Oldest surviving manuscripts of Ancient Greece and Rome
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| The main reason for this is [[Papyrus]] which has a life of at most a century or two in relatively [[moist]] Italian or Greek conditions; only those works copied onto [[parchment]], usually after the general conversion to Christianity, have survived, and by no means all of those. | The main reason for this is [[Papyrus]] which has a life of at most a century or two in relatively [[moist]] Italian or Greek conditions; only those works copied onto [[parchment]], usually after the general conversion to Christianity, have survived, and by no means all of those. | ||
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| - | :The oldest written manuscripts have been preserved by the perfect dryness of their Middle Eastern resting places, whether placed within [[sarcophagus|sarcophagi]] in Egyptian tombs, or reused as [[mummy]]-wrappings, discarded in the [[midden]]s of [[Oxyrhynchus]] or secreted for safe-keeping in [[jar]]s and buried ([[Nag Hammadi library]]) or stored in dry caves ([[Dead Sea scrolls]]). Manuscripts in [[Tocharian languages]], written on palm leaves, survived in desert burials in the [[Tarim Basin]] of Central Asia. Volcanic ash preserved some of the Greek library of the [[Villa of the Papyri]] in [[Herculaneum]]. | ||
| [[Cornelius Gallus]] is often cited as the [[oldest surviving]] [[manuscript]] of [[Latin poetry]]. | [[Cornelius Gallus]] is often cited as the [[oldest surviving]] [[manuscript]] of [[Latin poetry]]. | ||
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Apart from the charred papyrus fragments recovered in Herculaneum at the Villa of the Papyri and the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, not one single manuscript from Ancient Greece and Rome survived.
The main reason for this is Papyrus which has a life of at most a century or two in relatively moist Italian or Greek conditions; only those works copied onto parchment, usually after the general conversion to Christianity, have survived, and by no means all of those.
Cornelius Gallus is often cited as the oldest surviving manuscript of Latin poetry.
See also
- The oldest written manuscripts
- Discovered text (archaeology)
- Manuscript
- Earliest known art
- Extant literature
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Oldest surviving manuscripts of Ancient Greece and Rome" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
