Maybe This Is the Oldest Book

Over a year ago, we debated on this blog and on Twitter what was the oldest bound book in the work. See the first post: Is this the world's oldest bound book? and the second post: Older than the Oldest.

Some authoritative experts said the crown should not go to the Codex Vaticanus, a parchment bible which is still bound, but to the 102 battered and now separated pages of Pap.Hanna (the sole Hanna Papyrus), also known as P75, which is a little 3rd-century booklet containing most of the Gospels of Luke and John.

On July 18, all the extant pages of this booklet were placed online by the digitization program at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome.

It's a battered little papyrus book from Egypt, originally sewn together in a codex and now kept between sheets of glass. This is among the most famous of the so-called Bodmer Papyri discovered in Egypt in 1952 and is an important source of the gospels within 200 years of their composition. It also contains an early Christian "brand logo", the Tau-Rho symbol or staurogram.

In all, 50 new items were placed online in this summer batch. Here is my full unofficial list:

1. Cappon.229
2. Cappon.297 
3. Pap.Hanna (the bibliography page for this item still uses the former shelfmark, Pap.Bodmer.XIV-XV).
4. Vat.ebr.25
5. Vat.ebr.26
6. Vat.ebr.27
7. Vat.ebr.28
8. Vat.ebr.30
9. Vat.ebr.31
10. Vat.ebr.214
11. Vat.ebr.215
12. Vat.ebr.220
13. Vat.ebr.221
14. Vat.ebr.222
15. Vat.ebr.223
16. Vat.ebr.225
17. Vat.ebr.229
18. Vat.ebr.232
19. Vat.ebr.234
20. Vat.ebr.235
21. Vat.ebr.236
22. Vat.ebr.239
23. Vat.ebr.241
24. Vat.ebr.242
25. Vat.ebr.244
26. Vat.ebr.247
27. Vat.ebr.249
28. Vat.ebr.252
29. Vat.ebr.257
30. Vat.ebr.260
31. Vat.ebr.261
32. Vat.ebr.262
33. Vat.ebr.265
34. Vat.ebr.266
35. Vat.ebr.267
36. Vat.ebr.268
37. Vat.ebr.273
38. Vat.ebr.275
39. Vat.ebr.277
40. Vat.ebr.279
41. Vat.ebr.284
42. Vat.ebr.285
43. Vat.ebr.290
44. Vat.ebr.292
45. Vat.ebr.293
46. Vat.ebr.295
47. Vat.ebr.298
48. Vat.ebr.299
49. Vat.ebr.303
50. Vat.lat.9973

This is Piggin's Unofficial List (PUL) number 60. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to Digita Vaticana.