Oldest Extract of Homer Found

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Secret Alias
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Oldest Extract of Homer Found

Post by Secret Alias »

“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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arnoldo
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An argument for social memory in oral cultures?

Post by arnoldo »

The link says "It would have been handed down in an oral tradition for hundreds of years before the tablet was inscribed."
So "oral cultures" didn't necessarily write things down right away, perhaps due to many being illiterate, and obviously had a strong social memory to pass the info down accurately.

FYI, the Smithsonian Magazine dates the oldest extract of homer to "the third century A.D. or earlier."

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... 180969602/
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arnoldo
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Re: Oldest Extract of Homer Found

Post by arnoldo »

However, wikipedia states that one theory was that The Iliad was written down rather early. . .

The orally transmitted Homeric poems were put into written form at some point between the 8th and 6th centuries BC. Some scholars believe that they were dictated by the poet; Albert Lord noted that, in the process of dictating, the Balkan bards he recorded revised and extended their lays. Some scholars hypothesize that a similar process occurred when the Homeric poems were first written.[60][61]

Other scholars such as Gregory Nagy hold that, after the poems were formed in the 8th century, they were orally transmitted with little deviation until they were written down in the 6th century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer

So the earliest writing pictured below. . .
homer.jpg
homer.jpg (159.1 KiB) Viewed 10450 times
was probably based on earlier writings now lost and not on social memory.
andrewcriddle
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Re: Oldest Extract of Homer Found

Post by andrewcriddle »

IIUC this is the oldest Homer extract ever found in Greece
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... 180969602/
Older papyri are known from Egypt.

Andrew Criddle
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