GESHAEM – the Graeco-Egyptian State: Hellenistic Archives from Egyptian Mummies

The paper aims to present the goals and first results of the scientific initiative GESHAEM—the Graeco-Egyptian State: Hellenistic Archives from Egyptian ­Mummies, funded by the European Research Council (ERC–StG 758907, P.I. Marie-Pierre Chaufray). The purpose of the project is to enhance our knowledge of the administration of the Fayyum during the first centuries of the Ptolemaic rule, thanks to the study of the Jouguet collection. Discovered in 1900-1902 in the Fayyum and now kept in the Papyrological Institute of Sorbonne University, it is formed by more than 300 mummy cartonnages, from which were extracted Greek and demotic papyri. The paper shows the restoration techniques adopted to preserve them and the encoding protocol adopted for the open-access online database (geshaem.huma-num.fr). Among the newly inventoried papyri, the case of a Greek petition to an official is briefly presented.