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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: H-47

Last update of repository: 17 March 2020

Gosudarstvennyi muzei izobrazitel'nykh iskusstv im. A.S. Pushkina (GMII)


Otdel Drevnego Vostoka
[Division of Ancient Orient]

Telephone: +7 495 697-74-93

Website: https://pushkinmuseum.art/museum/stru...  (Rus); https://pushkinmuseum.art/museum/stru...  (Eng)


Holdings

Total: 2,785 units; 20th c. B.C.–11th c. A.D.

Earliest among the museum archival holdings are the manuscripts held by the Division of Ancient Orient. This division has manuscript texts from Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, which include documents from Sumer, Accad, Assyria, Babylon, and Cappadocia. Manuscripts range widely in subject matter from diplomatic correspondence to economic documentation, and there are many religious and literary works in different ancient languages written on papyrus or clay tablets.
        The whole collection can be divided according to language groups and types of writing. The first and largest group consists of ancient Egyptian papyri (20th c. B.C.–9th c. A.D.), written in hieratic (the abridged form of hieroglyphics used by priests in their records), semi-hieroglyphics and demotic (cursive writing used from the 4th century B.C.). The earliest ancient Egyptian hieratic manuscripts relate to the period of the Middle Kingdom. A few of the papyri have inscriptions written in Aramaic and ancient Hebrew. A large part of the Egyptian holdings come from the collection of the Russian Egyptologist V.S. Golenishchev.
        The second group consists of Coptic texts (3rd–7th cc. A.D.), ranging from juridical mansucripts to economic documents, from personal letters to religious and historical texts, some with elaborate miniatures. A third group consists of Hellenistic and Roman papyri with fragments of Greek texts. A fourth group of Arabic texts (9th–17th cc.) also includes juridical and economic documents, along with medical and religious manuscripts. A fifth group consists of Pahlavi papyri, predominantly of an economic content.


Reference facilities:
There is an inventory register. Part of the manscript collection has been published.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted