The Oikoumene of Ptolemy

I was reading recently about the Geographia of Ptolemy (written around 150 AD). This classic book applied Greek mathematical skills to mapping and map projection – and if there was one thing the Greeks were good at, it was mathematics. According to Neugebauer, Ptolemy believed the Oikoumene, the inhabited portion of the world, to range from Thule (63° North) to 16°25′ South, and 90 degrees East and West of Syene in Egypt.

The map above illustrates this Oikoumene, with a modern population overlay in red (data from SEDAC). Ptolemy was not too far wrong – today this region holds 80.6% of the world’s population, and the percentage would have been greater in antiquity.

Also shown on the map are some of the many cities listed in the Geographia. Open circles show Ptolemy’s coordinates (from here, adjusted to a Syene meridian), and filled circles show true positions. Ptolemy had reasonably good latitude values (an average error of 1.2° for the sample shown on the map), but much worse longitude values (an average error of 6.8°). The longitude error is mostly systemic – Ptolemy’s estimate of 18,000 miles or 29,000 km for the circumference of the earth was only 72% of the true value (several centuries earlier, Eratosthenes had come up with a much better estimate). If Ptolemy’s longitudes are adjusted for this, the average error is only 1.5°.

However, Ptolemy’s book deserves considerable respect – it is not surprising that it was used for more than a thousand years.

A Medieval Calendar

The beautiful image above (click to zoom) represents the month of September in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, a book of hours from the 1400s. In the background of the main picture is the Château de Saumur, with its height exaggerated (almost doubled). For comparison, below is a modern photograph of the château (by Kamel15) stretched vertically ×2:

The foreground of the main picture shows the grape harvest. At the top is a complex calendar. On the inner track, around the chariot of the sun, in red and black numerals, are the days of the month. On the outer track, in red and blue numerals, is a zodiacal calendar, showing the last days of Virgo and the beginning of Libra. Adjacent to the inner track are blue letters which relate to the 19-year Metonic cycle. Combining those letters with an appropriate table will show the phases of the moon for a given year.

The manuscript uses the Hindu-Arabic numerals first introduced to Europe by Fibonacci in his Liber Abaci of 1202. They are not quite the same as the ones we use today:

It is interesting to compare those digits with the ones in this German manuscript of 1459 by Hans Talhoffer (although Talhoffer actually mixes two different styles of 5). Then again, the letters of the alphabet have also changed since that time.

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Looking back: 2009

Washington, DC in June 2009

In 2009, I had the privilege of visiting the United States twice (in June and November).

This was the year that saw the launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (which imaged, among other things, the Apollo 11 landing site), the Kepler space telescope (designed to look for exoplanets), the Herschel space observatory (an infrared telescope studying star formation), the Planck spaceprobe (which studied the cosmic microwave background), and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (an infrared telescope looking for minor planets and star clusters).

Apollo 11 landing site, imaged by the LRO (with photographs from 1969 inset)

More metaphorically, Bitcoin and the programming language Go were also launched. US Airways Flight 1549, on the other hand, was skillfully landed in a river. In archaeology, hoards were discovered in Staffordshire (gold and silver metalwork) and Shrewsbury (Roman coins). Australian Hospital Ship Centaur, torpedoed in 1943, was discovered off the Queensland coast.

Books of 2009 included Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (set in 1500–1535; a TV series of 2015), The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (dystopian science fiction; Nebula Award winner), and The Maze Runner by James Dashner (young adult dystopian sci-fi; a film of 2014). Books that I later reviewed include The Lassa Ward by Ross Donaldson and God’s Philosophers by James Hannam.

Movies of 2009 included Avatar (rather disappointing), 2012 (a little silly), Angels & Demons (a travesty), Up (Pixar/Disney), Coraline (designed to give children nightmares), District 9 (designed to give adults nightmares), Julie & Julia (a film about cooking), The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (a film about mirrors), and Sherlock Holmes (a lot of fun). On the whole, a good year for films.

In this series: 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1989, 1991, 1994, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2009.

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Recreational mathematics

The wolf, the goat, and the cabbages

Dancing alongside the more serious practitioners of mainstream mathematics are the purveyors of mathematical puzzles and problems. These go back at least as far as Diophantus (c. 200–284), the Alexandrian “father of algebra.” Alcuin of York (c. 735–804) produced a collection of problems that included the the wolf, the goat, and the cabbages (above); the three men who need to cross a river with their sisters; and problems similar to the bird puzzle published by Fibonacci a few centuries later. In more modern times, Martin Gardner (1914–2010) has done more than anyone else to popularise this offshoot of mathematics. It is often called “recreational mathematics,” because people do it for fun (in part because they are not told that it is mathematics).

Particularly popular in recent times have been Sudoku (which is really a network colouring problem in disguise) and the Rubik’s Cube (which illustrates many concepts of group theory, although it was not invented with that in mind). Sudoku puzzles have been printed in more than 600 newspapers worldwide, and more than 20 million copies of Sudoku books have been sold. The Rubik’s Cube has been even more popular: more than 350 million have been sold.

A Soma cube, assembled

Recreational puzzles may be based on networks, as in Hashi (“Bridges”). They may be based on fitting two-dimensional or three-dimensional shapes together, as in pentominoes or the Soma cube. They may be based on transformations, as in the Rubik’s Cube. They may even be based on arithmetic, as in Fibonacci’s problem of the birds, or the various barrel problems, which go back at least as far as the Middle Ages.

In one barrel problem, two men acquire an 8-gallon barrel of wine, which they wish to divide exactly in half. They have an empty 5-gallon barrel and an empty 3-gallon barrel to assist with this. How can this be done? It is impossible to accurately gauge how much wine is inside a barrel, so that all that the men can do is pour wine from one barrel to another, stopping when one barrel is empty, or the other is full [highlight to show solution → (8, 0, 0) → (3, 5, 0) → (3, 2, 3) → (6, 2, 0) → (6, 0, 2) → (1, 5, 2) → (1, 4, 3) → (4, 4, 0)]. There is a similar problem where the barrel sizes are 10, 7, and 3.

The barrels

Apart from being fun, puzzles of this kind have an educational benefit, training people to think. For this reason, Alcuin called his collection of problems Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes (Problems to Sharpen the Young). Problems like these may also benefit the elderly – the Alzheimer’s Association in the United States suggests that they may slow the onset of dementia. This is plausible, in that thinking hard boosts blood flow to the brain, and research supports the idea (playing board games and playing musical instruments are even better).

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Some Oldest Manuscripts

The chart below (click to zoom) shows the dates of ten significant written works:

• Plato’s Phaedo
• Euclid’s Elements
• Caesar’s Gallic Wars
• The Gospel of John
• Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy
• Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica
• Beowulf (date of writing is approximate)
• Dante’s Divine Comedy
• Shakespeare’s Hamlet
• Jane Austen’s Persuasion

Each work is indicated by a vertical line, which runs from the date of writing to the date of the oldest surviving complete copy that I am aware of (marked by a dark circle). Open circles show some of the older partial or fragmentary manuscripts (these act as important checks on the reliability of later copies).

Two threshold periods (marked with arrow) are worth remarking on. First, Gutenberg’s printing press – after its invention, we still have at least one first edition for many important works. Second, the invention of Carolingian minuscule – many older works were re-copied into the new, legible script after that time. They were then widely distributed to monasteries around Europe, so that survival from that period has been fairly good. In the Byzantine Empire, Greek minuscule had a similar effect.

The Bible is a special case (I have highlighted one particular gospel on the chart). It was copied so widely (and so early) that many ancient manuscripts survive.

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Looking back: 2004

xkcd comments on the Spirit rover (click to zoom)

In 2004, I was privileged to visit Middle Earth (aka New Zealand) with a colleague and to present the paper “Network Robustness and Graph Topology.” A major event of that year was the landing of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Intended to operate for 90 Martian days (92 Earth days), Spirit kept going until 2010 (as xkcd remarked on in the comic above) and Opportunity set a record by operating until 2018. Also in 2004, the Stardust spaceprobe collected some comet dust.

On a more sombre note, 2004 saw the Boxing Day Tsunami. In the field of technology, Facebook and Gmail both launched in 2004, and Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn shared the Turing Award (for having invented the Internet).

This was an excellent year for cinema. Examples from different genres include National Treasure, Troy, Van Helsing, Man on Fire, Hotel Rwanda, The Village, Howl’s Moving Castle, and The Passion of the Christ. I certainly have memories that I treasure.

In this series: 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1989, 1991, 1994, 2000, 2004, 2006.

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The three men and their sisters

The medieval Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes (“Problems to Sharpen the Young”) is attributed to Alcuin of York (735–804), a leading figure in the “Carolingian Renaissance.” He is the middle person in the image above.

