The Leiden Papyrological Institute is the only papyrological institute in the Netherlands. The members of our staff publish Greek (and Latin), Demotic (and Abnormal-Hieratic) and Coptic papyri from collections all over the world, including our own collection.

The Leiden Papyrological Institute was founded in 1935 by B.A. van Groningen and M. David and J.C. van Oven (see also The papyrus collection). This initiative was prompted by the donation of a papyrus collection by E.P. Warren. There was one condition: the papyri were to be published and should never become the property of a government organisation. The Warren papyri were published in the first part of the new series Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava, in which papyrologists from Leiden and abroad publish their research to this day.

From the very beginning classes in Greek papyrology were interdisciplinary, which was a unique concept at the time. A special place was reserved for thematic classes, which still rank high on the Institute’s agenda today. To provide their students with the proper study material David and Van Groningen assembled the Papyrologisch Leerboek (1940), which appeared in English translation in 1946). The revised edition – P.W. Pestman, New Papyrological Primer, Second Edition Revised, 1994 – is still used in papyrology courses around the world.

The papyrus collection was soon enlarged, first with papyri bought by Van Groningen in Egypt, and later also through purchases from antiquities dealers, and donations. It is now a highly diverse study collection that is indispensable for palaeography classes. Starting from the seventies the collection is regularly presented to visitors with an interest in papyrology, including school classes.

Apart from their research and teaching duties, after the Second World War the staff of the Papyrologisch Instituut – E.P. Wegener and E. Boswinkel – took on the additional task of reviving the Berichtigungsliste, the official list of all corrections made on the publications of documentary Greek papyri, had been in decline for some time. This project is still based in Leiden, first collaborating with the University Marburg and from 2009 onwards with the University of Heidelberg. Its aim is straightforward: to benefit the entire papyrological community (Berichtigungsliste Band III, 1958 - Band XII, 2009).

Van Groningen became a real innovator of papyrological research, introducing the study of papyrological texts in context, including their mutual coherence (archival studies). Papyrological texts often come from archives, i.e. clusters of documents that were already collected in antiquity for personal reasons or business purposes. His successor, the legal historian and demotist P.W. Pestman extended the interdisciplinary Greek-legal approach to the Demotic material, which in due time gave rise to the Demotic Berichtigungsliste. The Leiden Papyrological Institute still remains one of the few institutes worldwide where people can study both Greek and Demotic texts. In 2002 the classicist K.A. Worp became professor of Papyrology by special appointment thanks to the support of the Leiden University Fund (LUF). He headed the Leiden Papyrological Institute until his retirement in 2008 and mainly worked on Greek and Latin papyri, ostraca and (wax) tablets. 

Apart from their research and teaching duties, after the Second World War the staff of the Papyrologisch Instituut – E.P. Wegener and E. Boswinkel – took on the additional task of reviving the Berichtigungsliste, the official list of all corrections made on the publications of documentary Greek papyri. This work is continued in Leiden by Cisca Hoogendijk, first collaborating with the University Marburg and from 2009 onwards with the University of Heidelberg (Berichtigungsliste Band III, 1958 - Band XIII, 2017).

The staff continually works on the publication of texts from various collections around the world. Documents are never treated as separate sources, but always approached as objects within a context. Transcriptions and translations of texts always include an extensive commentary, addressing the various aspects of each text in detail within the greater context of Graeco-Roman Egypt.

The Papyrological Institute is now housed in two rooms on the second floor of the University Library in Leiden (entrance 6), directly adjacent to the phenomenal papyrological library containing (almost) all Greek and Demotic papyrus editions and a sizable share of the secondary literature. Teaching and presentations of our collection are all done in the University Library or in nearby facilities.

As of January 2000 the Institute has been part of the Faculty of Humanities, part of the Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), and, since 2022, also the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). Various courses in Greek, Demotic and Coptic Papyrology are offered within the programmes of Classics, Ancient Near Eastern Studies and History.