[21.11.06]
- without prefix, number 1906.1 [with the year of acquisition?]
- A, numbers from 7 till 13
- D.P. [< Dura Papyrus], numbers from 2 till 118
- D.Pg. [< Dura Pergamenum], numbers from 6 till 33
- MM [= on loan from the Metropolitan Museum], numbers such as 09.182.52
- Ms., numbers from 193 till 2183
- O., numbers from 4 till 37
- P., number 4 [sc. an old number]
- P. CtYBR [sc. the Research Libraries Information Network's designation for the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library], numbers from 1 till 4947 ['qua' means enclosed in a quarter size frame, 'fol' in a folio size frame]

The papyri are usually one by one framed in plexiglass, although some smaller fragments are put together under one glass.

The total number of papyri and papyrusfragments is about 15.000. An old card catalogue is from 1983 on systematically integrated in an inventory that exists of loose sheets kept in binders. This inventory is to be used as a basis for a databank, which now goes till inv. nr. 4985 and contains both framed and unframed papyri. Some 5000 papyri have not yet been catalogued or framed.The catalogue available on Internet shows the situation of 1997, which will also contain digital images of all the framed papyri, both published and unpublished, which are now being scanned. Steve Emmel (then coptologist in Münster) has worked for many years on the catalogue project; Ruth Duttenhöfer (Trier) joined it in the period 1994-1997.

Comprehensive publications: P.Yale I, II; P.Yale Copt. I; P.Bacch. (YClS 10, 1947, 179-281); P.Dura. Individual publications in P.Oxy. I - VI; P.Fay.; P.Hib., and in several other books and articles, cf. the bibliography, in P.Yale II, p. XV-XXX. An introduction to the on-line catalogue which is being created. Altogether some 400 papyri have been published.

For the free publication policy, see :  http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/highlights/papyrus-collection-database

Several papyrologists are working now on papyri from the collection, but the Beinecke Library does not give any exclusive rights of publication. The right of publication and the right of photographical reproduction have to be asked each time, but will be granted without any problems.

S. Emmel, Antiquity in fragments. A hundred years of collecting papyri at Yale, Yale University Literary Gazette 64 (1989), pp. 38-58

Survey of the material (in descending order)

- Language: Greek, Coptic, Arabic, Demotic, Latin, Syriac, Aramaic, Hebrew - Chronology: Byzantine (including Coptic), Roman, Arabic, Ptolemaic, pre-Ptolemaic (with a few hieroglyphic and hieratic texts) - Geography: Middle- and Upper-Egypt, Syria - Mostly documentary papyri (ca. 90 %)

History of the collection:

1889: First gift of three papyri by J. Haworth of the excavations of Petrie in Hawara. They are now kept in the Library of Classics Department, Yale 1901-1909: Gifts from the Egypt Exploration Fund 1927-1935: Larger purchases in Cairo by Bradford-Welles and Rostovtzeff and Dura excavations 1937-1963: Smaller purchases and gifts 1964-1965: Larger purchases by H. P. Kraus, N. Y., and by merchants in Cairo through E. A. Samuel End of the sixties: Move of the papyrus collection to the newly built Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. 1966-1989: Smaller buying-ups and gifts From 1983 on: start of the project to establish the full catalogue of the collection, to frame most of the papyri, and to restore them if necessary 1992: Return of a large part of the collection, which was put away by E. A. Samuel for cataloguing From 1992 on: regular pruchases on the antiquities market. In 1992 and in 1996/97 large numbers of papyri have been bought. Seven wooden tablets were bought in 1995 and published in the Akten of the 21st Internat. Congress of Papyrology (Leipzig 1997), pp.244-250.

In the the reading-room of the Beinecke Library one can study the framed papyri dayly from 9 a.m. to 17 p.m.. Also the unframed material can be studied in agreement with the curator.

For the Coptic papyri, see L.MacCoull, Coptic Papyri in the Beinecke Collection at Yale University, Proceedings of the XIVth International Congress of Papyrologists Oxford 1974, London 1975, pp.217-219.

P.Oxy., P.Fayum, and / or P.Hibeh (cf. Coles, Location-list, 1974)