Scholars@Duke
William Johnson

William Johnson

Professor of Classical Studies
Classical Studies
william.johnson@duke.edu
Box 90103, Durham, NC 27708-0103
236 Allen Building, Durham, NC 27708
Office hours On leave 2024-25.  
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Selected Publications

From Bookroll to Codex

Chapter · 2024 The first part of this overview of ancient books in the Graeco-Roman world focuses on the details of scribal production for papyrus rolls containing ancient literary texts (‘bookrolls’), so as to give a clear view of the regularities of format and conventi ... Cite

Typological Catalogue of the ancient Roman Scribal Tool Known as a Bone Rule

Journal Article Journal of Open Archaeology Data · January 1, 2023 The dataset contains a typological catalogue of archaeological small finds of an ancient device known as a “bone rule” or “bone ruler” or “bone spatula,” together with scaled drawing and full metadata for each item in the catalogue. The ancient device has ... Full text Cite

Reading for Efficiency in Ancient Rome: THE CASE OF PLINY THE ELDER

Journal Article Reception: Texts, Readers, Audiences, History · January 1, 2023 Readers in ancient Rome did not have efficiency of reading as a goal. The much-cited exception that proves the rule is a letter of the Younger Pliny (Letter 3.5, early 2nd c. CE) that describes the extraordinary reading habits of his uncle the Elder Pliny, ... Full text Cite

A TRIFLE, REPRISED: BRITISH LIBRARY SCHOOL TABLET ADD MS 34186(1)(2)

Journal Article BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PAPYROLOGISTS · 2022 Full text Cite

Oxford Handbook to the Second Sophistic

Book · 2017 Featured Publication Cite

Imperial Pantomime and Satoshi Miyagi’s Medea

Journal Article Didaskalia · 2017 Featured Publication Open Access Link to item Cite

Ptolemaic Mummy Stuffings, 3: The Documentary Texts (Beinecke P.CtYBR inv. 5058, 5059, 5060, 5061, 5062, 5063)

Journal Article Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik · 2017 Featured Publication Cite

Isidora to Apollonia: a Private Letter in the Beinecke Collection (P.CtYBR inv. 5044)

Journal Article Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik · 2017 Featured Publication Cite

The Essential Herodotus

Book · 2016 Featured Publication Cite

Ptolemaic Mummy Stuffings: An Intriguing Scholar’s Text in the Yale Collection (P.CtYBR 5018)

Journal Article Archiv für Papyrusforschung · 2016 Featured Publication Open Access Cite

Ptolemaic Mummy Stuffings, 2: A Comic Fragment and Grammatical Text in the Yale Collection (P.CtYBR inv. 5019, 5043)

Journal Article Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik · 2016 Featured Publication This is the second installment of a three-part project to publish a group of ten Ptolemaic papyri purchased by Yale’s Beinecke Library in 1998 (acquisition “1998b”), which came to the Beinecke as three hard wads that were apparently the stuffing from the s ... Open Access Cite

Learning to Read and Write

Chapter · 2015 Featured Publication Cite

Libraries and Reading Culture in the High Empire

Chapter · 2013 Featured Publication Cite

Bookrolls as media

Chapter · January 1, 2013 Featured Publication Cite

Pliny Epistle. 9.36 and Demosthenes' Cave

Journal Article Classical World · 2013 Featured Publication Cite

Voice in the whirlwind

Journal Article Georgia Review · March 1, 2012 Cite

From Bookroll to Codex

Chapter · 2024 The first part of this overview of ancient books in the Graeco-Roman world focuses on the details of scribal production for papyrus rolls containing ancient literary texts (‘bookrolls’), so as to give a clear view of the regularities of format and conventi ... Cite

Typological Catalogue of the ancient Roman Scribal Tool Known as a Bone Rule

Journal Article Journal of Open Archaeology Data · January 1, 2023 The dataset contains a typological catalogue of archaeological small finds of an ancient device known as a “bone rule” or “bone ruler” or “bone spatula,” together with scaled drawing and full metadata for each item in the catalogue. The ancient device has ... Full text Cite

Reading for Efficiency in Ancient Rome: THE CASE OF PLINY THE ELDER

Journal Article Reception: Texts, Readers, Audiences, History · January 1, 2023 Readers in ancient Rome did not have efficiency of reading as a goal. The much-cited exception that proves the rule is a letter of the Younger Pliny (Letter 3.5, early 2nd c. CE) that describes the extraordinary reading habits of his uncle the Elder Pliny, ... Full text Cite

A TRIFLE, REPRISED: BRITISH LIBRARY SCHOOL TABLET ADD MS 34186(1)(2)

Journal Article BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PAPYROLOGISTS · 2022 Full text Cite

Oxford Handbook to the Second Sophistic

Book · 2017 Featured Publication Cite

Imperial Pantomime and Satoshi Miyagi’s Medea

Journal Article Didaskalia · 2017 Featured Publication Open Access Link to item Cite

Ptolemaic Mummy Stuffings, 3: The Documentary Texts (Beinecke P.CtYBR inv. 5058, 5059, 5060, 5061, 5062, 5063)

