Artifact
Elephantine Ahiqar Papyrus
An object record bringing together its image, metadata, rights, and context.
A fragmentary Aramaic witness, probably from the later fifth century BCE, preserving Ahiqar’s tale and sayings with gaps and editorial restorations.
Illustration — not a photograph of the original object
CC0 · Modern editorial illustration: IL Archive / CC0
Modern editorial illustration of a sage writing at an ancient court. Generated explanatory image, not a photograph of P.13446 or a documented reconstruction of Daniel or Ahiqar. © IL Archive, CC0
Object details
- Title
- Elephantine Ahiqar Papyrus
- Rights
- CC0
Metadata
These are descriptive fields, not conclusions.
- Edition
- 2
Text
Berlin’s P.13446 is among the ElephantineElephantine / YebIsland near Aswan at the Nile’s first cataract; Persian-period Aramaic papyri document a Jewish community and Yaho’s temple.Glossary · Click to read the explanation texts. The story places its sage under Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, but the extant papyrus was written centuries later in Egypt. The passage describing Nadin’s accusation is damaged and cannot simply be filled from later SyriacSyriacA literary form of Aramaic, with an extensive Christian heritage and earlier non-Christian attestations.Glossary · Click to read the explanation and Arabic versions. [1][2][4]
References and notes
- Museum record, narrative translation Ai01–Dii14 and selected sayings read; papyrus is incomplete, bracketed reconstructions occur, and not all sayings were read. Berlin Ahiqar papyrus P.13446, narrative Ai01–Dii14, selected sayings Ei01–Ji16 and institutional record Return to the text ↑
- Specified parts of Bledsoe’s chapter on the papyrus date, accusation, kingship and conclusion were read, not the whole chapter or volume. Seth A. Bledsoe, “Conflicting Loyalties,” 2015, selected pp. 239–243, 245–246, 253–255, 263–265 Return to the text ↑
- Entire short project homepage read; editions of all later versions were not read. University of Göttingen, Ahiqar digital edition project, entire short homepage Return to the text ↑
Research history
Substantive changes are retained here. Minor copy edits remain in the internal operational log.
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Cite this record
IL Archive, «Elephantine Ahiqar Papyrus», Edition 2, https://ilarchive.com/en/artifacts/ahiqar-elephantine-papyrus