeks long. The faculty normally include both those who regularly teach at the host institution and guest professors from other universities in North America and Europe. ASP provides a certificate to those completing the institute, but the host institutions neither grant credit nor provide a transcript.

Most seminars offer stipends to defray some of the participants' costs. There is no tuition fee.

Next Institute

​Florence, July 1-26, 2024. Application deadline Jan. 3 2024.

The American Society of Papyrologists and the Istituto Papirologico “G. Vitelli” are sponsoring a summer institute in papyrology for advanced graduate students and junior faculty in ancient studies (classics, history, religious studies, Egyptology, archaeology, and related disciplines).

The institute, which will run in Florence from 1 through 26 July 2024, will focus on documentary papyri from the Roman period in the Papiri della Società Italiana collection housed at the “Vitelli”.

Application deadline is January 3, 2024.

Click here for further Information and the Application Form

Institute Reports

Past Institutes

2022 Institute at Cincinnati

University of Cincinnati, June 20-July 19, 2022

Peter van Minnen reporting

The second University of Cincinnati summer institute (the first one took place in 2005) was twice postponed (from 2020 to 2021 and from 2021 to 2022) because of COVID-19. We were finally able to stage it this summer. The institute took place in the project area of the Department of Classics in Blegen Library. Financial support came from the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati, the Semple Fund of the Department of Classics, and especially the American Society of Papyrologists. Other support of the institute came from the staff of the Department of Classics and from the Department of Geology at the University of Cincinnati.

Original unpublished papyri were provided by the University of Michigan and scans of unpublished papyri by the Austrian National Library, both institutions with an exemplary record in sponsoring papyrological teaching and research. The Michigan papyri were originally selected with the approval of Traïanos Gagos, afterwards with that of Brendan Haug, both archivists of the Papyrus Collection at the University of Michigan, and with the help of Shannon Zachary, chief conservator, and her colleagues. The Vienna papyri were originally selected with the approval of Hermann Harrauer, afterwards with that of Bernhard Palme, both directors of the Papyrus Collection at the Austrian National Library. Todd Hickey added scans of unpublished ostraca from the Victoria Museum at the University of Uppsala.

The institute was organized by Peter van Minnen, University of Cincinnati, and co-taught by him and Michael Zellmann-Rohrer, Freie Universität Berlin. Occasional lectures were gives by Amin Benaissa, University of Oxford, Kathryn Gutzwiller, University of Cincinnati, Todd Hickey, University of California, Berkeley, David Martinez, University of Chicago, and Francesca Schironi and Arthur Verhoogt, both University of Michigan. The students of the institute were Antonia Apostolakou, Ghent University, Spyridoula Bounta, Trier University, Cassandra Casias, now a faculty member at Duke University, Valentina Iannace, University of Manchester, Jordan Johansen and Ella Karev, both University of Chicago, Claire Koen, Fordham University, Leah Packard-Grams, University of California, Berkeley, Haytham Qandeil, now a faculty member at Ain Shams University, Susan Rahyab, Columbia University, Kate Stevens, Rutgers University, Henry Upton, University of Michigan, and Polina Yordanova, University of Helsinki. Their background was most often Classics or Ancient History, occasionally Theology or Egyptology.

The unpublished papyri studied ranged from the second century BC (a petition about a delinquent cow) to the seventh century AD (Christ’s letter to Abgar in Coptic on the back of a Greek slave sale). Once their editions are completed, they will appear in the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists.
2003 -- YALE ​
Yale University, New Haven, 2003
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Robert G. Babcock and Ann Ellis Hanson, Organizers

​The inaugural summer institute was hosted in summer of 2003 by Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, with 13 participants from the United States and abroad. The seminar focused on Greek and Latin papyri, with emphasis on those from the Roman garrison housed at Dura-Europos, in keeping with Yale's commemoration in 2003/2004 of the work of Michael Rostovtzeff. Principal instructors were Hélène Cuvigny (CNRS, Paris) and Ann Ellis Hanson (Yale University); lecturers included Roger Bagnall, Adam Bülow-Jacobsen, Raffaella Cribiore, Ruth Duttenhöfer, Ranon Katzoff, Susan Matheson, John Matthews, William Metcalf, Timothy Renner, and Peter van Minnen.
2004 -- BERKELEY ​
​University of California, Berkeley, 2004
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Todd Hickey, Organizer

