NEWLY RECOVERED LETTERS OF PROCOPIUS OF GAZA? This is the first I've heard of it.

Researchers find rare exchange of letters from 5th century Gaza Strip
Discovery offers proof of rich intellectual society in region better known today for bloody conflict (Daily Star, Lebanon)

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

GENEVA: Swiss researchers have uncovered a rare exchange of letters written in ancient Greek during the fifth century in what is now the Gaza Strip, the University of Fribourg said on Monday.

The discovery offers proof of a rich intellectual society in a region that is better known today for a bitter and bloody standoff between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, said one of the researchers, Professor Jacques Schamp.

Located amid mounds of manuscripts stored at the Marciana National Library in Venice and the French National Library in Paris, the unpublished texts from an ancient school of philosophy in Gaza were identified after a one-year search, he told AFP.

[...]

The oldest discovery is an exchange of letters between a philosopher called Procopius of Gaza who lived around the years 465 to 529 and a young, and until now unknown, lawyer called Megethios.

[...]

The article seems awfully confident that the letters are genuine, but the composition of apocryphal letters in the name of famous people was rife in antiquity and the early Middle Ages. We should keep an open mind about this one until further information is available.

UPDATE (27 January): David Meadows comments over at Rogue Classicism and points to a French article that also has photos of what seem to be photocopies of the manuscript (see below). (I don't think it's a modern transcription; why would it be written out in a bound book and then photocopied, and why wouldn't they publish photos of the manuscript?). I'm no Greek epigrapher, but I agree that the script looks much later than the fifth century. It's written with fully accented minuscules. A fifth-century manuscript would be in unaccented majuscules (uncials). It doesn't say, that the photo is of the Procopius correspondence, but it would be odd if they released photos of something else in this article. It looks to me as though the researchers have a late copy of letters attributed to Procopius which may or may not be genuine. They have a publication forthcoming in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift this year and doubtless they will make their case for genuineness there.



UPDATE (28 January): Stephen Carlson at Hypotyposeis confirms my view of the script and has additional comments.