A Companion to Greek Lyric. Группа авторов

archaeologists therefore condemn any activity that damages, destroys, or renders irretrievable the history of an object or its archaeological context. That rationale is echoed in the Society for Classical Studies’ Statement on Professional Ethics and the American Society of Papyrologists’ Resolution Condemning the Illicit Trade in Papyri. Such public documents are important for attempting to limit and qualify the scholarly imperative to acquire, preserve, study, and publish the material culture of antiquity. Indeed, there are good reasons for such restrictions: cultural heritage continues to be destroyed instead of professionally excavated, and the material culture of antiquity continues to be looted and sold on the antiquities market rather than properly studied in context.

      Such concerns are especially germane to papyrology because of its historical weakness in archaeological matters. A brief example is again illustrative: although the cartonnage from which the famous Lille Stesichorus originates was excavated by Jouget and Lefebvre in 1901, for example, the location of the find remains unclear (Meillier: 1976: 339; Turner 1971: 124). There is more we would like to know about this text that, sadly, cannot now be ascertained: such gaps in paperwork or record-keeping are all too common when dealing even with legally acquired papyri. A further consideration raised by this text involves the excavated object itself: the physical reality of mummy cartonnage is that extracting papyrus from it long came at the cost of destroying the cartonnage. Papyrologists and archaeologists are unlikely to agree on which item is more important, but the dismantling of cartonnage is no longer especially common in responsible collections.

Regardless of evolving scholarly attitudes and a more stringent legal framework, there are significant challenges in the present moment. Not only does the market for antiquities (both licit and illicit) remain lively—particularly following the turmoil of the Arab Spring—but the boundary between the two remains imperfectly defined. Just because a papyrus is consigned and purchased through a major auction house, for example, does not mean that its legal provenance has been established with any certainty (Whitesell 2016), a lesson that art historians and archaeologists are all too familiar with. The case of the most recent Sappho discoveries indicates the lengths to which an owner might go in constructing a legitimate provenance for an object with an eye to lucrative resale (Sampson 2020). The anonymity granted to collectors by the market (and, occasionally, by scholars) further impedes transparency in research. And when an object’s origins are mysterious or unknown, all sorts of problematic questions are stirred: in addition to the specter of looting or illegal exportation, papyri can be forged—even ones written in ancient languages (Sabar 2016).

      Between the institutional collections whose acquisition histories are relatively transparent and the black market, therefore, lies a considerable grey area to which the various ethics statements respond. Practically the only check the academic community can place on the free market in antiquities is to be diligent in the course of conducting research in the present, by demanding proof of an object’s provenance before authenticating or publishing it, and by reporting that provenance in full after verifying it to the best of one’s abilities. No matter how exciting a new text may be for the addition it potentially makes to the corpus of lyric, it is also inherently problematic, and therefore should be presented with a high bar to clear before receiving a scholarly audience. The academic argument concerning the preservation and dissemination of knowledge must be reconciled to an ethical one that reflects an unsavory reality: one’s participation in activities that destroy data or knowledge—wittingly or unwittingly, directly or indirectly—effectively encourages them. Profit is a powerful incentive for criminals, and when a scholar identifies, authenticates, or publishes an object that was acquired in contravention of the law or outside of a controlled archaeological excavation, both the value of that object and the incentive for the perpetrator(s) to continue are thereby increased. Such practices are antithetical to the scholarly imperative to recover, study, preserve, curate, and disseminate knowledge of antiquity.

      Further Reading

Because lyric is but a small segment of the corpus of literary papyri, and literary papyri but a small segment of the corpus of papyri, many of the following suggestions consider aspects of papyrology more broadly. Turner 1968 remains a standard introduction, now richly supplemented by Bagnall 2009; on archaic poetry in particular see Haslam 1994. The history (and future) of the discipline are addressed by van Minnen 1993 and 2007; field reports from Oxyrhynchus are reproduced in Grenfell and Hunt 2007. On digital papyrology see Reggiani 2017 and 2018. Comprehensive studies of book hands of different periods are Turner 1971 as well as Cavallo and Maehler 1987 and 2008; on the bookrolls and scribes from Oxyrhynchus, specifically, see Johnson 2004. An illustrated database of palaeography, from papyri with internally established dates, can be searched online at www.pappal.info. Scholarship is a complex topic: McNamee 1992 and 2007 treat sigla and annotations, respectively; the corpus of ancient scholarship on individual authors is now in the process of being published in the CLGP; on accentuation see Probert 2003 (esp. §301–319, pp. 158–168). Ethics, the law, and the antiquities trade are subjects of Hagen and Ryholt 2016, Davoli 2008, Mazza 2015, 2018, and 2019. Fearn 2010 contextualizes the specific case of Bacchylides in terms of the imperialism and colonialism of the age. For an example of museum archaeology illuminating a group of papyri see Nongbri 2017. On criminal activity in the modern antiquities trade, see especially Watson and Todeschini 2006. For signatories to the UNESCO Convention (with dates), see http://www.unesco.org/eri/la/convention.asp?KO=13039&language=E.asp?KO=13039&language=E . The various statements regarding professional ethics should also be listed: the Archaeological Institute of America (https://www.archaeological.org/pdfs/AIA_Code_of_EthicsA5S.pdf), the Society for Classical Studies (https://classicalstudies.org/about/scs-statement-professional-ethics), the American Society of Papyrologists (http://www.papyrology.org/resolutions.html), and recommendations of the Association Internationale de Papyrologues’ Working Party on the Commerce in Papyri (https://www2.ulb.ac.be/assoc/aip/recomcommerce.html). On the history of the Lille Stesichorus see Jouget 1901 and Meillier 1976.

      Note

      1 * Andrew Bresch and Amber Leenders assisted in the research for this article.