In June and July of 2004, the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri hosted a seminar in papyrology for advanced graduate students and junior faculty. The seminar was presented under the auspices of the American Society of Papyrologists and was generously supported by Deans Ralph Hexter and Mary Ann Mason; by The Bancroft Library and the Department of Classics; and by Professors Donald Mastronarde, Ronald Stroud, Anthony Long, and Erich Gruen. Professors Arthur Verhoogt (Michigan) and Karl-Theodor Zauzich (Würzburg) were the principal instructors. Additional lectures and workshops were provided by Professors Susan Stephens (Stanford), Richard Jasnow (Johns Hopkins), Joseph Manning (Stanford), and Jacco Dieleman (UCLA); and by Tina DiCerbo (University of Chicago Epigraphic Survey).

CTP received twenty-three applications from around the world for the ten places; the application pool was so strong that the admissions committee decided to accept twelve individuals. In the end, the following young scholars took part in the seminar: Carolin Arlt (Würzburg), D.ssa Silvia Barbantani (Venice), James Brusuelas (Irvine), Christelle Fischer (Stanford), Brigit Flannery (Berkeley), Marius Gerhardt (Halle-Wittenberg), Jacqueline Jay (Chicago), Jean Li (Berkeley), Andrew Monson (Stanford), Giovanni Ruffini (Columbia), Will Shearin (Berkeley), and Monica Signoretti (Johns Hopkins).

The seminar concerned the most neglected lot of papyri in the Berkeley collection: the 3rd and 2nd Century BCE papyri from the human mummy cartonnage that the Phoebe Hearst-sponsored expedition had recovered (in 1900) from the cemetery outside the remains of the village of Tebtunis. None of the thousands of Egyptian papyri from this lot had been studied, and several of the fragments looked promising-they were literary or had content of obvious interest (e.g., a fragment mentioning Jerusalem). The Greek part of the lot was much better known but had yielded some very important texts (both literary and documentary, but most notably the fragments of Sophocles's lost satyr play Inachos) and contained several archives (bodies of texts deliberately assembled in Antiquity). The participants were given the option of editing a papyrus (or papyri) or preparing a synthetic study of a group of texts (e.g., those deriving from a single mummy). Throughout, the importance of working with all of the evidence from a certain context, regardless of language, format, etc.-an obvious principle so often ignored-was emphasized.
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The participants' projects will appear in the sixth volume of the revitalized Tebtunis Papyri series (to be published by the Oriental Institute Press of the University of Chicago). The "Jerusalem fragment," incidentally, turned out to be an important text concerning the revolt of the governor of Coele Syria, Ptolemy, the son of Thraseas, during the Fifth Syrian War; while the literature included a substantial narrative concerning the battle between Re and Apophis and a ghost story.
2005 -- CINCINNATI
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati 2005

Peter van Minnen, Organizer

The Papyrological Summer Institute at the University of Cincinnati ran from July 5 to August 5, 2005, and was made possible by a generous grant from the Louise Taft Semple Fund of the Department of Classics. Twelve advanced graduate students from North America and beyond, selected by William Johnson and Peter van Minnen (both University of Cincinnati) from a pool of applicants about twice as large, attended workshops and worked on scans of papyri from the Vienna collection and on original papyri on loan from the University of Michigan through the kind offices of Traianos Gagos and Shannon Zachary. The Michigan papyri were kept in our Archives and Rare Books Department, where Kevin Grace was our host.

The students were: Susan Beresford from University College London, Lincoln Blumell and Donald Sells from the University of Toronto, David Branscome from Indiana University, Sandra Burgess from the University of Missouri, Chris Eckerman from the University of California Los Angeles, Daria Miheeva from Moscow University, Jason Reddoch and Stephen Self from the University of Cincinnati, Dan Ullucci from Brown University, Phil Venticinque from the University of Chicago, and Athanassios Vergados from the University of Virginia. Most of them were classicists, but others had a religious studies background.
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The workshops were conducted by Jean-Luc Fournet (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris) and Peter van Minnen, who acted as the principal instructors, and by Willy Clarysse (University of Leuven, Belgium) and William Johnson. Additional lectures were given by Caroline Magdelaine (Marc Bloch University, Strasbourg, now the Sorbonne, Paris), Dave Martinez (University of Chicago), Katy McNamee (Wayne State University), Gregg Schwendner (Wichita State University, then Tytus Summer Fellow at Cincinnati) and Susan Stephens (Stanford University).
The stated theme of the summer institute was "Books and Religions," and we devoted relatively many workshops to it, although we also covered the basics of documentary papyrology. Most papyri the students worked on were Greek documents, but there were a few literary and religious texts as well (Ecclesiastes in Greek and the apocryphal Letter to Abgar in Coptic). Among the documents, a detailed temple inventory listing rare cult items and a checklist of fancy clothes packed for a high official on a business trip stand out.
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2006 -- COLUMBIA
Columbia University, 2006

