The University Library in Lund owns a collection of 32 ostraca, i.e. potsherds with text, all from Ancient Egypt. These texts are all in Greek, the oldest ones from the 1st century A.D., the youngest from the 4th or 5th century. The content of the texts is constituted by receipts of commercial transactions, inventory lists and letters. The study of these texts gives, as do studies of ostraca generally, invaluable information about the ancient Egyptian society and its linguistic, legal, social and economic conditions.
The best way to make these ostraca fully available for research is that they are photographed, catalogued and made accessible through the Internet.
This work will be carried out in collaboration with APIS (Advanced Papyrological Information System), an international organization for making papyri and ostraca freely accessible on the Internet. The digital catalogue, with images and catalogue cards, will be presented on the home page papyri.info, together with all material launched by APIS.