Artemidorus Ephesius

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See also Artemidorus Daldianus

Artemidorus of Ephesus (Artemidorus Ephesius) was a Greek geographer, who flourished around 100 BC. His work in 11 books is often quoted by Strabo, but only fragments of the work exist. (He is not the same as another Artemidorus of Ephesus who wrote an extant work in 5 books on dreams).

[edit] The Artemidorus papyrus

A papyrus containing a fragment already known as part of book 2 of his work has recently been discovered. It is known as the Artemidorus papyrus; it also contains the first map of the Iberian peninsula, and many illustrations. ^[1]

This 10-foot long papyrus roll was written in the first century AD, maybe in Alexandria. The copyist left spaces for illustrations of maps, and then sent it to a painter's workshop to have them inserted. But the painter designed only a partial map, which appears to be what the author believed was the shape of the southwestern Iberian peninsula.

The map is incomplete and has no names, and is perhaps the wrong map for the space in the papyrus. This ruined the roll. Instead the blank spaces were used as scrap papyrus for rough drafts, and to keep a catalog of drawings for clients. The drawings include pictures of real animals, such as giraffes, tigers and pelicans, as well as mythical ones, such as the griffin, marine snake or a dog with wings. In addition pictures of heads, feet and hands were drawn until there were no blank spaces.

The papyrus was then presumably sold as scrap paper. It was found in the early 1900's in the form of cartonnage, as a filling for some kind of cavity (Konvolut). The cartonnage was sold to an Egyptian collector in whose hands it remained for 50 years. It then travelled around Europe, before being bought by a German collector who opened it and discovered the remains of the papyrus roll. It has holes in it, but because it got damp at some stage, even when there are holes, the drawings on those parts of the papyrus have been mirrored on the facing part of the roll.

The papyrus - which was bought by a foundation for $3,369,850 - is now owned by Turin's Banco di San Paolo.

A very recent study by Canfora ^[2] asserts that the text of the papyrus cannot be by Artemidorus as it contains words not available but in Byzantine Greek, and that the papyrus may be a forgery, perhaps by Constantine Simonides. No consensus on this seems to exist.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Cf. C. Gallazzi, B. Kramer, S. Settis, Il papiro di Artemidoro, con la collaborazione di G. Adornato, A.C. Cassio, A. Soldati. Milano, Led edizioni, 2008.
2. ^ Luciano Canfora, The True History of the So-called Artemidorus Papyrus. Bari, Pagina, 2007.

[edit] External links

• Article on papyrus
• Artemidorus papirus (in spanish)
• The oldest occidental map shown in Turin (in spanish)
• The oldest map of hispania (in spanish)