![]() ![]() The earliest surviving example of Homeric papyri is from the third century BCE, about the time that scholars in Alexandria produced a relatively stable text that was subsequently used by scribes to produce copies. The two poems are generally presumed to have been composed sometime from the eighth century BCE (or earlier) to the mid-seventh century BCE and written down by the mid-sixth century BCE, likely in conjunction with performances at the Panathenaia Festival in Athens. The Iliad and the Odyssey-epic poems composed for oral performance-present these and other challenges to scholars who are interested in the history of the texts that are available to us. ![]() ![]() The long journey from manuscript to printed book resulted in numerous losses and the introduction of many variations in the texts along the way, some accidental and others deliberate. The texts-written on papyrus or parchment, and later on paper-were copied by scribes multiple times over the course of two millennia. Works from antiquity had to undergo several risky transformations in order to be read and studied today. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |