Each record has an meaningless identification number, the LDAB number, whose only purpose was and is to allow easy quotation of the database in scientific literature. LDAB 1 - 7096 were ordered by a sorting programme, first by author name, then by date, then by inventory number. Starting from LDAB 7097 new items are simply added to the list by order of entering. From LDAB 10898 onwards, the LDAB number has ceased to exist as a separate entity: it is identical to the Trismegistos number.

The names of ancient authors are as a rule transcribed in Latin alphabet, but we increasingly try to cater for as many variants as possible, including English versions: Homerus and Aeschylus, but also Homer, Homeros or Aischylos. For searching purposes the following are also included "authors": New Testament, Old Testament, Anthologia Palatina, and Acta Alexandrinorum.

The titles of the works of the authors are normally in Latin, although sometimes their is Greek, and we increasingly try to cater also for English titles.

The number of the book, the chapters and even the verses are also made explicit here, often with a zero-figure preceding (e.g. Ilias 07, 022). Searches for these specific indications are currently not yet catered for. It is best to look for the author or work and take it further from the results.

Translations made in antiquity are considered separate works: the Latin translation of the Phaenomena of Aratus is TM AuthorWork 2687, the Greek original TM Authorwork 617. For Biblical texts, each translated version of a book has its own ID: for the Latin Bible there are TM Authorwork IDs for the Vetus Latin version of Exodus (2970), or the Coptic version of the gospel according to Matthew (3140).

A distinction is made between direct and indirect attestations. A direct attestation is a copy of the work in question, an indirect one is either a quote from the work in another composition, a passage commented upon, or an epitome. Quotes are dealt with very selectively, and if the work is a commentary on another work it is not specifically referenced as such, e.g. an entry for Epicurus has not been added for an attestation of the commentary on that philosopher by Philodemus. If your interest is specifically in quotes or indirect attestations, you can finetune your searches on the TM Authors detail page.

In case the author and work are unknown, the fields Culture and Genre should be used.

Three alternatives are used here: "literature", "science" and "religion".

Literature:

The text is meant to be read by a reading public, not in the first place for practical purposes. Thus the Old and the New Testaments, when in book form, are literature, and so are medical and grammatical books. But if the text is meant to be used in school or in the liturgy of the church or for magical purposes, then it becomes "science" or "religion". On the whole, we have assumed that texts are "literature", unless there are clear indications to the contrary. A double identity is also possible (e.g. literature and science for commentaries and scholia, literature and religion for lectionaria). Here as elsewhere we have followed the lead of the editors and the repertories.

Science

Science is everything which can be classified as medicine (for inclusion and exclusion we have simply followed Marganne-Mertens), philology, mathematics (including school exercices), astronomy, geography etc. All school texts (e.g. all texts listed by Cribiore) are listed as "science", because their purpose is instruction, not reading. Note that a text can easily be literature and science, e.g. a school text of Homer, a copy of Homer with scholia, a medical treatise etc.

Religion

All writing intended for use in religious ceremonies is included here, e.g. liturgical texts, magic, prayer books. Note that a copy of the Old or New Testament, when part of a book, is classified as "literature", but a copy of Psalm 90 used as an amulet belongs to "religion".

This section gives a rough subdivision of the preceding one. Thus "literature" is divided in "poetry" and "prose". Each of these is further subdivided in the traditional genres, such as "epic, lyric, comedy, tragedy" for poetry, and "history, philosophy, novel, oratory, wisdom" for prose. The subdivisions are not clear-cut and often overlap, but they can be useful to study the different genres and subgenres over the centuries.

Subdivisions of "science" are e.g. astronomy, grammar, mathematics, medicine, philology, tachygraphy etc. In many instances "science" and "literature" are combined, e.g. an edition of Callimachus ("literature, lyric") with scholia ("science, philology, scholia").

Subdivisions of "religion" are e.g. prayer, magic, theology.

Texts from "literature" or "religion" are subidived here according to their religious background. The main purpose is to make a division between "pagan" (here called "classical") and "christian" literature, and in this sense the sections to a large extent coincide with the catalogues of Gigante and Pack (except for the scientific works) on the one side, and Van Haelst on the other.

- classical (including texts dealing with classical mythology such as Homer and history)

- christian

- jewish

- gnostic

- manichaean

More information on the purpose for which the text was originally written. The main categories are:

- amulet: thew text was meant to be used for magical protection.

- anthology

- epitome

- illustrated: text with illustrations.

- liturgy: text was meant for liturgical use.

- school text: on the whole we have followed the identifications by Cribiore, i.e. when a text has been included in Cribiore (see "repertories") it is identified here as a school text.

