The Oxford Facsimiles of the Herculaneum Papyri

P.Herc. Image Database

The Oxford Facsimiles of the Herculaneum Papyri: an indexed database of images These facsimiles (disegni) were made when the rolls were first opened. Most of the work was carried out at Portici near Naples from 1802 to 1806 under the direction of the Rev. John Hayter and at the expense of the Prince of Wales (later George IV). In many places the drawings preserve text no longer present in the original papyri: fragments of papyrus that had become stuck to a lower layer during the unrolling process (sovrapposti) were scraped off and thus destroyed after they had been drawn, in order to reveal the letters underneath. Such fragments, and others lost through subsequent damage to the originals, are known only from these drawings. This set of disegni is kept in the Bodleian Library (see Copyright Statement). The drawings are bound in seven volumes (MS. Gr. class. c. 1-7). The leaves are numbered consecutively in a single series. In some cases, alternative numerations exist: for much of volume 1 (after fol. 71), the numbers given in pencil at the top right of each leaf and taken over in the descriptions given by the Library on the images themselves are lower by one than the numbers in general use. [This description from the Friends of Herculaneum Society website] 

Click here for a list of the editions referred to in the database, arranged by papyrus number. A general bibliography arranged thematically, The Books from Herculaneum, is also available on the Friends of Herculaneum Society website.