The Physiologus and the Papyri from Egypt

Among papyri from Egypt, three pieces stand out in connection with the Physiologus. First, a fragment from a vertical roll written in Greek in the 6 th century CE, which was published in 2011, and is now located in Florence (PSI XVI 1577). Second, a fragment of a paper notebook written in Coptic from the 10 th century CE, which was published in 1895 and is now located in Berlin (P.Berol. inv. 7999). Both are direct testimonies of the text. The third papyrus is the so-called 'Artemidorus Papyrus', which on one side, the verso, shows a series of drawings of animals with legends. These papyri show both directly and indirectly the distribution and influence of the Physiologus, which evidently spanned centuries and cultures.