Along with the more famous problem of the wolf, the goat, and the cabbage, Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes contains the problem of the three men and their sisters. Three men, each accompanied by a sister, wish to cross a river in a boat that holds only two people. To protect each woman’s honour, no woman can be left with another man unless her brother is also present (and if that seems strange, remember that Alcuin was writing more than 1,200 years ago). In Latin, the problem is:

“Tres fratres erant qui singulas sorores habebant, et fluvium transire debebant (erat enim unicuique illorum concupiscientia in sorore proximi sui), qui venientes ad fluvium non invenerunt nisi parvam naviculam, in qua non potuerunt amplius nisi duo ex illis transire. Dicat, qui potest, qualiter fluvium transierunt, ne una quidem earum ex ipsis maculata sit?”

The diagram below (click to zoom) shows the state graph for this problem. The solution is left (per tradition) as an exercise for the reader (but to see Alcuin’s solution, highlight the white text below the diagram).

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Solution:
Miss A and Mr A cross
Mr A returns (leaving Miss A on the far side)
Miss B and Miss C cross
Miss A returns (leaving Misses B and C on the far side)
Mr B and Mr C cross
Mr B and Miss B return (leaving Miss C and Mr C on the far side)
Mr A and Mr B cross
Miss C returns (leaving 3 men on the far side)
Miss A and Miss C cross
Mr B returns (leaving the A’s and C’s on the far side)
Mr B and Miss B cross

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Looking back: 2006

Oxford, 2006

In 2006, I had the privilege of attending two conferences in England (the 11^th International Command & Control Research & Technology Symposium in Cambridge and the Complex Adaptive Systems and Interacting Agents Workshop in Oxford).

This was the year that NASA launched the New Horizons spaceprobe towards Pluto (it was to arrive in 2015). Ironically, later in 2006, the International Astronomical Union somewhat controversially downgraded the status of Pluto to that of a “dwarf planet.”

Grigori Perelman’s proof of the Poincaré conjecture was declared the “Breakthrough of the Year” by the journal Science. A variety of books, such as this one, have tried to explain what the conjecture (now theorem) is about. So far, this is the only one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems to be solved.

Perelman was offered, but refused, the prestigious Fields Medal (in interviews, he raised some ethical concerns regarding the mathematical community).

Books of 2006 included the intriguing World War Z (later made into a mediocre film). Movies included Pan’s Labyrinth, Children of Men, Apocalypto, Black Book, Pirates of the Caribbean II, Cars, and The Nativity Story.

And in music, Carrie Underwood took the world by storm, singing about Jesus and about smashing up motor vehicles with baseball bats.

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Zero in Greek mathematics

I recently read The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero by Robert M. Kaplan. Zero is an important concept in mathematics. But where did it come from?

The Babylonian zero

From around 2000 BC, the Babylonians used a positional number system with base 60. Initially a space was used to represent zero. Vertical wedges mean 1, and chevrons mean 10:

This number (which we can write as 2 ; 0 ; 13) means 2 × 3600 + 0 × 60 + 13 = 7213. Four thousand years later, we still use the same system when dealing with angles or with time: 2 hours, no minutes, and 13 seconds is 7213 seconds.

Later, the Babylonians introduced a variety of explicit symbols for zero. By 400 BC, a pair of angled wedges was used:

The Babylonians were happy to move the decimal point (actually, “sexagesimal point”) forwards and backwards to facilitate calculation. The number ½, for example, was treated the same as 30 (which is half of 60). In much the same way, 20^th century users of the slide rule treated 50, 5, and 0.5 as the same number. What is 0.5 ÷ 20? The calculation is done as 5 ÷ 2 = 2.5. Only at the end do you think about where the decimal point should go (0.025).

Greek mathematics in words

Kaplan says about zero that “the Greeks had no word for it.” Is that true?

Much of Greek mathematics was done in words. For example, the famous Proposition 3 in the Measurement of a Circle (Κύκλου μέτρησις) by Archimedes reads:

Παντὸς κύκλου ἡ περίμετρος τῆς διαμέτρου τριπλασίων ἐστί, καὶ ἔτι ὑπερέχει ἐλάσσονι μὲν ἤ ἑβδόμῳ μέρει τῆς διαμέτρου, μείζονι δὲ ἢ δέκα ἑβδομηκοστομόνοις.

Phonetically, that is:

Pantos kuklou hē perimetros tēs diametrou triplasiōn esti, kai eti huperechei elassoni men ē hebdomō merei tēs diametrou, meizoni de ē deka hebdomēkostomonois.

