The University of Cologne is playing the leading role in a research project that will be included in the Academies’ Programme, the joint research programme of the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities, starting in 2026. Together with their colleague Professor Dr Patrick Sänger at the University of Münster, the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri (UC) and the Cologne Center for eHumanities, Associate Professor Dr Charikleia Armoni and Professor Dr Jürgen Hammerstaedt have successfully acquired the project ‘The crocodile and human mummies of Tebtunis: AI-supported reconstruction and edition of the Hellenistic papyri of the Bancroft Library (Berkeley)’. The total funding for this project amounts to 4.34 million euros over 15 years.
The project will investigate 20,000 fragments of Hellenistic papyri that have been stored in the Bancroft Library on the campus of the University of California/Berkeley since the 1930s. They are inscribed with a broad range of ancient Greek texts, including works of great literature, royal decrees, official or private correspondence, contracts, official reports, tax receipts, and many other documents.
To date, researchers have been able to decipher and publish fully or partially approximately 1,050 of these papyrus fragments. However, the majority of them is still unexplored. These sources come from the same excavation site: they were discovered in the winter of 1899/1900 during archaeological excavations in the ancient city of Tebtunis (now Tell Umm el-Baragat in Fayum), an important cult centre of the ancient Egyptian crocodile god Sobek. The fragments were reused in the Hellenistic period to make mummies of humans and crocodiles buried in the city’s necropolis.
As part of the academy project, the Cologne–Münster working group intends to catalogue, edit, and publish the objects stored in the Bancroft Library. By using AI-supported methods known as fragment matching, the researchers intend to bring together the many thousands of unexplored fragments that resulted from the removal of the mummies, thereby fully exploiting the immense value of this Hellenistic papyrus collection. The academy project aims to establish an international network of early-career researchers in this specialized field to investigate papyrological sources using new methodological approaches to be developed within the project, and thus expand our knowledge of Hellenistic Egypt.
The researchers from Cologne and Münster are being supported by the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri at Berkeley and the Cologne Center for eHumanities (CCeH). The plan is to create a publication platform where the results of the international papyrological and ancient historical research project can be made available to the public.
The collective research programme of the academies of sciences – the Academies’ Programme – serves to study, preserve, and communicate global cultural heritage. It is currently the largest long-term research programme in Germany for foundational research in the humanities and social sciences and is coordinated by the Union of Academies. Only excellent projects of high academic relevance with a duration of 12 to 25 years are eligible for funding. Half of the funding is provided by the federal government and half by the federal states. Currently, 15 projects are being funded through the Academies’ Programme at North Rhine-Westphalian universities and research institutions. The total funding for the four new projects in NRW amounts to approximately 42 million euros and will run for an exceptionally long period of 15 to 25 years.
Media Contact:
Professor Dr Charikleia Armoni
Department of Classics, University of Cologne
+49 221 470 3025
charikleia.armoni@uni-koeln.de
Professor Dr Jürgen Hammerstaedt
Department of Classics, University of Cologne
+49 221 470 2242
ala19@uni-koeln.de
Press and Communications Team:
Eva Schissler
+49 221 470 4030
e.schissler@verw.uni-koeln.de
Further information:
https://www.awk.nrw/news/akademienprogramm-vier-neue-projekte-aus-nordrhein-westfalen