This 'new papyrus' thing is just getting strange and I don't understand why things have been spun they way they have been. Over at Paleojudaica, JD posts a link to a discussion at Ars Technica written by a papyrology student who suggests this is a pile of hype, if nothing more ... the subsequent discussion is also worth a look. I have also just come across an interview with Dirk Obbink on NPR which I hoped would give more details than the original article from the Independent, but alas, nothing we haven't heard before. Another item at NPR discusses the technology, which again is interesting, but nothing we haven't heard before in regards to multispectral imaging (a transcript of sorts is available at Slate). Folks wondering why I'm not overly excited might want to read this article from BYU magazine four years ago on the use of the technology to read papyri from Herculaneum. Also worthy of a visit in this regard is the Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religion Texts site. Now don't get me wrong ... that a new piece of Archilochus has been found is obviously exciting. That we can read a bit of Sophocles that we hadn't quite read before is similarly so. But to go from that to claims of a "second Renaissance" is one of those dogs that just won't hunt.

By the way ... the discussion at Ars Technica refers to the Papy-l list ... I thought it was defunct! Can someone give me RECENT information (i.e. post 2002) on the location of its archives and/or how to subscribe? I must have been bumped off the list at some point ...