- sillybos

- stage directions

Sometimes more than one text occurs on a single object. According to our criteria, texts are part of the same document (and thus constitute a single entry in TM Texts) when they are intentionally related, i.e. when the scribe of a secondary text - whether or not the same person as the writer of the primary text - wanted this to be on the same object or writing surface because there was in his mind a connection with the contents of the primary text. For more details about our criteria to decide whether texts are part of the same record, click here.

If two texts occur on the same writing surface, but are not intentionally related, the object or writing surface has been reused as 'old paper', 'old stone' or whatever the material used. This can be done in many different ways: one is to erase the primary text and to inscribe it with a new one. In that case the original, effaced text is a 'palimpsest old', while the text that is written above it is a 'palimpsest new'. Another possibility is that the blank side of an object, e.g. the verso of a papyrus or the back of a marble plate, is reused. In that case the primary text is marked as 'blank side reused by', the secondary as 'reuse of blank side of'. Finally, blank space can be reused. Examples of this are described as 'blank space reused by' or 'reuse of blank space of'.

In Trismegistos, each text written on what was originally a separate object or writing surface constitutes an individual record. Sometimes, however, two or more documents (often papyri) were in a second stage joined for their users' convenience, often because their complementary contents. This type of connection is also recorded, as 'in the codex joined with' for manuscripts bound together, or as 'in the tomos synkollesimos joined with' for texts made into a roll (click here for more information).

The history of reuse can at times be very complicated (for some complex cases, click here). As a result if can be time-consuming to figure out the exact relation between various texts constituting a single document. In many cases therefore users will find the general 'other texts on the same object'. We would welcome your help in changing this into something more specific.

Finally, please note that reuse has not been the focus of Trismegistos Texts so far, and no doubt many examples are not recorded by us. Because of the expansion of TM and collaboration with partners, we also have not monitored closely whether new entries are conform with what we consider to be a single document to be recorded. Please use the information to explore and illustrate only!

The language in which a text was written. For Egyptian the names of the various scripts are used: hieroglyphic, hieratic, Demotic, Coptic. Dialects of Coptic are normally also specified. You can also search for "bilingual" texts in general, or just search for a combination of two languages, e.g. "Demotic Greek".

Currently (125 January 2020) most are in Greek (9,771 items [figures 25 January 2020]) and Latin (2,181 items), but there are also many books in Coptic (2,135 items), Syriac (809 items), Demotic (725 items, not including the funerary texts) and Arabic (75 items).

The material on which the text was written. The most common materials are:

- papyrus: with the subdivisions "cartonnage", which is interesting for the early period, and "book bindings", which is interesting for the later period.

- parchment

- pottery: i.e. ostraca or limestone

- wood, with the subdivision waxed tablet

There are four possibilities:

- roll: two criteria have led us to classify a text as a roll:

  (1) there are remains of more than one column or the text consists of several fragments, and the back is blank or does not belong to the same text.

  (2) the editor says explicitly that the text is part of a roll. When remains of only one column are preserved, "roll" is sometimes accompanied by a question mark. Editors rarely give reasons for marking a fragment as part of a roll, but they presumably base this on the hand when this is clearly literary. Editors do not all follow the same practice in this matter. Often this issue is not discussed at all for minor fragments, so that we cannot be certain if the fragment is part of a roll or part of a sheet.

- codex: the text continues on the back. Whenever possible we give the number of sheets (folios) preserved and also indicate reuse as fly-leaves and in bindings. This field also notes if it is a "miniature codex".

- sheet: the text is not part of a roll nor of a codex, but was meant to be a single sheet. Ostraca are always called "sheets", wooden tablets can be either "sheets" (a single tablet) or codices (when the tablet was originally part of a group, which follows from the existence of holes), parchments are codices, sheets or, rarely, rolls, papyri are rolls, codices or sheets.

- fragment: the text (or the editor) does not provide enough information to classify the fragment with certainty as a roll or a sheet.

More work is needed here, because some editors are more reticent than others to call a fragment part of a roll. Pack explicitly marks codices as such, but never indicates if a text belongs to a roll. Some editors consider every fragment of a larger work as a roll, when the verso is blank and the text is written in a literary hand. We have followed them when they say so, but we have not always ourselves applied this argument when the editor does not make a choice. For that reason there are still a large number of "fragments" which could also be classified as "rolls". There is a lot of inconsistency here. In this section it is mentioned when a text is a palimpsest and if the writing is primary or secundary.

Script has not been treated with in a very systematic way. A lot depends on the terminology in the books from which we entered the information. For Greek and Latin a basic distinction is that between "majuscule" or "uncial" and "minuscule". The following is a list of typical (parts of) entries (mostly per language and in alphabetic order):

General: "clumsy", "cursive", "documentary", "formal", "informal", "round", "semi-cursive", "sloping", "upright".

Greek and Coptic: "Alexandrian majuscule" ("unimodular" or "bimodular") and "Alexandrian stylistic class" (a somewhat broader term), "biblical majuscule", "chancery script", "epsilon theta style", "formal round", "informal round", "mixed style", "pointed majuscule", "rustic capital", "severe style", "upper line script".

Latin: "Allemannic minuscule", "Anglo-Saxon majuscule" or "Anglo-Saxon minuscule", "az minuscule", "b-d uncial", "Beneventan minuscule", "BR uncial", "(early) Caroline minuscule", "Corbie ab-script", "pre-Caroline minuscule", "insular majuscule", "insular minuscule", "Irish majuscule", "Irish minuscule", "Luxueil minuscule", "Luxueil uncial", "Maurdramnus minuscule", "Rhaetian minuscule", "(early) (half / quarter) uncial", "Visigothic minuscule".

Syriac: "(Nestorian / Edessene) estrangela", "serto".

Aramaic and Hebrew: "Cryptic A", "paleo-Hebrew script", "Palestinian Syriac".

Arabic: "Hiyazi", "Kufic", "Medinan", "Naskh".

Georgian: "Asomtavruli majuscule", "Nuskhuri".

Most texts are only dated by century and searching can be done only by century too. When a more precise date is known, it is indicated separately in the field 'date', but this field is not searchable. When a text cannot be dated to one century we give two possibilities: AD01 - AD02 [note that there is no space between AD or BC and the number]. "Roman period" becomes AD01 - AD02 - AD03, "Byzantine period" AD04 - AD05 - AD06. In the statistics of part two these are calculated as a half or a third.

First the country is given: for papyri, this is usually Egypt. If one wants to establish the situation within Egypt, "Egypt" should be typed in this field. For Epicurus, for instance, the database gives 46 instances, but only 9 of them come from Egypt, the rest is from Herculaneum. Herculaneum also distorts the picture for the first century B.C. Next comes the town or village. For the Fayum the name of the area (Fayum) is added between "Egypt" and the village name, so that searches in the Arsinoite nome as a whole are possible.

For papyri the first reference is to the standard edition of the texts (e.g. P. Oxy); for parchment manuscripts it is to the standard catalogues, such as CLA (codices latini antiquiores), CLLA (codices latini liturgici antiquiores) or to museum catalogues, e.g. Wright, Catalogue of Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum. Later editions of the same text are listed far less systematically, especially for parchment manuscripts from the West.

No attempt is made to cover a full bibliography : my interest is in the manuscripts, not in Greek literature.

The initial catalogues the LDAB relied on were those of:

R.A. Pack, The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt, Ann Arbor 1965 (now in the MP3/CEDOPAL database of Liège);

J. Van Haelst, Catalogue des papyrus littéraires juifs et chrétiens, Paris 1976; completely included except for works dated to the ninth century

M. Gigante, Catalogo dei Papiri Ercolanesi, Napoli 1979; only those fragments from Herculaneum which have been published or for which an identification has been proposed have been included; fragments of a single roll listed separately by Gigante have been grouped, e.g. Gigante 0908 + 1390 = LDAB 841; see Chartes for a complete database of the Herculaneum papyri).

The following repertories were the basis for the updates and expansions of Pack and Van Haelst:

- CPP = Corpus of Paraliterary Papyri (M. Huys), NOW NO LONGER ACCCESSIBLE not too long after the death of M. Huys in 2010

- F. Uebel, "Literarische Texte unter Ausschluss der christlichen", in: Archiv für Papyrusforschung 21-24

- K. Treu, "Christliche Papyri", in: Archiv für Papyrusforschung 19-36

- R. Cribiore, Writing, Teachers and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt. American Studies in Papyrology 36, 1996.

- Nestle-Aland = K. Aland, Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments. Zweite, neugearbeitete und ergänzte Auflage, bearbeitet von K. Aland, in Verbindung mit M. Welte, B. Köster und K. Junack, Arbeiten zur Neutestamentlichen Textforschung 1, Berlin-New-York 1994.

