Palm Leaf Fragment Attached to Funerary Papyrus

George Hart glhart at BERKELEY.EDU
Wed Jan 23 15:24:54 UTC 2013


The language and script of the attachment are modern Tamil.  George Hart
On Jan 23, 2013, at 6:43 AM, Jacob Schmidt-Madsen <jacob at FABULARASA.DK> wrote:

> Dear list,
> 
> McComas Taylor's posting of a mystery palm leaf manuscript reminded me of another mystery manuscript fragment which came to my attention recently. It is attached to one end of an Egyptian funerary papyrus (21st/22nd dynasty, 1075-716 BC) for sale at Sothesby's (no. 8918, lot 52):
> 
> http://www.sothebys.com/de/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/antiquities-n08918/lot.52.lotnum.html
> 
> The catalogue notes states: "A fragment of a Burmese Buddhist palm leaf manuscript is attached to the papyrus at right." However, a preliminary investigation has determined the script as Grantha, and the language as something other than Sanskrit (possibly Malayalam, though this is by no means certain).
> 
> I have attached a document with enlarged images of the fragment, but since the images were screenshot from the webpage referred above, unfortunately the quality is quite poor. I have also attached Sothesby's own description of the item.
> 
> I have not been able to determine just how the fragment is attached to the papyrus - and neither for what reason, whether by accident or not - but I would be most interested to hear any suggestions you might have. It has our Egyptologists here in Copenhagen baffled for sure!
> 
> Kind regards,
> Jacob
> 
> Jacob Schmidt-Madsen
> Assistant Teacher
> Department of Indology
> University of Copenhagen<Palm Leaf on Papyrus (Sothesbys No 8918-52).pdf><Sothesbys No 8918-52.pdf>





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