Or, in English:

The perimeter of every circle is triple the diameter plus an amount less than one seventh of the diameter and greater than ten seventy-firsts.

In modern notation, we would express that far more briefly as ¹⁰/₇₁ < π − 3 < ¹/₇ or 3.141 < π < 3.143.

The Greek words for zero were the two words for “nothing” – μηδέν (mēden) and οὐδέν (ouden). Around 100 AD, Nicomachus of Gerasa (Gerasa is now the city of Jerash, Jordan), wrote in his Introduction to Arithmetic (Book 2, VI, 3) that:

οὐδέν οὐδενί συντεθὲν … οὐδέν ποιεῖ (ouden oudeni suntethen … ouden poiei)

That is, zero (nothing) can be added:

nothing and nothing, added together, … make nothing

However, we cannot divide by zero. Aristotle, in Book 4, Lectio 12 of his Physics tells us that:

οὐδὲ τὸ μηδὲν πρὸς ἀριθμόν (oude to mēden pros arithmon)

That is, ¹/₀, ²/₀, and so forth make no sense:

there is no ratio of zero (nothing) to a number

If we view arithmetic primarily as a game of multiplying, dividing, taking ratios, and finding prime factors, then poor old zero really does have to sit on the sidelines (in modern terms, zero is not part of a multiplicative group).

Greek calculation

For business calculations, surveying, numerical tables, and most other mathematical calculations (e.g. the proof of Archimedes’ Proposition 3), the Greeks used a non-positional decimal system, based on 24 letters and 3 obsolete letters. In its later form, this was as follows:

Units	Tens	Hundreds
α = 1	ι = 10	ρ = 100
β = 2	κ = 20	σ = 200
γ = 3	λ = 30	τ = 300
δ = 4	μ = 40	υ = 400
ε = 5	ν = 50	φ = 500
ϛ (stigma) = 6	ξ = 60	χ = 600
ζ = 7	ο = 70	ψ = 700
η = 8	π = 80	ω = 800
θ = 9	ϙ (koppa) = 90	ϡ (sampi) = 900

For users of R:

to.greek.digits <- function (v) { # v is a vector of numbers
  if (any(v < 1 | v > 999)) stop("Can only do Greek digits for 1..999")
  else {
    s <- intToUtf8(c(0x3b1:0x3b5,0x3db,0x3b6:0x3c0,0x3d9,0x3c1,0x3c3:0x3c9,0x3e1))
    greek <- strsplit(s, "", fixed=TRUE)[[1]]
    d <- function(i, power=1) { if (i == 0) "" else greek[i + (power - 1) * 9] }
    f <- function(x) { paste0(d(x %/% 100, 3), d((x %/% 10) %% 10, 2), d(x %% 10)) }
    sapply(v, f)
  }
}

For example, the “number of the beast” (666) as written in Byzantine manuscripts of the Bible is χξϛ (older manuscripts spell the number out in words: ἑξακόσιοι ἑξήκοντα ἕξ = hexakosioi hexēkonta hex).

This Greek system of numerals did not include zero – but then again, it was used in situations where zero was not needed.

Greek geometry

Most of Greek mathematics was geometric in nature, rather than based on calculation. For example, the famous Pythagorean Theorem tells us that the areas of two squares add up to give the area of a third.

In geometry, zero was represented as a line of zero length (i.e. a point) or as a rectangle of zero area (i.e. a line). This is implicit in Euclid’s first two definitions (σημεῖόν ἐστιν, οὗ μέρος οὐθέν = a point is that which has no part; γραμμὴ δὲ μῆκος ἀπλατές = a line is breadthless length).

In the Pythagorean Theorem, lines are multiplied by themselves to give areas, and the sum of the two smaller areas gives the third (image: Ntozis)

Graeco-Babylonian mathematics

In astronomy, the Greeks continued to use the Babylonian sexagesimal system (much as we do today, with our “degrees, minutes, and seconds”). Numbers were written using the alphabetic system described above, and at the time of Ptolemy, zero was written like this (appearing in numerous papyri from 100 AD onwards, with occasional variations):

For example, 7213 seconds would be β ō ιγ = 2 0 13 (for another example, see the image below). The circle here may be an abbreviation for οὐδέν = nothing (just as early Christian Easter calculations used N for Nulla to mean zero). The overbar is necessary to distinguish ō from ο = 70 (it also resembles the overbars used in sacred abbreviations).

