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My dear Smyly,
I shall be delighted to see
you. Come when you like. The state
of affairs is this. College3 is (practically)
closed ) till the , so if you come this
week you will have to put up with
such hospitality as our little house
affords. Blass & two daughters are
coming on the for 4 or 5 days to
stay with us. Hunt is at Romford5
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but comes up on Sat. ^ or Monday. He has got
the Greek papyri which we bought, i.e.
sundry Roman documents, 2 or 3 Ptolemaic
& a variety of literary & theological fragments.
The papyri we found in our excavation6
(about 3 or 4 hundred documents
1-3 cent A.D., with a few late
Ptolemaic & some literary scraps) are
on their way home & will arrive
about May. So just at present there
isnt anything new to show you.
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We had a very successful season on
the whole though we had very hard
luck in one respect. We found a
large cemetery7 of papyrus mummies like
the Gurob8 ones, but damp &
imperfect mummification had reduced
the papyri to powder !
I was very glad to see Mahaffy's
preliminary blast in the Athenaeum9
about the new ed. of the P.P.10
Wilcken dug at Ahhnes11 but
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didnt find much.
P.S. I am dining out on Sat. evening
but otherwise have no engagements till
the Blasses come.
1. This is Grenfell's mother's home.
2. 1899
3. This refers to Queen's College.
4. The "11th" overwrites "12th" because Easter was on the 2nd that year, so the 11th is a week after.
6. This refers to the excavation in the Fayyūm.
9. Published April 1, 1899. See p. 398.
10. Petrie Papyri
11. "Ahhnes" is an alternative spelling for "Akhnes" which is also known as Heracleopolis.
Cite this page: Center for the Tebtunis Papyri. Document 81. History of Papyrology. https://histpap.info/letters/81/.