Paleography of inv. 3196

Michigan Papyrus inv. 3196 is one of many papyri that comprise the Zenon archive. This papyrus was composed in a cursive hand. Cursive writing was used for documentary texts, where the speed of writing sometimes resulted in making the words harder to read. Although the papyri from the archive were not all written by the same individual, similarities in the style of texts that date from the third century BCE can be noted. Below, you will see a sample of the letters used in this papyrus. Cursive hands from the third century mixed what we think of as upper- and lower-case letters. Some letters (like ν) are shown twice; it was not uncommon for a scribe to write a single letter in two fairly different ways, even within the same text.

Take a minute to familiarize yourself with the letters.

α

α

β

γ

δ

ε

η

θ

ι

κ

λ

μ

ν

ν

ξ

ο

π

ρ

ϲ

τ

τ

υ

φ

χ
ω

A number of letter forms should be noted. The two versions of the alpha are both similar to the familiar "lower case" form, but here, the letter is almost turned on its side. The appearance of the eta is different from more familiar forms; here, it resembles the "upper case" form, but the right vertical stroke ends in a curve and is slightly higher than the left vertical. The lambda has been written very quickly, and is similar to the "upper case" version of the letter. The mu is not well formed, and could be easily confused with the pi. Two different forms of the nu can be found on the papyrus; the first form is similar to the "upper case" form, while the second is an elongated version, resembling a backwards "s". Also, the lunate sigma (rather than the familiar σ and ς) is used in this text.

The majority of the letters are similar in height, although letters with strong vertical strokes typically extend below the line. The letters iota, rho and phi are consistently larger; tau and upsilon are sometimes extended. The numerals have also been written in larger forms, probably to emphasize this important part of the document. Ligatures (connections between letters) are very common, a feature that sometimes makes it difficult to differentiate between letters.

You can view this alphabet table at any time while reading the text by clicking on the "view alphabet" link at upper-left of each page.

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