Researchers Solve Mystery of 1,800-Year-Old Basel Papyrus

A team of scientists at the University of Basel, Switzerland, has discovered that a 1,800-year-old papyrus from the Basel Papyrus Collection is an ancient medical text from late antiquity and that it was likely written by the famous Roman physician Galen.


The University Library in Basel possesses a collection of 65 papyri, mostly in Greek and several in Coptic, Hieratic and Latin.

Less than half of this collection was published by Ernst Rabel in 1917 in Papyrusurkunden der Öffentlichen Bibliothek der Universität zu Basel.

With mirror writing on both sides, one of the Basel papyri — dubbed P.Basel 1A — has puzzled generations of scholars.

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