Prosopographia Ptolemaica Online

The Prosopographia Ptolemaica is one of the long-standing research projects of the department of Ancient History at the University of Leuven.

The Prosopographia Ptolemaica started as a list of all inhabitants of Egypt between 300 and 30 B.C., from Greek, Egyptian and Latin sources, both authors and documents. It is now being extended to the Roman and Byzantine periods.

The automatisation of the Prosopographia Ptolemaica has been greatly advanced through a grant of the Kiessling Stiftung in 2008. 

The Prosopographia Ptolemaic has been integrated in the papyrological framework of Trismegistos, http://www.tismegistos.org/. It is also set up in close collaboration with the Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis and the Duke Database of Documentary Papyri.

Founders: Willy Peremans; Edmond Van 't Dack
Directors: W. Clarysse, M. Depauw, H.Hauben, L.Mooren, K.Vandorpe
Collaborators: Y. Broux, S. Coussement, G. Jennes, B. Van Beek, H. Verreth, S. Waebens
Programming: J. Clarysse, B. Van Beek

The Prosopographia Ptolemaica lists all inhabitants of Egypt between 300 and 30 B.C., from Greek, Egyptian and Latin sources, both authors and documents. The first volume appeared in 1950 in the series Studia Hellenistica and for nearly half a century the project was directed by the founding fathers Willy Peremans (1907-1986) and Edmond Van 't Dack (1923-1997). The first six volumes, to which are added vol. VIII and IX, collect all persons for whom an occupation is attested. A tenth volume, by C. La'da, collecting all ethnics in Ptolemaic Egypt, has been published in 2002 (Studia Hellenistica XXXVIII). Volume VII contains an index to all persons in volumes I-VI.

Since 1981 priority is given to the computerisation of the documentation in a relational data base with the program Filemaker Pro. At this moment the data of all published volumes have been entered, many of them by Liesbeth Westhof in 2001. Herbert Verreth and Katelijn Vandorpe have entered all persons from the Zenon archive and the Pathyris archives, whereas Csaba La'da and Katja Müller have done the same with all persons bearing an ethnic. The hieroglyphic material of Panopolis is being entered by Mark Depauw. The project "historical topography of the Fayum" (OT.98.05) has led to many new entries for inhabitants of Fayum villages; thus persons of Theadelpheia, Euhemeria and Hawara, not only of the Ptolemaic but also of the Roman period, were included by Jacques France and Inge Uytterhoeven. The Prosopographia Ptolemaica is meant to be consulted both by Greek papyrologists and by egyptologists.