Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Papyrus

The last word Hickey could read was "Soknebtunis," the name of a crocodile god once worshipped by the Egyptians, and a clue that the house whose sale or loan is described had been next to the god's temple. Hickey and a computer database that provides word sequences in early Greek kept coming up with "megalou-megalou," or "great-great," to follow. But the words were too long to fit.

"Some people do the crossword puzzles," Hickey said, searching for a better fit. "I could sit and do this stuff all day and not get tired of it."

But these days the 35-year-old papyrologist, or papyrus specialist, has a lot more to do than just translation. As the curator of the Tebtunis Papyri, a collection of ancient papyrus documents recognized as one of the best in the United States, Hickey has a lot of other responsibilities for making sure it is preserved, well-funded and connected to UC classes.

The collection was unearthed about a century ago by British archeologists backed by philanthropist Phoebe Apperson Hearst, mother of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst. But only 5% of the documents have been studied or translated. An even smaller percentage has been properly restored. The rest remain at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library, often sandwiched between pages of the Oxford University Gazette or loose, like chunks of ancient bark, in battered old boxes.

The collection is undergoing a rebirth. Badly needed restoration has begun and a center to study the papyri is being funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, UC funds and donations. The center is trying to establish a $1.25-million permanent endowment.

Hickey says it will take lifetimes to learn all the documents have to offer.

Other universities, including the University of Michigan, Duke and Columbia, have papyrus collections. But because of its size and completeness, Berkeley's is one of the best, according to Traianos Gagos, president of the American Society of Papyrology and curator of Michigan's collection.

Unlike most other collections, which were compiled piece by piece from dealers with little knowledge of their origin, Berkeley's entire collection is from one site: the archeologically rich southwest corner of the Fayum Basin of Egypt. The area was called Tebtunis in ancient days.