This use of a circle to mean zero was passed on to the Arabs and to India, which means that our modern symbol 0 is, in fact, Graeco-Babylonian in origin (the contribution of Indian mathematicians such as Brahmagupta was not the introduction of zero, but the theory of negative numbers). I had not realised this before; from now on I will say ouden every time I read “zero.”

Part of a table from a French edition of Ptolemy’s Almagest of c. 150 AD. For the angles x = ½°, 1°, and 1½°, the table shows 120 sin(x/2). The (sexagesimal) values, in the columns headed ΕΥΘΕΙΩΝ, are ō λα κε = 0 31 25 = 0.5236, α β ν = 1 2 50 = 1.0472, and α λδ ιε = 1 34 15 = 1.5708. The columns on the right are an aid to interpolation. Notice that zero occurs six times.

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Eight Greek inscriptions

I love ancient inscriptions. They provide a connection to people of the past, they provide an insight into how people thought, and they demonstrate how the experience of writing has changed over the past five thousand years or so. Here are eight Greek inscriptions and documents that interest me – some historical, some religious, and one mathematical.

Six of the eight inscriptions

1. The inscription that is no longer there, 480 BC

Our first inscription was inscribed at the site of the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC), where Leonidas and his 300 Spartans (plus several thousand allies) died trying to hold off a vastly superior Persian army. The inscription no longer exists (though there is a modern copy at the site), but the wording has been preserved by Herodotus (Histories 7.228.2):

Ω ΞΕΙΝ ΑΓΓΕΛΛΕΙΝ
ΛΑΚΕΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΟΙΣ ΟΤΙ ΤΗΔΕ
ΚΕΙΜΕΘΑ ΤΟΙΣ ΚΕΙΝΩΝ
ΡΗΜΑΣΙ ΠΕΙΘΟΜΕΝΟΙ.

Phonetically, that reads:

Ō ksein’, angellein
Lakedaimoniois hoti tēide
keimetha, tois keinōn
rhēmasi peithomenoi.

I’ve always thought that there was a degree of sarcasm in this laconic epigram – after all, the Spartans had declared war on the Persians (rather informally, by throwing the Persian ambassadors down a well), but then stayed home, leaving Leonidas and his personal honour guard (plus the allies) to do the actual fighting. My (rather free) personal translation would therefore be:

Go tell the Spartans,
Stranger passing by,
We listened to their words,
And here we lie.

The battle of Thermopylae, 480 BC (illustration: John Steeple Davis)

2. The Rosetta Stone, 196 BC

The rich history of the Rosetta Stone has always fascinated me (and I made a point of seeing the Stone when I visited the British Museum). The Stone records a decree of 196 BC from Ptolemy V, inscribed using three forms of writing – Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian demotic script, and a Greek translation. The Stone was therefore a valuable input to the eventual decoding of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Romance practically drips off the Stone.

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum (photo: Hans Hillewaert)

3. The Theodotus inscription, before 70 AD

The Theodotus inscription in Jerusalem was located in a 1^st century synagogue near the Temple (this dating is generally accepted). It reads as follows (with [square brackets] denoting missing letters):

ΘΕΟΔΟΤΟΣ ΟΥΕΤΤΕΝΟΥ ΙΕΡΕΥΣ ΚΑΙ
ΑΡΧΙΣΥΝΑΓΩΓΟΣ ΥΙΟΣ ΑΡΧΙΣΥΝ[ΑΓΩ]–
Γ[Ο]Υ ΥΙΟΝΟΣ ΑΡΧΙΣΥΝ[Α]ΓΩΓΟΥ ΩΚΟ-
ΔΟΜΗΣΕ ΤΗΝ ΣΥΝΑΓΩΓ[Η]Ν ΕΙΣ ΑΝ[ΑΓ]ΝΩ-
Σ[Ι]Ν ΝΟΜΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΕΙΣ [Δ]ΙΔΑΧΗΝ ΕΝΤΟΛΩΝ ΚΑΙ
ΤΟΝ ΞΕΝΩΝΑ ΚΑ[Ι ΤΑ] ΔΩΜΑΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΤΑ ΧΡΗ-
Σ[Τ]ΗΡΙΑ ΤΩΝ ΥΔΑΤΩΝ ΕΙΣ ΚΑΤΑΛΥΜΑ ΤΟΙ-
Σ [Χ]ΡΗZΟΥΣΙΝ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΣ ΞΕ[Ν]ΗΣ ΗΝ ΕΘΕΜΕ-
Λ[ΙΩ]ΣΑΝ ΟΙ ΠΑΤΕΡΕΣ [Α]ΥΤΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΟΙ ΠΡΕ-
Σ[Β]ΥΤΕΡΟΙ ΚΑΙ ΣΙΜΩΝ[Ι]ΔΗΣ.