Roger Bagnall and Raffaella Cribiore, organizers

The 2006 Summer Seminar was held at Columbia University from June 19 through July 28. It was focused on Late Antiquity, with work on both Greek and Coptic papyri, both documentary and literary. The faculty consisted of Roger Bagnall and Raffaella Cribiore (both Columbia University) and Heike Behlmer (Macquarie University). David Ratzan (Columbia University) was the seminar assistant. Additional lectures were given by Rodney Ast (Columbia University), AnneMarie Luijendijk (Princeton University), and Giovanni Ruffini (Columbia University). The group also visited the collections of Princeton University and the Pierpont Morgan Library, hearing presentations by Don C. Skemer and William Voelkle, respectively, and seeing representative papyri from these collections.
The participants in the seminar were Marja Bakker (Leiden University), Alette Bakkers (Leiden University), Stephen Bay (University of Illinois; now Brigham Young University), Katherine Blouin (Université Laval), Ari Bryen (University of Chicago), Usama Gad (Ain Shams University), Brendan Haug (University of California, Berkeley), Kevin Kalish (Princeton University), Florence Lemaire (Sorbonne), Rachel Mairs (University of Cambridge), Valentina Millozzi (Università degli Studi, Urbino), and Jennifer Westerfeld (University of Chicago).

The core program of the Seminar consisted of morning lecture/seminar meetings on topics ranging over the period from the late third century to the eighth century in both languages. In addition, two Coptic classes were offered, one for beginners and one for more advanced students. Each participant used the afternoon hours to edit one papyrus and one ostrakon, all from the Columbia collection, which were then presented in a series of seminar meetings during the second half of the six-week period. These texts will be published in a series of articles.

​Funding for the Seminar was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the Distinguished Achievement Awards to Roger Bagnall and Peter Brown.
2008 -- STANFORD
Stanford University, 2008

Joseph G. Manning, organizer

​The 2008 Summer Seminar, directed by J.G. Manning, was held at Stanford University from 1-31 July. It was focused on the Ptolemaic Greek and Demotic documentary papyri in the Stanford University collection. The faculty consisted of Professors Arthur Verhoogt (Michigan) and Mark Depauw (KU Leuven). Additional lectures were given by Professors Janet Johnson (Chicago), Joe Manning (now Yale), Andrew Monson (now NYU), and Christelle Fischer (now USC). The group also spent several days learning the craft of papyrus conservation at Stanford's Conservation lab under the expert guidance of Ms. Leyla Lau-Lamb (Michigan) who was kind enough to come out for a week.

The participants, an unusually fine and dedicated group of young scholars, were:

Graham Claytor (Columbia), Alicia Cunningham-Bryant (Yale), Elizabeth Davidson (Chicago), Tasha Dobbin (Yale), Rob Groves (UCLA), Brittany Hayden (Chicago), Béatrice Le Teuff (Bordeaux), Mario Paganini (Oxford/Italy), Fred Porta (Stanford), Barbara Richter (Berkeley), Kathryn Stevens (Oxford), Jelle Stoop (Yale/Belgium), John Sutherland (Stanford), Andrew Sweet (Cornell), Carolin Arlt (Würzburg/Berkeley), Eman Ahmad (Ain Shams/Egypt), Marja Vierros (Helsinki), Nicola Reggiani (Parma).

