Maltese conservator Theresa Zammit Lupi has made a tremendous discovery in mapping the history of the production of books after she came across what has since been dubbed The Graz Mummy Book, it was announced last week.

The papyrus fragment, which is housed at the library of the University of Graz, in Austria, has been found to be some 400 years older than what was previously thought to be the earliest codices with evidence of stitching in book form, making it the earliest known surviving part of a book today.

Speaking to Times of Malta, Zammit Lupi said she hopes her chance discovery will lead to even more similar artefacts being identified. “I really did just stumble upon it. That’s the word, you know, I wasn’t looking for anything like this at all,” she admitted.

Zammit Lupi was assessing the state of the university’s collection of 52 papyri to determine if they needed any conservation interventions or required new storage. While admiring one fragment in particular, the presence of a knotted thread embedded deep in the layers of the papyrus triggered the thought that there was more to the artefact than there initially appeared to be.

The papyrus fragment covered an Egyptian sarcophagus. Researchers at the University of Graz examined the colour markings and drawings on it and found traces of binding.

“Suddenly, in the plaster layer where there’s the pigment, I see this thread, and that’s what gave it away, because it’s very rare to find a piece of thread with a knot, which is embedded into the papyrus layer,” she said.

“I said, ‘Hey, hang on a second’, and I flipped it around again. And then I saw it. This was the shape of a book. It was so evident and so clear.”

“I called my colleague who was sitting opposite me and I said: Go have a look, and then I looked at the catalogue and it said 260 BC.”

Despite her clarity at the moment of the discovery, Zammit Lupi said there was need for a period of rigorous study and verification to confirm the find.

“First, I went through a period of shock, you know, thinking: does it totally stand, and then a whole period of questioning, because you have to question, you have to be the devil’s advocate here, and really make sure that what you’re seeing is correct,” she said.

“So we did a lot of research, and then we also contacted a specialist in Greek papyrology and he confirmed that the date of the text is from the third century.”

“We wanted to do scientific analysis with carbon dating but the sample for carbon dating is too big and destructive. So we decided to abandon that idea. There are no other dating techniques, so the dating has to be based on palaeography and the decoration that was used on the mummy.”

So what comes next?

Learning from the discovery

Zammit Lupi pointed out that, later this year, the University of Graz will be inviting a team of experts in related fields to meet and consult about the fragment. The hope, she said, is to learn from the discovery and apply a new methodology when looking at papyri fragments.

The binding thread (centre) provided Theresa Zammit Lupi with a clue that the papyrus fragment could be a book fragment.

“Perhaps we can consolidate our knowledge of what we have and already know, and also sort of plan what approach we should be taking when looking at fragments worldwide,” she said.

“Because what we want in the end is to find similar fragments so we can puzzle together the history of the book before Christ. It’s useless just having one discovery, we want more discoveries, perhaps even older than ours.

“It’s not a matter of having the oldest in the world, it’s the oldest right now, at this moment in time, but, perhaps we’ll find new ones. And that will be great too because what we’re interested in is mapping the history of the book.”

Zammit Lupi said she hopes the discovery will also draw more attention to the role of conservators and the contributions they can make to fields of research.

“Usually, conservators are connected only to repair and making things look better, which is good and necessary,” she said. “But our role goes beyond that; it’s also to identify materials and structure, and hence also to date things, because [then] you know what existed  [and] when, and you can come up with new ways looking at things,” she remarked.