In translation:

Theodotus, son of Vettenus [or, of the gens Vettia], priest and
archisynagogue [leader of the synagogue], son of an archisynagogue,
grandson of an archisynagogue, built
the synagogue for the reading of
the Law and for teaching the commandments;
also the hostel, and the rooms, and the water
fittings, for lodging
needy strangers. Its foundation was laid
by his fathers, and the
elders, and Simonides.

The inscription is interesting in a number of ways. Along with other similar inscriptions, it demonstrates the existence of Greek-language synagogues in 1^st Palestine. The title ἀρχισυνάγωγος (archisynagōgos) also occurs in the New Testament (nine times, starting at Mark 5:22), so is clearly a title of the time-period. Some scholars have suggested that Theodotos was a freed slave, who had made his fortune and returned from Italy to the land of his fathers (in which case there is a very slight possibility that the synagogue with the inscription might have been the “synagogue of the Freedmen” mentioned in Acts 6:9).

The Theodotus inscription in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (photo: Oren Rozen)

4. The Delphi inscription, 52 AD

The Temple of Apollo at Delphi (photo: Luarvick)

The Delphi inscription is a letter of around 52 AD from the Roman emperor Claudius. It was inscribed on stone at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi (above), although it now exists only as nine fragments. Of particular interest is this line (see also the photograph below):

[IOU]ΝΙΟΣ ΓΑΛΛΙΩΝ Ο Φ[ΙΛΟΣ] ΜΟΥ ΚΑ[Ι ΑΝΘΥ]ΠΑΤΟΣ …

Phonetically, that reads:

[Jou]nios Galliōn ‘o ph[ilos] mou ka[i anthu]patos …

This is a reference to Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, who was briefly proconsul (anthupatos) of the Roman senatorial province of Achaea (southern Greece) at the time:

Junius Gallio, my friend and proconsul …

This same anthupatos Gallio appears in the New Testament (Acts 18:12–17: “Γαλλίωνος δὲ ἀνθυπάτου ὄντος τῆς Ἀχαΐας …”), and therefore provides a way of dating the events described there.

One of the fragments of the Delphi inscription, highlighting the name ΓΑΛΛΙΩΝ = Gallio (photo: Gérard)

5. Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 29, c. 100 AD

I have written before about Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 29. It contains the statement of Proposition 5 of Book 2 of Euclid’s Elements, with an accompanying diagram (plus just a few letters of the last line of the preceding proposition). In modern Greek capitals, it reads:

ΕΑΝ ΕΥΘΕΙΑ ΓΡΑΜΜΗ
ΤΜΗΘΗ ΕΙΣ ΙΣΑ ΚΑΙ ΑΝ-
ΙΣΑ ΤΟ ΥΠΟ ΤΩΝ ΑΝΙ-
ΣΩΝ ΤΗΣ ΟΛΗΣ ΤΜΗΜ[ΑΤ]ΩΝ ΠΕΡΙΕΧΟΜΕΝΟΝ
ΟΡΘΟΓΩΝΙΟΝ ΜΕΤΑ Τ[Ο]Υ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΣ ΜΕΤΟΞΥ
ΤΩΝ ΤΟΜΩΝ ΤΕΤ[ΡΑ]ΓΩΝΟΥ ΙΣΟΝ ΕΣΤΙΝ
ΤΩ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΣ ΗΜΙΣΕΙ-
ΑΣ ΤΕΤΡΑΓΩΝΟΥ

However, the actual document (image below) uses “Ϲ” for the modern “Σ,” and “ω” for the modern “Ω”:

ΕΑΝ ΕΥΘΕΙΑ ΓΡΑΜΜΗ
ΤΜΗΘΗ ΕΙϹ ΙϹΑ ΚΑΙ ΑΝ-
ΙϹΑ ΤΟ ΥΠΟ ΤωΝ ΑΝΙ-
ϹωΝ ΤΗϹ ΟΛΗϹ ΤΜΗΜ[ΑΤ]ωΝ ΠΕΡΙΕΧΟΜΕΝΟΝ
ΟΡΘΟΓωΝΙΟΝ ΜΕΤΑ Τ[Ο]Υ ΑΠΟ ΤΗϹ ΜΕΤΟΞΥ
ΤωΝ ΤΟΜωΝ ΤΕΤ[ΡΑ]ΓωΝΟΥ ΙϹΟΝ ΕϹΤΙΝ
Τω ΑΠΟ ΤΗϹ ΗΜΙϹΕΙ-
ΑϹ ΤΕΤΡΑΓωΝΟΥ