The core program of the Seminar consisted of morning lecture/seminar meetings on topics ranging over the period from the late third century to the eighth century in both languages. In addition, a demotic grammar and paleography class was offered by Mark Depauw in the afternoons. Each participant used the afternoon hours to edit one papyrus
These texts will be published in a series of articles. Some nice publicity for the school was raised through Joe Manning appearing on the PRI radio show "The World." And a nice story in the Stanford News was published toward the end of the School: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/july23/papyri-072308.html
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Funding for the Seminar was provided by the Department of Classics, the Social Science History Institute, the Dean of Arts and Sciences, and the Provost's office of Stanford University.
Submitted by JG Manning (Yale, Departments of History and Classics), Mark Depauw (KU Leuven, Head of Ancient History), and Arthur Verhoogt (Michigan, Department of Classical Studies).
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2009 -- MICHIGAN
University of Michigan, 2009

Traianos Gagos and Arthur Verhoogt, organizers

The 2009 Summer Seminar, directed by Traianos Gagos, was held at the University of Michigan from 1-31 July, 2009. It was focused on Byzantine documents from the University of Michigan and Cornell collections, and included —in alternating afternoon sessions— an opportunity to learn the basics of the Coptic language and papyrus conservation. The instructors consisted of James G. Keenan (Loyola University, Chicago), Traianos Gagos, Leyla Lau-Lamb, Arthur Verhoogt and Terry Wilfong (all Michigan). Additional lectures were given by Professors Stephen Bay (Brigham Young University), Jitse Dijkstra (University of Ottawa), Bruce Frier (Michigan), Ludwig Koenen (Michigan), Nikos Litinas (Crete), Karl Longstreth (Michigan), Roger McFarlane (Brigham Young University), David Potter (Michigan), and Giovanni Ruffini (Fairfield University),
The participants in the seminar were: Richard Burchfield (Macquarie), S. Kevin Funderbunk (University of Pennsylvania), Nicole M. High-Steskal (Vienna/Michigan), Thomas P. Landvatter (Michigan), Isabelle Marthot (Paris Sorbonne), Ryan McConnell (Illinois, Urbana), Monika Minehart (Chicago), Jaclyn Neel (Toronto), Luigi Prada (Oxford), and Panagiota Vlachaki (Crete).
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The participation of Professor James G. Keenan was made possible by the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation.

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2011 -- BRIGHAM YOUNG
Brigham Young University
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Roger MacFarlane, Stephen Bay, Lincoln Blumell, and Thom Wayment, organizers

The 2010 Summer Seminar was held at Brigham Young University from 20 June until 29 July. It was focused on Roman Egypt, with work on Tebtunis papyri in Greek. The faculty consisted of a broad team of experienced papyrologists: Peter Van Minnen (Cincinnati), Todd Hickey (California-Berkeley), Roger Bagnall (NYU-ISAW), Joshua Sosin (Duke), Nikos Litinas (University of Crete), Maryline Parca (Illinois), Klaas Worp (emeritus, Leiden), Rodney Ast (Heidelberg), Arthur Verhoogt (Michigan), teamed with the seminar’s organizers, Roger Macfarlane, Stephen Bay, Lincoln Blumell, and Thom Wayment (Brigham Young). Additional lectures were given by BYU professors John Gee, John Thompson, Brian Hauglid, Daniel Graham, Giovanni Tata, and Cecilia Peek.

Papyri were loaned by the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri under the direction of Todd Hickey and managed by specialists in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections in BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library. Librarians Ryan Coombs and Robert Maxwell, of the HBLL, provided particularly welcome support. Extraordinary contributions were made by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship (at BYU) and by BYU’s College of Humanities. Generous allocation of HBLL resources allowed for substantial permanent enhancement of holdings in papyrological reference works and editions.

The participants in the seminar included Grant W. Adamson (Rice), Kris McLain (Utah Valley University), Charles F. Bartlett (NYU), Emily Cole (UCLA), Taylor S. Coughlan (Cincinnati), Mohamed G. Elmaghrabi (Alexandria), Nathan B. Gilbert (Toronto), Ulrike Hoier (Leipzig), Gabriel Nocchi Macedo (Liege), and Markus Resel (Vienna).