- K. Aland, Repertorium der griechischen christlichen Papyri II. Kirchenväter - Papyri. Teil 1. Beschreibungen, Berlin - New York 1995

- Rahlfs-Fraenkel = A. Rahlfs- D.Fränkel, Verzeichnis der griechischen Handschriften des Alten Testaments 1/1: Die Überlieferung bis zum VIII. Jahrhundert, 2004

- Allen-Sutton-West: This refers to D. H. Sutton, Homer in the Papyri, s.d. (see now http://www.chs.harvard.edu/homerpapyri/index.html [this link does no longer work], to M.L. West, Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad, München-Leipzig 2001, pp. 86-138 and M.L. West, Homerus, Odyssea (BSGRT), 2017, pp. xxvii-xlv.

- R. Gryson, Altlateinische Handschriften I, Freiburg 1999

- List of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts, ed. by The Peshitta Institute, Leiden 1961

- Marganne, Inventaire = M.-H. Marganne, Inventaire analytique des papyrus grecs de médecine (Publications du Centre de Recherches d'Histoire et de Philologie de la IVe Section de l'École pratique des Hautes Études (Hautes Études du monde gréco-romain) III 12, 1981

- E. Tov, Revised lists of the texts from the Judaean Desert, 2010, for Qumran texts, e.g. 4Q222.

For Latin manuscripts the reference is to CLA, where further bibliography can be found. As far as possible we have given the names of the editors. It comes as no surprise that Grenfell and Hunt still dominate the field of Greek literary papyri, even at the end of the 20th century.

For early medieval manuscripts we have indicated the libraries to which they once belonged. For Latin texts we found this information in CLA, but it is also important for Greek, Coptic and Syriac texts, with the great libraries of St. Catherine (Sinai) or Mary at Deipara (Wadi Natrun).

If a text belonged to a known (mostly documentary) archive, or to an ancient library, this (exceptional) information can also be found here.

The collection in which the papyrus is now, or was earlier in modern times. For shelfmarks we use the city name in English, but names of the institutions are as arule in the original language. Thus we write Florence and Vienna, but Staatsbibliothek and Papyrologisch Instituut.

This lists the number of preserved columns, not the column numbers on the manuscript itself. In principle we have counted only the highest number of consecutive columns in the best preserved fragment of a text, but where well-preserved papyri have been numbered through by the editors even if one or even more columns were missing, we have simply followed their numbering. For codices the data in the list of E.G.Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex, 1977, pp.102-185 have been incorporated.

Many codices and a few rolls have page or column numbers. This field lists the highest number that is found for a particular codex or roll. For medieval codices it is often unclear whether the pagination is original or added at a later stage.

This field is usually empty. Most rolls and sheets are written only on the recto side. Codices are by definition written on both sides, and nothing has been entered here. When the text is a roll, there are three possibilities:

- field is empty: the roll is written only on the recto side.

- "on the recto; on the back . . .": the literary text is written on the recto, and another, literary or documentary, text is on the verso.

- "on the verso of . . .": the literary text is written on the verso of another text, literary or documentary.

In the case of a roll "recto" is the side where the fibres run parallel with the length of the roll and perpendicular to the kolleseis, "verso" is the side where the direction of the fibres is perpendicular to the length of the roll. In the case of a roll, we use the term opisthograph only when the text of the recto continues on the verso. We try to give her the most elementary information for the text on the other side, usually by referring to the corresponding LDAB number.

When the text is a codex, the field remains empty.

When the text is on a sheet written on both sides, it is marked as opisthograph.

Here we give references to studies specifically devoted to questions of deciphering, dating and the physical make-up of the book. When our dating differs from the one in the (standard) edition, this is usually based on a study listed here. For palimpsests a reference is given here to the earlier or later texts on the manuscript.

Here we refer to studies devoted to the literary aspects of a text. We have not systematically entered this kind of information, only the most recent literature we happened to notice. It is not our intention to make the database into a bibliographical tool for the study of ancient literature : our work is directed to the study of ancient books.

Here we have tried to give information on the purpose for which the text was originally written. The main possibilities are the following:

- amulet : text was meant to be used for magical protection

- anthology

- epitome

- illustrated : text with illustrations

- liturgy : text was meant for liturgical use

- school text : on the whole we have followed the identifications by Cribiore, i.e. when a text has been included in Cribiore (see "repertories") it is identified here as a school text

- sillybos

- stage directions

The information given here is rather haphazard, but most of the classic anthologies have been incorporated, e.g.

W. Schubart, Papyri Graecae Berolinenses 1911;

E.G. Turner - P.J. Parsons, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World 1987;

Cavallo - Maehler, Greek Bookhands of the Early Byzantine Period 1987;

M. Norsa, La scrittura Letteraria Greca 1939;

C.H. Roberts, Greek Literary Hands 1956;

R. Seider, Paläographie der griechischen Papyri 1967-1970;

Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores;

Hatch, Monumenta Palaeographica Vetera.