This manuscript is important because, being from 75–125 AD, it dates to only four centuries after the original was written in 300 BC – most manuscripts of Euclid are twelve centuries or more after (in fact, it pre-dates the alterations made to the work by Theon of Alexandria in the 4^th century AD). The manuscript also contains one of the oldest extant Greek mathematical diagrams. The text is identical to the accepted Greek text, except for two spelling variations and one one grammatical error (τετραγώνου for τετραγώνῳ on the last line, perhaps as the result of the mental influence of the preceding word in the genitive):

ἐὰν εὐθεῖα γραμμὴ
τμηθῇ εἰς ἴσα καὶ ἄνισα,
τὸ ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνίσων τῆς ὅλης τμημάτων περιεχόμενον ὀρθογώνιον
μετὰ τοῦ ἀπὸ τῆς μεταξὺ τῶν τομῶν τετραγώνου
ἴσον ἐστὶ τῷ ἀπὸ τῆς ἡμισείας τετραγώνῳ.

It is really just a geometric way of expressing the equality (x + y)² = x² + 2xy + y², but in English it reads as follows:

If a straight line
be cut into equal and unequal [segments] (x + y + x and y),
the rectangle contained by the unequal segments of the whole (i.e. (x + y + x)y = 2xy + y²)
together with the square on the straight line between the points of section (+ x²)
is equal to the square on the half (= (x + y)²).

The proof of the proposition is missing, however, and there are no labels on the diagram. I suspect that the manuscript was a teaching tool of some kind (either an aide-mémoire or an exam question). Alternatively, it may have been part of an illustrated index to the Elements.

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 29 (photo: Bill Casselman)

6. Rylands Library Papyrus P52, c. 140 AD

Papyrus P52 is a small fragment written in a similar style to Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 29, but is dated a few decades later (to around 140 AD). In modern Greek capitals, it reads:

ΟΙ ΙΟΥΔΑΙ[ΟΙ]· ΗΜΕ[ΙΝ ΟΥΚ ΕΞΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΠΟΚΤΕΙΝΑΙ]
ΟΥΔΕΝΑ. ΙΝΑ Ο Λ[ΟΓΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΙΗΣΟΥ ΠΛΗΡΩΘΗ ΟΝ ΕΙ]–
ΠΕΝ ΣΗΜΑΙΝΩ[Ν ΠΟΙΩ ΘΑΝΑΤΩ ΗΜΕΛΛΕΝ ΑΠΟ]–
ΘΝΗΣΚΕΙΝ. ΙΣ[ΗΛΘΕΝ ΟΥΝ ΠΑΛΙΝ ΕΙΣ ΤΟ ΠΡΑΙΤΩ]–
ΡΙΟΝ Ο Π[ΙΛΑΤΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΦΩΝΗΣΕΝ ΤΟΝ ΙΗΣΟΥΝ]
ΚΑΙ ΕΙΠ[ΕΝ ΑΥΤΩ· ΣΥ ΕΙ O ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥ]–
[Δ]ΑΙΩN;

The reverse side also has writing:

[ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΕΙΜΙ. ΕΓΩ ΕΙΣ TO]ΥΤΟ Γ[Ε]ΓΕΝΝΗΜΑΙ
[ΚΑΙ (ΕΙΣ ΤΟΥΤΟ) ΕΛΗΛΥΘΑ ΕΙΣ ΤΟΝ ΚΟ]ΣΜΟΝ, ΙΝΑ ΜΑΡΤΥ-
[ΡΗΣΩ ΤΗ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ· ΠΑΣ Ο ΩΝ] ΕΚ ΤΗΣ ΑΛΗΘΕI-
[ΑΣ ΑΚΟΥΕΙ ΜΟΥ ΤΗΣ ΦΩΝΗΣ]. ΛΕΓΕΙ ΑΥΤΩ
[Ο ΠΙΛΑΤΟΣ· ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ; Κ]ΑΙ ΤΟΥΤΟ
[ΕΙΠΩΝ ΠΑΛΙΝ ΕΞΗΛΘΕΝ ΠΡΟΣ] ΤΟΥΣ Ι[ΟΥ]–
[ΔΑΙΟΥΣ ΚΑΙ ΛΕΓΕΙ ΑΥΤΟΙΣ· ΕΓΩ ΟΥΔ]ΕΜΙ[ΑΝ]
[ΕΥΡΙΣΚΩ ΕΝ ΑΥΤΩ ΑΙΤΙΑΝ].