The core program of the Seminar consisted of morning lecture/seminar meetings on topics ranging over the breadth and depth of papyrological research. The Provo Seminar implemented a novel approach by bringing a broader number than before of prominent papyrologists and asking each to deliver a smaller number of individual lectures and workshops. Instruction in SOSOL mark-up was offered in a two-day workshop by Prof. Sosin. Prof. Bagnall delivered a special evening lecture to which the entire university community was invited. Daily reading sessions in the HBLL reading rooms allowed time for each participant to edit at least one papyrus. Professors mentored participants regarding their papyrological readings and background. Each participant also was assigned at least one ostrakon to edit. Intermediate and final presentations were delivered in a series of seminar meetings during the seminar. Prof. Verhoogt acted as outside reviewer in the seminar’s final round of presentations. Published editions of the participants’ texts have begun to appear in ZPE, Tyche, and BASP.
2012 -- CHICAGO & ILLINOIS
​University of Chicago and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012

David Martinez and Maryline Parca, organizers

The 2012 summer institute was hosted at the University of Chicago, and co-sponsored by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For a PDF of the entire schedule for the institute, click here.
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Participants in the institute were: Sebastian Anderson (Classics, U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign); Bryan Brinkman (Classics & History, Brown University); Marina Escolano-Poveda (Egyptology, Johns Hopkins University); François Gerardin (Ancient History, Paris I-Sorbonne); Kyle Helms (Classics, University of Cincinnati); Andrew Langford (Religion, U of Chicago); Maria Nowak (Roman and Ancient Law, University of Warsaw); Mike Sampson (Classics, U of Manitoba); Denis Searby (Classics, Stockholm U.); Michael Zellmann-Rohrer (Classics & Medieval Studies, UC Berkeley); Zsuzsanna Zsántó (Ancient History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary).
2014 -- Princeton University
Organizer: AnneMarie Luijendijk 

​The 2014 Summer Institute took place at Princeton University from July 7 to August 8 under the co-directorship of Jean-Luc Fournet (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris) and Nicolaos Gonis (University College, London). AnneMarie Luijendijk (Princeton) was the organizer. The focus was late antique papyri.
The core program of the institute consisted of daily lectures and seminar meetings on such topics as dates and money, toponyms, letters (fourth through eights centuries), accounts, receipts, petitions, contracts, literary papyri, Oxyrhynchus and the Apions, Aphrodite, Dioscorus’ oeuvre, Christian papyri, monasticism, and Coptic documents. Students also learned to submit editions and corrections to the Papyrological Navigator. The chronological focus ranged from the late third century to the eighth century with an emphasis on (but not exclusively) late antique documentary papyri. Participants prepared editions of documents from the papyrus collection at Princeton’s Firestone Library, to be published in P.Princ. IV.

Roger Bagnall (ISAW), Raffaella Cribiore (NYU), James Keenan (Loyola University of Chicago), Gesa Schenke (Oxford) and Don Skemer (Princeton) presented guest lectures and seminars.
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We had an excellent group of advanced graduate students and a recent PhD, selected from a strong pool of 35 applicants. Participants in the institute were: Yasmine Amory (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris), Eleni Chronopoulou (Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona), Mélanie Houle (University of Ottawa), Katharine Huemoeller (Princeton University), Alexander Kirby (University of Toronto), Emily Kirkegaard (University of Notre Dame), Karin Maurer (University of Vienna), Ágnes Mihálykó (University of Oslo), William Mundy (University of Manchester), Nicholas Venable (University of Chicago), and Matthijs Wibier (Pennsylvania State University).

The institute was presented under the auspices of the American Society of Papyrologists and made possible through the generous funding of the ASP, the Onassis Foundation (University Seminars Program), and the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Grant, Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity, and Departments of Classics, History and Religion at Princeton University.
2018 -- WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Washington University, St. Louis, July 9-August 10, 2018

Todd Hickey reporting (in BASP 57 [2020] 297-298)

