Some de Visu Observations on P. Hermitage 1115

Abstract

De visu investigation of P. Hermitage 1115, which bears the only copy of the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, gives new information on the history of this papyrus. It is a palimpsest, with some sheets glued together after the original text had been washed off, which can presumably be explained by the necessity to cut away damaged areas. A narrow papyrus strip is preserved, which is glued along the right (initial) edge of P. Hermitage 1115, and which partly overlaps one of the signs in col. 1. To the author's mind it is the only remnant of a lost previous sheet which must have contained the beginning of the Shipwrecked Sailor. Thus, the only known manuscript of the Shipwrecked Sailor is incomplete, and the introduction of the tale is lost. This reconstruction of the history of P. Hermitage 1115 is not beyond debate, but it may be of service for future interpretations of the Shipwrecked Sailor.