Journal Article Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik · 2017 Featured Publication Cite

Isidora to Apollonia: a Private Letter in the Beinecke Collection (P.CtYBR inv. 5044)

Journal Article Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik · 2017 Featured Publication Cite

The Essential Herodotus

Book · 2016 Featured Publication Cite

Ptolemaic Mummy Stuffings: An Intriguing Scholar’s Text in the Yale Collection (P.CtYBR 5018)

Journal Article Archiv für Papyrusforschung · 2016 Featured Publication Open Access Cite

Ptolemaic Mummy Stuffings, 2: A Comic Fragment and Grammatical Text in the Yale Collection (P.CtYBR inv. 5019, 5043)

Journal Article Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik · 2016 Featured Publication This is the second installment of a three-part project to publish a group of ten Ptolemaic papyri purchased by Yale’s Beinecke Library in 1998 (acquisition “1998b”), which came to the Beinecke as three hard wads that were apparently the stuffing from the s ... Open Access Cite

Learning to Read and Write

Chapter · 2015 Featured Publication Cite

Libraries and Reading Culture in the High Empire

Chapter · 2013 Featured Publication Cite

Bookrolls as media

Chapter · January 1, 2013 Featured Publication Cite

Pliny Epistle. 9.36 and Demosthenes' Cave

Journal Article Classical World · 2013 Featured Publication Cite

Voice in the whirlwind

Journal Article Georgia Review · March 1, 2012 Cite

The Oxyrhynchus Distributions in America: Papyri and Ethics

Journal Article BASP · 2012 Featured Publication Cite

Cicero and Tyrannio: Mens addita videtur meis aedibus (ad Atticum iv.8.2)

Journal Article Classical World · 2012 Featured Publication Cite

Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities

Book · May 1, 2010 Featured Publication Readers and Reading Culture in the High Empire examines the system and culture of reading among the elite in second-century Rome. The focus is on deep sociocultural contextualization for reading events within specific communities, and thus the investigatio ... Full text Cite

Teaching the Children How to Read: The Syllabary

Journal Article Classical Journal · 2010 Featured Publication Cite

The Ancient Book

Chapter · 2009 Featured Publication Cite

Constructing Elite Reading Communities in the High Empire

Chapter · 2009 © 2009 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved. This chapter takes Aulus Gellius's work entitled Attic Nights as an illustrative example to present a methodology for exposing the sociology of certain types of reading events and how a reading c ... Full text Cite

Hesiod's Theogony: Reading the Proem as a Priamel

Journal Article Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies · 2008 Featured Publication Cite

The Story of the Papyri of the Villa dei Papiri

Journal Article Journal of Roman Archaeology · 2006 Cite

The Posidippus Papyrus: Bookroll and Reader

Chapter · 2005 Featured Publication Cite

Voice over IP: how computing technology is being used in mobile communications.

Journal Article Journal of healthcare information management : JHIM · January 2005 This article explains how computing technology was used to address the need for mobile communications among nursing staff. In 2004, nursing staff at Fauquier Hospital relocated from one nursing floor in an older building to two floors in a new structure. T ... Cite

Bookrolls and scribes in oxyrhynchus

Book · January 1, 2003 Featured Publication Lying now under the sand 300 kilometres south of the coastal metropolis of Alexandria, the town of Oxyrhynchus rose to prominence under Egypt’s Hellenistic and Roman rulers. The 1895 British-led excavation revealed little in the way of buildings and other ... Cite

A colloquium on ancient music

Journal Article The Classical Review · January 1, 2003 Full text Cite

P.Hibeh II 193 (Iliad VI 4-7)

Journal Article Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik · 2002 Cite

Toward a sociology of reading in classical antiquity

Journal Article American Journal of Philology · 2000 Featured Publication Cite

New instrumental music from Graeco-Roman Egypt

Journal Article Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists · 2000 Cite

Musical Evenings in the Early Empire: New Evidence from a Greek Papyrus with Musical Notation

Journal Article Journal of Hellenic Studies · 2000 Featured Publication Cite

Dramatic Frame and Philosophic Idea in Plato

Journal Article The American Journal of Philology · 1998 Featured Publication Cite

Oral Performance and the Composition of Herodotus' Histories

Journal Article Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies · 1994 Featured Publication Cite

The Appian Papyrus from Dura-Europus (P.Dura 2)

Journal Article Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists · 1994 Cite

Macrocollum

Journal Article Classical Philology · 1994 Cite

The Function of the Paragraphus in Greek Literary Prose Texts

Journal Article Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik · 1994 Cite

Towards an Electronic Greek Historical Lexicon

Journal Article Emerita · 1994 Cite

Column Layout in Oxyrhynchus Literary Papyri: Maas's Law, Ruling and Alignment Dots

Journal Article Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik · 1993 Cite

Multiple Copies of Literary Papyri, Fiber Patterns, and P.Oxy. XLVIII 3376 fr. 44

Journal Article Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik · 1992 Cite