Monday, October 9, 2006

K. RYHOLT, The Petese stories III (P. Petese II)



The Carlsberg Papyri 6 (CNI 29) contains the edition of a new manuscript with Petese Stories from the Tebtunis temple library, dating to the period around 100 AD. The Petese Stories is a compilation of 70 stories about the virtues and vices of women. The numerous stories were compiled on the orders of the prophet Petese of Heliopolis to be a literary testament by which he would be remembered. Petese was, according to literary tradition, Plato’s Egyptian instructor in astrology. The composition seems to have been modeled on the basis of the Myth of the Sun's Eye. The overall structural pattern of the text is very similar to the Arabian Nights; an overarching story forms the introduction as well as the fabric into which the long series of shorter tales is woven. One of the stories preserved in the new manuscript is particularly remarkable in that it is known from a translation by Herodotus, the so-called Pheros Story (Book II, chap. 111).

Source: WorldCat OCLC 64557485

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