Some clever detective work has identified the fragment as being from a manuscript of the New Testament gospel of John (John 18:31b–33 and 18:37b–38), permitting the reconstruction of the missing letters. The fragment is from the top inner corner of a book page (books with bound two-sided pages were a relatively new technology at the time, with many people still using scrolls). The fragment dates from less than a century after the gospel of John was written (and possibly just a few decades), thus helping in dating that work. There is no indication of any textual difference from later manuscripts – even the text on the missing parts of the front page seems of the right amount. The only exception is in the second line of the reverse side – there’s not quite enough room for the expected wording, and it seems likely that the duplicated words ΕΙΣ ΤΟΥΤΟ were not present.

In English, the passage reads:

… the Jews, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.” This was to fulfil the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die. So Pilate entered the Praetorium again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” …
… I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.”

Papyrus P52 (front and back) in the John Rylands Library

7. The Akeptous inscription in the Megiddo church, c. 250 AD

The Akeptous inscription is one of a number of inscriptions found in the mosaic floor of a 3^rd century church which was discovered in 2005 while digging inside the Megiddo Prison in Israel (the date is just slightly later than the Dura-Europos church in Syria). The Akeptous inscription reads:

ΠΡΟϹΗΝΙΚΕΝ
ΑΚΕΠΤΟΥϹ,
Η ΦΙΛΟΘΕΟϹ,
ΤΗΝ ΤΡΑΠΕ-
ZΑΝ {Θω} {ΙΥ} {Χω}
ΜΝΗΜΟϹΥΝΟΝ

Phonetically:

Prosēniken Akeptous, ‘ē philotheos, tēn trapezan Th(e)ō Ι(ēso)u Ch(rist)ō mnēmosunon.

In English translation:

A gift of Akeptous, she who loves God, this table is for God Jesus Christ, a memorial.

Brief as it is, the inscription has several interesting features. First, Jesus Christ is being explicitly referred to as God, which tells us something about Christian beliefs of the time. Second, the inscription uses nomina sacra – divine names (“God,” “Jesus,” and “Christ”) are abbreviated with first and last letter, plus an overbar (this is denoted by curly brackets in the Greek text above). Third, the inscription records the gift of a prominent (presumably wealthy) female church member (the feminine definite article shows that Akeptous was female). And fourth, the reference to the construction of a table suggests that there were architectural features in the church to support the celebration of Communion, which tells us something about liturgy.

The Akeptous inscription in the Megiddo church

8. The Codex Sinaiticus, c. 340 AD

Our final inscription is a portion of the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4^thcentury manuscript of the Christian Bible, containing the earliest complete copy of the New Testament. This Bible is a century later than the Megiddo church, and two centuries after Papyrus P52. Unlike Papyrus P52, it is written on vellum made from animal skins, and is written in beautiful calligraphic script. I have selected the passage John 1:1–3a:

ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ΗΝ Ο ΛΟΓΟϹ,
ΚΑΙ Ο ΛΟΓΟϹ ΗΝ
ΠΡΟϹ ΤΟΝ {ΘΝ}, ΚΑΙ
{ΘϹ} ΗΝ Ο ΛΟΓΟϹ. ΟΥ-
ΤΟϹ ΗΝ ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ
ΠΡΟϹ ΤΟΝ {ΘΝ}. ΠΑ[Ν]-
ΤΑ ΔΙ ΑΥΤΟΥ ΕΓΕΝΕ-
ΤΟ, ΚΑΙ ΧΩΡΙϹ ΑΥΤΟΥ
ΕΓΕΝΕΤΟ ΟΥΔΕΝ

In English:

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things through him were made, and apart from him was not one thing made …

In the Greek, nomina sacra for “God” can be seen, together with a number of corrections (including, on the last line, an expansion of the contraction ΟΥΔΕΝ = “nothing” to ΟΥΔΕ ΕΝ = “not one thing”). Spaces between words had still not been invented, nor had punctuation or lowercase letters, which means that it is almost impossible to make sense of the text unless it is read aloud (or at least subvocalised). Fortunately, things have changed in the last seventeen centuries!

John 1:1–3a in the Codex Sinaiticus

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