The Papyrological Institute, housed at the University Library in Leiden, is the home of a modest collection of some 500 papyri, 58 ostraca, 9 waxed tablets, 11 texts on linen and 5 wooden labels. About half of these have been published.
The collection was begun in 1935 with the gift of 21 papyri by the trustees of E.P. Warren. A group of 234 papyri, 4 ostraca and 2 wooden labels was acquired in Egypt by Van Groningen in 1938-1939. In 1966-1967 another 31 papyri were bought from the Dutch antique dealer Möger. One of these formerly belonged to the collection Michaelides and had been published already as P.Michael. 52, and it cannot be excluded that other items from the same lot also once belonged to Michaelides (cf. ZPE 100 [1994] 226). The following items derive from the Michaelides collection : P.Lugd.-Bat. 17 4; 19 21; 25 6, 9, 19, 21, 32, 38, 42, 44, 55, 56, 58, 62, 66, 67, 69, 81, 82, 84, 86, 87, 88, 90, 93, 98, 99 and 107. Finally, a more substantial group of 199 papyri, 51 ostraca, all 9 waxed tablets, 11 mummy linens, 3 wooden labels as well as a small group of wooden and metal objects was bought from the Dutch publisher Hakkert in 1971. In addition, four (yet unpublished) papyri in the collection originally belonged to the private collection of David and were bought by him from Von Scherling (for other papyri acquired from Von Scherling see P.Turner 19 Introduction, P.L.Bat. XIII 23 and K.A. Worp in BASP 44, 2007, p. 41-49). In 2000, some fragments of papyrus, mainly coptic, have been purchased from a private collector.
All Warren papyri have been published in P.L.Bat. I. All ostraca (except some coptic ones) have been published as well, see P.L.Bat. XXV 24, n. 1. The waxed tablets are published in P.L.Bat. XXV 15- 18, the mummy texts in P.L.Bat. XIX, see the concordance on p. 285 (add Leiden Inv. V 3-5 = P.L.Bat. XIX 43, 44, 42). Some papyri, both literary and documentary, were published separately in volumes of P.L.Bat. and elsewhere. Published literary texts include LDAB 3773 (= Plato, Phaedo 65 A8- C3, E3-66 B3), edited in Mnemosyne4 19 (1966) 231-240, LDAB 1188 (= Hesiod, Catalogue of Women), edited in P.Turner 1, LDAB 1034 (= Euripides, Iph.Aul. 784-792), published in Académie des Inscriptions et Belles- lettres, Comptes rendus des séances de l=année 1973, 292-302, LDAB 6288 (= Christian amulet), edited in P.L.Bat. XIX 20, and LDAB 1954 (= Homer, Odyssee XVI 333-337), edited in ZPE 35 (1979) 137. All the other literary texts have been published in P.L.Bat. XXV 1-14. Separately published documentary texts can be found in P.L.Bat. XIII, XVII and XIX and SB VI 9068-9069 and 9617. All the other texts from the series Inv. 1-100 as well as a few others are edited in P.L.Bat. XXV, see the Introduction p. vi. Some 300 papyri and fragments are still unpublished.
From the overview of the collection presented above, it becomes clear that there are only a few literary items. Some of these, however, are quite unique, especially the Euripides papyrus Inv. 510 since it also contains the musical notation above the verses [LDAB 1034]. The major part of the collection consists of Greek documentary papyri. The chronological distribution of the published items is described in P.L.Bat. XXV pp. ix-x; the majority belongs to the Roman and Byzantine periods. The provenance of most texts is unknown and can only be reconstructed from internal evidence. The most important Greek documentary texts are Inv. 112 (= SB VI 9671), dealing with preparations for the visit of Hadrian, and Inv. 70 (= P.L.Bat. XXV 21), a perfectly preserved papyrus of the late Ptolemaic period with an official stamp in red ink on the back. Other languages represented in the collection are Latin (only two papyri, P.L.Bat. XXV 22-23) and Egyptian, the latter in hieratic, demotic and coptic writing. Inv. 1000, unpublished, is important because it contains a late hieratic literary text on the recto and a demotic documentary text from the Ptolemaic period on the verso. The Coptic papyri and ostraca (about 30 texts) as well as the demotic papyri (35 texts) are nearly all unpublished. One published Coptic ostracon, P.L.Bat. XXV 12, has a list of martyrs [LDAB 6667]. The waxed tablets V 16-20 (= P.L.Bat. XXV 15) form a complete school book [ LDAB 2530 ].
