The Library of the Taurinus Family (5th–6th c.): A Tentative Assessment and Interpretation

Abstract The literary papyri found by Otto Rubensohn on January 25 and 27, 1905, were unearthed together with the archive of the Taurinus family (5th–6th c.) in a dump at Hermopolis. Herwig Maehler proposed that, due to the circumstances of their discovery, these books may have belonged to one of the family members. This hypothesis, if correct, is all the more interesting since it makes these papyri one of the few papyrological libraries with a precise historical context. In this paper, I attempt to make an overall assessment of this library, which has never been inventoried, and discuss its possible relationship with the documentary archive of the Taurini.