Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Classics and Race
- The Cambridge Companion to Classics and Race
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Classics and Race:
- Part I Race and the Premodern Era
- Part II Modern Disciplinary Formations
- 12: Historiography of Art
- 13: Anti-Semitism and the Foundations of Classical Scholarship
- 14: Black Athena/Black Athenians
- 15: Race and Historical Writing in an Age of Empire
- 16: Modern Scientific Race and the Classical
- 17: Papyrology and Race
- 18: Bint Al-Nil:
- 19: Translation, Privilege, and Racecraft in Classics
- 20: Culture and Race in Classical Reception:
- 21: Classical Reception In/Beyond Asia
- 22: Greco-Roman Antiquity and White Nationalist Conceptions of Race
- 23: Inclusion, Diaspora, Colonialism:
- 24: Nation, Whiteness, Classical Antiquity:
- Index
- Index Locorum
- References
17: - Papyrology and Race
from Part II - Modern Disciplinary Formations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2026
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Classics and Race
- The Cambridge Companion to Classics and Race
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Classics and Race:
- Part I Race and the Premodern Era
- Part II Modern Disciplinary Formations
- 12: Historiography of Art
- 13: Anti-Semitism and the Foundations of Classical Scholarship
- 14: Black Athena/Black Athenians
- 15: Race and Historical Writing in an Age of Empire
- 16: Modern Scientific Race and the Classical
- 17: Papyrology and Race
- 18: Bint Al-Nil:
- 19: Translation, Privilege, and Racecraft in Classics
- 20: Culture and Race in Classical Reception:
- 21: Classical Reception In/Beyond Asia
- 22: Greco-Roman Antiquity and White Nationalist Conceptions of Race
- 23: Inclusion, Diaspora, Colonialism:
- 24: Nation, Whiteness, Classical Antiquity:
- Index
- Index Locorum
- References
Summary
This chapter looks at the relationship between papyrology and race from a historical and disciplinary perspective. European imperialism, from Napoleon’s expedition onwards, enabled the legal and illegal transfer of a hundred thousand papyrus fragments from Egypt to Europe and North America. The process was sustained by White race supremacy ideas, which most scholars embraced, according to which Egyptians and their Ottoman ruling elite were incapable of appreciating the real meaning of antiquities, including manuscripts, putting at risk their preservation. The accumulation and archival of papyri in European and North American collections went hand in hand with a programmatic exclusion of Egyptians from studying the material and was functional to the creation of a new academic field, papyrology, controlled by White classicists. The chapter’s conclusion opens question about future directions, regarding both colonial collections and institutional inequality.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Classics and Race , pp. 355 - 379Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
References
Further Reading
Aligning with wider trends in Classics and ancient history, papyrologists have consistently preferred to use the term ethnicity rather than race in describing ancient societies and people. McCoskey 2002 is clear on the reasons and ambiguities of the choice. Bagnall 1997 and Bowman 2002 are important for understanding mainstream (British and American) papyrology’s positioning on the colonial and postcolonial debate at the time of their publication.
For cultural histories of Egypt under European colonialism, Mitchell 1988, Reid 2002, 2015, and Colla 2007 remain essential; Trafton 2004 focuses on the American perspective and Jakes 2020 is centred on economic history.
Although limited in their scopes, Keenan 2009 and Cuvigny 2009 offer some critical introductions to the history of papyrology and papyrus discovery. In this chapter, I took a different path of enquiry, because I am convinced that it is the relationship between archaeological objects, experts, and Egypt (meaning the country and its people) that shows how racial hierarchies underpinned the creation and development of papyrology. Archives of papyrus collections and similar institutions are the places where anyone interested in similar topics and questions should look: Nongbri 2018, Haug 2021, and Wigand 2024 are excellent examples of research in such archives; Mazza 2024 offers a contemporary case study and its ideological background.
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