The Bankes Ostraka From a Box At Kingston Lacy. The Greek Texts

In the volume titled the Bankes Ostraka from a Box from Kingston Lacy (O.Bankes) one will find a first edition of a collection of almost 100 Greek inscribed potsherds (ostraka) kept in a mansion in Southern England entrusted recently to the care of the National Trust in the UK. Once, the house was inhabited by William John Bankes who travelled in Egypt the beginning of the 19th century and during these travels (extending as far South as Assuan), Bankes collected various antiquities, e.g. by picking up ca. 1820 (i.e. long before the age of modern papyrology became initiated) such ostraka haphazardly appearing on the surface of the earth before his feet. When the National Trust took over the house, during reorganization works a box was found containing these potsherds that had been forgotten for a long time.

The Greek ostraka presented in this edition bring the usual variety of tax receipts and various other short texts (memoranda, lists etc.), all of them written during the 2nd and early 3rd century C.E. The new volume is provided with the usual full word indices, and with color photos of each individual object stored on a cd-rom; this procedure facilitates the comparison of a printed page with a photo appearing on a computer screen.