Collection items

2,000-year-old homework book

Writing tablet Created date: 2nd century

These two wax tablets, once bound together with string, are pages of a Greek homework book from around 2,000 years ago. ...

Declaration of camels

Papyrus Created date: 146

In Roman Egypt, privately owned animals such as sheep, goats, camels, and donkeys had to be declared by their owners to...

Fragment of Bacchylides, with attached sillybos

Papyrus Created date: 2nd century

A small fragment is all that remains of this 2nd-century CE scroll containing the dithyrambs of the poet Bacchylides (fl...

Notification of death

Papyrus Created date: 101

This fragmentary text was written over 1,900 years ago and dates to the very beginning of the second century. Although m...

Receipt for pasture tax

Ostracon Created date: 150 or 160

Besides papyri and other materials, in Egypt inscribed potsherds (ostraca) were used as a writing support and hosted a v...