The tenth installment of the ASP’s Summer Institute in Papyrology (SIP) was hosted by Washington University in St. Louis from 9 July through 10 August 2018. The SIP was co-directed by Todd Hickey (University of California, Berkeley) and Roger S. Bagnall (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World), with supplemental instruction from William Bubelis (Washington University in St. Louis), Nikolaos Gonis (University College London), Lance Jenott (Washington University in St. Louis), James G. Keenan (Loyola University Chicago), AnneMarie Luijendijk (Princeton University), Giovanni Ruffini (Fairfield University), Peter van Minnen (University of Cincinnati), and Michael Zellmann-Rohrer (University of Oxford). The program was funded by the ASP’s Summer Institute endowment, with additional support, in money and in kind, provided by Washington University’s Department of Classics, the Julian Edison Department of Special Collections of the Washington University Libraries, and the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA). For the time and energy that they expended towards ensuring a successful program, the ASP remains grateful to Professors Catherine Keane and Timothy Moore, both of the Washington University Department of Classics; to Joel Minor, curator of the modern literature collection and manuscripts, and his colleagues in Washington University Special Collections; and to Drs. Lisa Çakmak (associate curator of ancient art) and Sarah Biggs (research assistant) and their colleagues at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Cathy Marler (Washington University Department of Classics) provided administrative support.

Out of a large and competitive pool of applicants, twelve individuals, all students or early-career scholars, were selected to participate in the SIP: Serena Causo (Universität Basel), Alan Taylor Farnes (Brigham Young University), Frederic Krueger (Freie Universität Berlin), Anna Monte (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin), Joseph Morgan (Yale University), Alejandro Quintana (Harvard University), Roxanne Bélanger Sarrazin (Université d’Ottawa/Université libre de Bruxelles), Rebecca Sausville (New York University), Irene Soto Marín (Universität Basel), Thu Ta (University of Southern California), Georgios Tsolakis (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World), and Nicholas Wagner (Duke University). Most of the project material for the Institute came from Washington University’s own collection. After the publication of P.Wash.Univ. 1 and 2, many papyri meriting editorial attention remained; the vast majority of these pieces, perhaps unsurprisingly, dated from Late Antiquity.
2020, 2021 -- COVID-19 cancellation
The Summer Institute for 2020 and then 2021 at the University of Cincinnati was delayed due to the pandemic.
2022 -- University of Cincinnati
University of Cincinnati, June 20-July 19, 2022

Peter van Minnen reporting

The second University of Cincinnati summer institute (the first one took place in 2005) was twice postponed (from 2020 to 2021 and from 2021 to 2022) because of COVID-19. We were finally able to stage it this summer. The institute took place in the project area of the Department of Classics in Blegen Library. Financial support came from the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati, the Semple Fund of the Department of Classics, and especially the American Society of Papyrologists. Other support of the institute came from the staff of the Department of Classics and from the Department of Geology at the University of Cincinnati.

Original unpublished papyri were provided by the University of Michigan and scans of unpublished papyri by the Austrian National Library, both institutions with an exemplary record in sponsoring papyrological teaching and research. The Michigan papyri were originally selected with the approval of Traïanos Gagos, afterwards with that of Brendan Haug, both archivists of the Papyrus Collection at the University of Michigan, and with the help of Shannon Zachary, chief conservator, and her colleagues. The Vienna papyri were originally selected with the approval of Hermann Harrauer, afterwards with that of Bernhard Palme, both directors of the Papyrus Collection at the Austrian National Library. Todd Hickey added scans of unpublished ostraca from the Victoria Museum at the University of Uppsala.

The institute was organized by Peter van Minnen, University of Cincinnati, and co-taught by him and Michael Zellmann-Rohrer, Freie Universität Berlin. Occasional lectures were gives by Amin Benaissa, University of Oxford, Kathryn Gutzwiller, University of Cincinnati, Todd Hickey, University of California, Berkeley, David Martinez, University of Chicago, and Francesca Schironi and Arthur Verhoogt, both University of Michigan. The students of the institute were Antonia Apostolakou, Ghent University, Spyridoula Bounta, Trier University, Cassandra Casias, now a faculty member at Duke University, Valentina Iannace, University of Manchester, Jordan Johansen and Ella Karev, both University of Chicago, Claire Koen, Fordham University, Leah Packard-Grams, University of California, Berkeley, Haytham Qandeil, now a faculty member at Ain Shams University, Susan Rahyab, Columbia University, Kate Stevens, Rutgers University, Henry Upton, University of Michigan, and Polina Yordanova, University of Helsinki. Their background was most often Classics or Ancient History, occasionally Theology or Egyptology.

The unpublished papyri studied ranged from the second century BC (a petition about a delinquent cow) to the seventh century AD (Christ’s letter to Abgar in Coptic on the back of a Greek slave sale). Once their editions are completed, they will appear in the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists.