Exclusive Interview: Dr. Carleton Gholz & Gabe Chess discuss the Red Bull Arts Detroit Library! (Grand Opening on May 7, 2019)

Exclusive Interview: Dr. Carleton Gholz & Gabe Chess discuss the Red Bull Arts Detroit Library! (Grand Opening on May 7, 2019)

Dr. Carleton Gholz (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

We’re sitting here on the 5th floor of WSU’s TechTown, a 5-story business incubator and co-working space in Detroit’s New Center neighborhood.

Right now, it’s a busy hive of activity and we’re sequestered in a quiet corner to discuss the exciting grand opening of Red Bull Arts Detroit Library.

I’m sitting here with the two brilliant, forward-thinking minds of Dr. Carleton Gholz and Gabe Chess.

Carleton is the main consultant on design and strategy for the Library. He is also an historian, journalist and founder of Detroit Sound Conservancy.

Gabe is a native North Carolinian, culture hacker with a taste for electronica & soccer, former Chicagoan and one of the main functionaries at Red Bull Arts Detroit.

Until more donations start rolling in, the Library is currently mostly comprised of a hybrid of Carleton’s personal Detroit book collection and from Detroit Sound Conservancy music library, many of which were gifted from the Frederick Gale Ruffner, Jr. Collection warehouse liquidation. Carleton is loaning his 1,500-book collection to the RBA Library for one year.

What is Red Bull Arts Detroit?

Red Bull Arts Detroit (photo courtesy of Red Bull)

New York City and Detroit are the only two Red Bull Arts exhibition spaces in North America. There’s also one in Sao Paolo, Brazil called The Station. Red Bull’s global HQ is in Austria and their North American HQ is in Santa Monica, California.

Opened in 2011, Red Bull Arts Detroit (1551 Winder Street) is a 14,000-square foot 2-story warehouse located in the Eastern Market district.

Red Bull, yes the energy drink company, pays 9 artists from all over the world a $12,000 stipend to live and work at the warehouse for 3 month intervals (ie: January-April, April-July, August-November).

The stipend allows the artists to focus on making art full-time while in Detroit. Being an artist is not easy and the money and dedicated time for free-flowing creativity are a blessing to struggling artists.

The basement of the warehouse is the old Eckhardt & Becker Brewery and is basically a cool subterranean brick-walled cavern. The brewery was here 1891-1969.

They are creating the reference Library as a platform for public engagement, which will be open to both resident artists and the general public.

 

A Lively Conversation with Carleton & Gabe

Gabe Chess & Dr. Carleton Gholz (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Carleton

“So, to kick things off for the Library, I’ll be doing a Reading Room talk on a book that is personally meaningful to me. It’s the 50-year, 10,000-square foot view of how I understand arts funding and how its drastically changed.”

“The book I will be talking about is the 1968 Detroit architecture classic, ‘The Buildings of Detroit’ by Hawkins Ferry, which was published by Wayne State University Press. There was a 2002 updated edition with a foreword by John Gallagher but I’ll be using the original.”

The book was my Grandfather’s copy and it even has the original Hudson’s receipt in it. He was a doctor, did his residency in Detroit in the 1940’s, lived on West Philadelphia Street and on Selden Street. My Dad was born in Detroit and worked as an architect.”

“The book I have is basically a family scrapbook, layered with article clippings, papers, notes, ephemera, etc., it’s my own little vertical file of supplemental material. It essentially comprises a parallel book of its own within the Hawkins Ferry Book.”

“The big question for me is, as a historian, how does one fully update this survey for a new age?

William Hawkins Ferry came from big money, the Ferry-Morse Seed Company, which was started by his grandfather, Dexter Ferry. Hawkins was born 1913 and died 1988. He was an architectural historian and DIA trustee who attended Yale and Harvard. He was a pre-WWII elite historic preservationist whose worldview did not include insights into the working class and the adaptive re-use of repurposed buildings in working class neighborhoods. He was a modernist who lived in a $2 million-dollar house on Lake Shore Drive in Grosse Pointe, a wealthy suburb of Detroit.”

In a world of scarce resources, funding for the arts is tough to come by. How would you know if Ferry’s book as a resource is definitive? I’m also very concerned about archives being accessible for non-Ivy League working class humans. To do this, archives would most likely need state funding of some sort.”

 

Reading Room: Dr. Carleton Gholz on “The Buildings of Detroit: A History by W. Hawkins Ferry”

https://www.facebook.com/events/435178813921974/

Dr. Carleton Gholz’s family copy of The Buildings of Detroit (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Gabe

“I grew up in a home with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a huge reference library. My dad’s a poet and a professor and as such, my entire inheritance will be books. What I’ve found with books is that, if they’re there, you will use them.”

“We have all these artists and writers who need access to an archive of resources while in Detroit, so we’re trying to facilitate engagement in a meaningful way. Our collection will serve that purpose. We can help expose the public to our library, open it up to new perspectives and we hope to invite lots of people to engage in new and different types of thinking.”

The idea for the Red Bull Library came out of visiting artists who were missing their books and were therefore constantly going to the Detroit Public Library and we thought it was a great idea to have a library on-site for them. The library feels relevant, it’s a platform which willow allow us to help give voice to our community partners. What was once a blank space has been upgraded to provide better tools for artists. The library is a community tool.”

 

Carleton

“It raises an interesting question of what is the relationship of an artist to an archive? A background foundational knowledge of art and a variety of other things should be easily accessible and findable, which is why archives exist.”

“Personally, I’d like to see better arts funding being provided to help the community, like what Red Bull is doing with this Library, I think it’s tremendous. I find it interesting that a private company like Red Bull, feels its budget is better spent creating archives in an arts building, rather than doing something else with it.”

Gabe Chess & Dr. Carleton Gholz (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Gabe

“Well, Carleton, oddly what’s happened with Red Bull, points to what states should be doing, which is helping to provide funding for community progress. People typically only look at attendance numbers as a measure of success. High attendance figures are not always necessarily a good measure of delivery on a promise. If you build it, they will come.”

“Our Library is not exhaustive. It’s intended to be a series of meaningful books. There’s sometimes a myth of neutrality of institutions. Museums are often started by a handful of wealthy donors. This is a far more community-based effort and we’re very excited.”

 

Carleton

Agreed.”

 

Library Grand Opening event:

 

Reading Room: Dr. Carleton Gholz on “The Buildings of Detroit: A History by W. Hawkins Ferry”

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

 

Red Bull Arts Detroit Library

1551 Winder Street

Detroit, Michigan

Free entry, free street parking

 

Facebook Event Page

https://www.facebook.com/events/435178813921974/

Red Bull logo (courtesy of Red Bull)

 

Red Bull Arts Detroit Homepage

http://redbullarts.com/detroit/

 

RBA Detroit Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/redbullartsdetroit/

 

Dr. Carleton Gholz Homepage

http://csgholz.org/

 

Detroit Sound Conservancy

http://detroitsoundconservancy.org/

 

Buy the Hawkins Ferry book from WSU Press

https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/buildings-detroit

 

Photos of the Hawkins Ferry House

https://www.wallpaper.com/art/william-kessler-michigan-modernist-house-hosts-group-art-show

Gabe Chess (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Dr. Carleton Gholz (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Gabe Chess & Dr. Carleton Gholz (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Dr. Carleton Gholz (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

 

3rd Annual Detroit Festival of Books! (Sunday, July 21st, 2019) we will be in SHED 3

3rd Annual Detroit Festival of Books! (Sunday, July 21st, 2019) we will be in SHED 3

3rd Annual Detroit Festival of Books (aka: Detroit Bookfest)!

*Special Thank You to Lauren Rautiola, our Detroit Bookfest Project Manager, for designing our flyers!*

 

The 3rd Annual Detroit Festival of Books (aka: Detroit Bookfest) is a glorious day of BOOKS, vinyl records, comics, creative arts, food, beer, funk music and more!

Please join us at Eastern Market Shed 3 in Detroit on Sunday, July 21st, 2019.

The event is FREE for attendees! There will be an estimated 10,000+ attendees.

Event hours are 10am-4pm.

All the event details are here:

https://detroitbookfest.com/event-details-facts/

 

 

What is Shed 3 @ Eastern Market? 

Detroit Bookfest will be located inside Shed 3. To get near there, use the address 2934 Russell Street, Detroit, MI.

Shed 3 is located on Russell Street, between Division St & Adelaide St.

Built in 1922, Shed 3 is 29,000-square feet. The layout features 4 wings in a cross-shape. It is the “main” and largest shed at Eastern Market.

Shed 3 features bathrooms, large garage door-walls and free wi-fi.

 

Click on this link for a 3-D tour of Shed 3 (courtesy of Eastern Market):

https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=jiHWwWLKs4B

 

Shed 3

 

Exclusive Interview: JOHN KING, owner of John K. King Used & Rare Books in Detroit, internationally voted one of the World’s Best Bookstores!

 

If you are interested in applying to be a Vendor, read this: 

https://detroitbookfest.com/vendor-application/

 

Please fill out the Vendor Application form and you will be entered into the VNQ (Vendor Notification Queue).

The VNQ is a database of potential vendors. If you are selected to be a vendor, you will be notified via email.

Please note that we have received thousands of emails from people wanting to be vendors at Detroit Bookfest.

 

If you have any questions, please email:

[email protected]

Thank you, we love you all!

 

3rd Annual Detroit Festival of Books Facebook event page

https://www.facebook.com/events/2128622190753187/

 

Detroit Bookfest

 

According to our website statistics:

www.DetroitBookFest.com averages around 50,000 unique views per year.

Our top 10 countries are:

USA

Canada

France

UK

Brazil

Germany

India

Australia

Italy

Norway

 

Our top 10 states are:

Michigan

Ohio

Illinois

New York

California

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Florida

Texas

Colorado

 

Our top 10 cities in Michigan are:

Detroit

Ann Arbor

Grand Rapids

Royal Oak

Dearborn

Plymouth

Clinton Township

Troy

Farmington Hills

Livonia

 

Detroit Bookfest!

400+ Photos from the 2nd Annual Detroit Festival of Books @ Eastern Market!

150+ Photos from the 1st annual Detroit Festival of Books @ Eastern Market!

Exclusive Interview:The Pie-Tastically Fantastic World of Self-Made Businesswoman, creator & author of Detroit’s Sister Pie Powerhouse, LISA LUDWINSKI!

Exclusive Interview:The Pie-Tastically Fantastic World of Self-Made Businesswoman, creator & author of Detroit’s Sister Pie Powerhouse, LISA LUDWINSKI!

Sister Pie cookbook cover (photo courtesy of EE Berger)

I’ve never heard anyone say, ‘I don’t like pie’. I know some crazy people who aren’t huge fans of cake. But pie is one of those rare, universally loved foods.

Most people have a favorite pie and if you visit Sister Pie in Detroit, you’ll discover new flavors of pie, cookies and pastries you never knew existed.

You can also discover how creative, finely tuned, and in-sync local communities can become when they’re assembled and provided an outlet, such as the daily magic of Sister Pie.

This story is beyond pies. It delves into the heart of Detroitness, the importance of farms, the power of ideas and the oft unacknowledged tapestry of communities which make the USA a great chunk of the Global Village.

How did Sister Pie start?

Well, Lisa Ludwinski had an idea. She grew that idea with raw drive, talent, a flair for self-marketing and perseverance. The idea eventually sprouted into a business. The business attracted tens of thousands of customers whom became devoted fans and now the business is thriving and has become an undeniable force in the community. This led to Lisa writing one of the coolest cookbooks of all time and achieving international worldwide recognition in the process.

The business and the cookbook are called Sister Pie. The creator & author is Lisa Ludwinski and this is her story.

A TEMPLE OF PIE AND BAKED GOODS

Sister Pie (photo courtesy of Michelle & Chris Gerard)

Sister Pie is located on Kercheval Ave @ Parker St in Detroit’s West Village neighborhood, about three miles east of Downtown Detroit.

There is gloriously free street parking and the 950-square foot bakery is housed inside a circa 1925 corner wedge of building shaped like an inverted isosceles trapezoid. It gives Sister Pie a sort of ‘temple of pie and baked goods’ feeling.

Inside are beautifully presented pies with lattice weaves and decorative steam vents and an olfactory bouquet of brain-meltingly good smells.

They offer a range of edible works of art, including pies, cookies, pastries, breakfast and lunch. All those goodies can be enjoyed on-site at the single large family-style farmhouse table in the front of the shop, which is where Lisa and I are sitting right now.

The ambiance is cozy, quirky and inspiring. They also have double-stacked convection ovens here. These bad girls can fit 25 pies at a time, so you can bake up to 50 pies simultaneously!

I’m here visiting with Lisa because Sister Pie is all-around great and as a result, she has become one of Detroit’s de facto ambassadors. Plus, their cookie game is on point too, these are some good cookies!

Her cookbook, ‘Sister Pie: The Recipes and Stories of a Big-Hearted Bakery in Detroit’, clocks in at 256 pages and features over 75 recipes.

It was published in October 2018 by Lorena Jones Books, an imprint of Ten Speed Press, which is a division of Penguin Random House.

The book is an incredibly fun and interactive read, featuring recipes, ingredients, tips, easy to follow instructions, and Lisa’s own unique brand of quirky humor.

What is readily apparent from reading the book is that the Sister Pie powerhouse are fearless experimenters. They are unafraid to experiment with combinations of from-scratch ingredients and modify or replace the recipes as needed.

Lisa herself is a fun blend of silly and business, hilarious and serious, extrovert and introvert, intermingled together like her nontraditional pie ingredients.

“I have a pit bull named Ruby Thursday. She got her name because I liked the name Ruby and I met her on a Thursday. Ruby is my girl!”

One of my biggest inspirations over the years have been my parents. They’ve given me probably too much support (laughs) I’m incredibly fortunate. Knowing they had my back allowed me to focus 100% of my time on business development and turn Sister Pie into a successful business.”

“They were so excited when I moved back home from Brooklyn. They gave me a place to stay, helped fund my existence, provided groceries, roof over my head. And growing up, they took their parental duty to the max and made it their mission give my sister Sarah and I good opportunities.”

“My Father Kurt runs the All America Plywood Company at John R & 7 Mile in Detroit. My grandfather started the business in 1967 and my dad took over in the late 1970’s. Growing up, it was a cool experience for me to visit him at the office, see him as a business owner and boss. He’s able to transform stress into creativity, which is very inspirational for me. I always know I can go to him for advice.”

My mom is amazing. She carted me from dance lessons to play rehearsals and everywhere in between as a kid. We grew up on her cooking, and my Aunt Mimi’s pumpkin pie.”

BIOGRAPHY: LISA LOUISE LUDWINSKI

Lisa & Sarah (photo courtesy of Lisa Ludwinski)

Born 1984, Lisa Louise Ludwinski, grew up in Milford, Michigan with her sister Sarah. She attended Mercy High School and graduated with a BA in Theatre Arts from Kalamazoo College.

Upon graduation, she moved to Brooklyn, NYC and lived there from 2006-2012. When not filming her hilarious Funny Side Up cooking show and landing acting gigs, she worked as a pastry cook at Momofuku Milk Bar and very briefly at Four and Twenty Blackbirds.

Lisa decided to move back home and grow her new idea for a business. She started Sister Pie in November 2012 at her parent’s house. The orders rolled in fast and in 2013 she enrolled in D:hive Build (now Build Institute) business class, joined FoodLab Detroit and by 2014 transitioned to the Hannan House commercial kitchen space in Midtown Detroit.

Lisa added her first employee, Toledo native Anji Barto and things were cooking as they moved to Detroit’s West Village, snapped up several wholesale accounts and won $50,000 from the Hatch Detroit small business contest.

To raise money for a brick-and-mortar shop, Lisa launched an Indiegogo campaign in February 2015. The goal was to raise $25,000. Lisa did a 24 hours dance marathon where she personally danced for 24 hours straight inside Paramita Sound record store. She started 9pm Friday and stopped 9pm Saturday night! The fundraiser was a huge success and they exceeded their goal by $1,000.

Finally, after a few years of grinding hard every single day, Lisa officially opened Sister Pie on April 24th, 2015.

MORE ABOUT LISA

Lisa & Ruby Thursday (photo courtesy of Lisa Ludwinski)

“I’m of Polish and German descent, with some English and Russian thrown in there.”

“I was part of a mime troop in high school (laughs)…it was a weird thing, but fun. I did it for two years and learned skits, choreography, and the challenge of entertaining while being constrained. Without the ability to talk, you learn to be expressive in other ways.”

“Going to Mercy High School was a big experience in my life. I was introduced to a culturally and racially diverse student body, which is something I hadn’t really experienced in Milford. There was an emphasis on exploring and opening up your mind to other people and everyone’s different experiences, which created a strong foundation for my ongoing interest in social justice and human rights.”

“I like dogs, I like to doodle-draw, and going to see interesting films. The Detroit Film Theatre inside the DIA is one of my favorite places in the city. My favorite movie is Hitchcock’s 1954 classic, ‘Rear Window’. I also like being outside and exploring different outdoor challenges and trying new things.

“As the business has grown, I’ve become more introverted. For the past couple decades, I’ve spent a lot of time as a performance-crazed extrovert. I have a wacky sense of humor. In general though, I try to be an empathetic person, try to give with kindness, and definitely have a tendency to over-analyze.”

“One of my favorite authors is Zadie Smith. Her book ‘On Beauty’ is my favorite of hers. Also really enjoy essays by Rebecca Solnit. I listen to a wide variety of music and have always been very into classic soul. My go-to music in general is 80’s New Wave (New Order, Talking Heads, etc).”

SISTER PIE: DRAMATIC CRIMPS & LATTICE WEAVES

Sister Pie’s Apple Sage Gouda Pie (photo courtesy of EE Berger)

The reason Sister Pie sells out early every day is because each person is buying an average of 5 to 10 items. Yes, it’s that good. I ordered $60.00 worth of pie and pastries while here and the only regret I have is that I didn’t bring another $40.00 with me to buy more.

Sister Pie is run by 15 women, including myself. Everyone here has a lot of freedom, ownership, responsibilities and the business is now at a place where it can run without me needing to be here constantly.”

“The kitchen here is running 5am-6pm daily. We close for the holidays and take a two week break at the beginning of the year. We bake pies once daily, around 11 am or Noon. They sit overnight and are served the next day because pies need to rest for at least 4 hours.”

“My first employee, Anji Barto has been with us since May 2014. At the time she was doing some graphic design work for Germack. In April 2015, she became a full-timer and she’s been very involved in the growth of Sister Pie. We’ve been through a lot together.”

“Sister Pie is known for our nontraditional flavor combinations. We make these seasonally and there’s definitely something enticing about the unusual flavors. Again, I like a challenge and it’s challenging to pick a single base ingredient and see how you can layer it with other ingredients to make something different and unique.”

“We make our pie dough, the All-Butter Pie Dough, by hand every day communally. We use Plugra butter (high fat French butter) and unbleached all-purpose flour.”

“80% of Sister Pie pies begin with a blind-baked crust (ie: baked without filling). Pie crust is not hard to make, there’s just a lot of steps. You have to be thoughtful and work fast, especially so the butter doesn’t become completely homogeneous with the other ingredients. You want it to burst open when it hits the hot oven. It’s also possible to over-work the pie dough. It’s a hard balance because it takes a lot of muscle to sculpt the dough, roll it to a properly-sized circle and crimp it. I call our crimps ‘dramatic.’

“I love our Sister Pie-It Forward Program. We have these slips of paper and for $4.24 you can purchase one and put it on our refrigerator. Anyone who comes in can grab it and use it for a free slice of pie.”

Sister Pie (photo courtesy of EE Berger)

“Every now and then we like to dance in the kitchen. It’s a fun way to release energy!”

“One Monday night per month we have Sister Pie Townhall Meetings. These are private, employee-only get-together’s where we sit at the store table and talk, eat and drink. It’s an open forum, a chance to empty the suggestions box and give everyone a chance to speak honestly about whatever’s on their mind.”

“We also offer classes here. They’re put up for sale quarterly. We host classes all year long, conducting maybe 3-4 per month. There are about 8 students per class and we do them here at the bakery. Lindsey teaches the pie dough classes and I teach the hand pie classes.”

Wedding orders are hugely popular at Sister Pie. Especially during the warmer weather, we’re doing several wedding orders every weekend. If you or someone you know are interested in this, shoot us an email at [email protected]

“As a business, Sister Pie has a Triple Bottom Line. This is a focus on being mindful of people, planet, and profit in every decision we make.”

WHAT TO TRY AT SISTER PIE?

Ruby loves Sister Pie! (photo courtesy of Lisa Ludwinski)

Sister Pie offers an array of deliciousness. Most of their pies have a 9-inch diameter, except for the mini pies, hand pies and they make special 6-inch pies for the holidays.

Here are some recommendations:

  • Salted Maple Pie (“Considered to be our signature flavor, it has classic chess filling with Grade B maple syrup from Imlay City, Michigan”)
  • Chocolate Coconut Pie
  • Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies
  • Apple Sage Gouda Pie
  • Sweet Potato, Black Bean & Feta Hand Pie (“If there were a hand pie fan club, this is the hand pie they’d serve at their meetings.”)
  • Egg-on-Top Galettes
  • Honey Lemon Meringue Pie (“Cloud-like meringue, we use a kitchen torch to toast the meringue.”)
  • Rhubarb Rosemary Streusel Pie
  • Sister Salads
  • From Another Galaxy Brownies
  • Sour Cherry Bourbon Pie
  • Fennel Snickerdoodle Cookies
  • Savory Hand Pies
  • Peanut Butter Paprika Cookies
  • Toasted Marshmallow Pumpkin Pie
  • Sweet Beet Pie
  • Spranola (granola, honey, yogurt)
  • Blueberry Lemon Thyme Pie
  • Brandy Pecan Pie
  • They even do Paczki’s for Fat Tuesday! Maple coffee cream paczki, Grapefruit Hibiscus paczki, and the Pieraczki (pierogi-paczki hybrid)

THE IMPORTANCE OF FARMS

Michigan farmland (photo courtesy of Pure Michigan)

The State of Michigan has 10 million acres of farmland and over 50,000 farms.

Farms (and long-haul truckers) are the backbone of America, yet they are continually underrated and under-credited.  Businesses like Sister Pie help farms and farmers achieve more recognition of their importance.

Sister Pie works with dozens of farms and farmers! We try working with farms in Michigan, especially within the city of Detroit.

“Our offerings are based on seasonality. April to November are the main months for Michigan farmers.”

Guernsey Dairy

“We get fresh whipped cream delivered weekly from Guernsey Dairy. We use heavy cream in many of our recipes. It provides a richness and flavor. The fat affects the texture of filling. We whip it up daily for pie, it’s especially good with more tart pies, helps balance the tartness.”

“We get sweet potatoes from Farmer Norm, buckwheat flour from Hampshire Farms, Northern Spy apples from Erwin Orchards and Farmer Joe Jessup in South Haven, etc, the list goes on and on.”

“As a team, Sister Pie even does an apple-picking trip once per year.”

“In the beginning, we started going to Eastern Market in Detroit to see what was available. That in-person interaction deepened many of our relationships with farmers. Now, they will typically deliver directly to us or we will still meet them at Eastern Market and pick it up there.”

LISA ON WRITING HER COOKBOOK

Lisa @ Sister Pie (photo courtesy of EE Berger)

One thing I appreciate is that Lisa made her cookbook fun. Most cookbooks are not fun. They’re usually instructional textbooks devoid of personality.

Lisa’s cookbook is the opposite, laced with idiosyncratic texture and overflowing with humorous asides, which makes it a unique experience, much like visiting Sister Pie. My two favorite lines are: “When you’re not in a pie mood (as if!)” and also “Over the years, the cookie has evolved much like a story in a game of telephone”.

Lisa explains:

“How the cookbook happened is basically I wrote a book proposal, got some recipe taste-testers together and it took some time, but we eventually compiled over 75 recipes.”

“It was listed by the New York Times as the Best Cookbook of 2018. Since it was published a few months ago in October, we’ve sold around 30,000 cookbooks. Here at the Sister Pie store in Detroit, we’ve sold over 1,000 copies.”

“It’s been a huge hit with home bakers. The Pie Dough recipe, for example, is very accessible. It’s a good opportunity for home bakers to use it and exercise patience. When a recipe tells you to wait, just wait, it will pay off. Please take the proper time to follow the baking rules for best results. I know it’s tough! The part of patiently waiting is an area I still struggle the most with. But it’s worth it.”

My advice to fellow writers is to keep writing every single day. The whole process of getting the book published took me a full two years.”

“I even took a month off from the bakery to be a full-time writer. That may not seem like a lot, but believe me, taking an entire month off from your business is a huge deal. It’s a big gamble and one I was willing to take because I trusted my employees. During that time, I would write 6-8 hours per day. I worked on it at home, in various Detroit coffee shops and also Up North in the Torch Lake area.”

EE Berger took the photos and she did an incredible job bringing a fresh, unique perspective to our bakery and baked goods.”

RYAN’S ADVICE

  • When visiting Sister Pie, get there when they open.
  • Try everything.
  • Participate in the Sister Pie-It Forward Program.
  • Buy the cookbook. Read it and use it.
  • Be sure to check out Sister Pie’s Instagram. You’ll be Insta-hungry.

 

GET A JOB AT SISTER PIE

We typically hire about every six months or so. Overall, we have good employee retention. We hire via a sign posted on the door. More than half of our employees live within walking distance and we do tend to hire only Detroit residents.”

FUN FACT

Lisa is also a talented artist!

She drew the designs of Crimp Drama and What’s Shaking Sister Pie and also the cookie box labels.

FINAL THOUGHTS (FOR NOW) & UPCOMING DEVELOPMENTS

Lisa Ludwinski (photo courtesy of Sister Pie and Frame Hazel Park)

I give Lisa and her team a lot of credit for everything they’ve been able to do. It’s been a remarkable journey thusfar with many adventures yet to come. It will be interesting to continue following their development as visions of Sister Pie pies and cookies dance in our heads.

And remember that you can pre-order pies 48 hours in advance. They must be placed by 2pm two days in advance of pick-up. This is great for people who live far from the bakery.

One recent develop is that Esto’s Garage (1811 Parker Street, Detroit) will be opening next to Sister Pie. This Mexican-American casual eatery is run by Esteban Castro. I’ve known Esteban since he had a pop-up residency at Café D’Mongo’s Speakeasy. His guacamole is off the chain!

Maybe we will get to see a Sister Pie & Esto’s Garage collab at some point? A taco and pie night, perhaps? Maybe with some margaritas, too?

“Currently, we are entering our next phase as a business, and looking at a space we would rent in addition to this place, somewhere in the same general area.”

We’re looking to grow, get more kitchen space, add more classes, increase our Savory Food Program of sandwiches, soups, salads. Possibly even have some gluten-free pie crust.”

“One recommendation I have to everyone, especially you home bakers, is to start a Baking Club in your neighborhood. Get some friends together, pick a different cook book monthly, each of you make something out of it, then meet at each other’s houses to sample the creations. There are so many great cookbooks out there, but they’re rarely fully explored. This would be a good way to change that.”

CONTACT SISTER PIE

Sister Pie

8066 Kercheval Ave

Detroit, MI 48214

(313) 447-5550

Email:

[email protected]

M-F 8am-4pm

Sat-Sun 9am-4pm

Homepage

http://sisterpie.com/

 

Buy the Sister Pie Cookbook here

https://www.amazon.com/Sister-Pie-Recipes-Stories-Big-Hearted/dp/0399579761

 

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/sisterpiedetroit/?hl=en

 

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/SisterPie/

 

Yelp

https://www.yelp.com/biz/sister-pie-detroit-2

 

Lisa’s Youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/user/lisaludwinski/videos

Exclusive Interview: University of Michigan’s Papyrology Collection, worth an estimated $100 million dollars, is the largest collection of papyrus in North America and run by Archivist BRENDAN HAUG!

Exclusive Interview: University of Michigan’s Papyrology Collection, worth an estimated $100 million dollars, is the largest collection of papyrus in North America and run by Archivist BRENDAN HAUG!

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

The University of Michigan’s Papyrology Collection is a fascinating hidden gem.

Housed on the 8th floor of the South Stacks of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library, the Papyrology Collection contains 18,000 pieces of papyrus.

Estimated to be worth $100 million dollars, it’s the largest collection of papyri in North America and the 5th largest in the world.

I’m standing in 807 Hatcher with the head archivist, Brendan Haug. Also present is manager, Monica Tsuneishi. Brendan has been archivist since 2013, taking the helm from a position started by Traianos Gagos, who was the first archivist in 1991.

This 8th floor hidden perch offers a spectacular vantage of campus as well. There’s a clear view of the Burton Bell Tower and Hill Auditorium to the north and a stunning panorama to the south, which includes the Big House and the Law Building.

The view from 807 Hatcher (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Brendan and I are sitting in a reference library next door to a chilled room full of 3,000+ year old treasures in the form of papyri (pap-eye-ree; the plural of papyrus), that great preserver of everyday writing from the ancient world.

U of M’s papyrus (pronounced pap-uh-russ) is written in Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian: Hieroglyphs, Hieratic (cursive hieroglyphs), Demotic (a still-later stage of Egyptian), Latin, Coptic (Egyptian language written in Greek characters with a few additional symbols), Arabic and Hebrew.

Most of the papyri here range in size of fragments from pinky-nail size to full document size.

Egyptian Book of the Dead (11th cen BC) @ University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Papyrology is the study of everyday writing on papyrus and other surfaces like broken pieces of pottery (ostraca), wooden tablets, and stone.

Thanks to the dry Egyptian climate, these objects were preserved for centuries, giving Michigan plenty to study. The goal of papyrologists is to produce complete transcriptions of ancient papyri, thus, bringing long dormant documents back to life.

The work of papyrology can also be incredibly frustrating, since many of those teasing half-there scraps of papyri are damaged beyond translation.

To give you an example of the manifold difficulties of papyrology, only about 5% of Michigan’s Papyrology Collection has been studied, accurately translated and published academically. The rest sit there, waiting to be explored.

Brendan explains more about the Collection

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Papyrus was used from the fourth millennium BC to around 1000 AD. It lasted 4,000 years, until being phased out by parchment and paper. Papyrology, the study of handwritten texts on papyrus and other writing surfaces, is a specialized sub-discipline within Classical Studies.”

“The University of Michigan’s Papyrology Collection was founded in 1920 by Francis Willey Kelsey. He was a Latin professor and polymath, interested in everything from music to archaeology. Because Ann Arbor was so far from the Mediterranean, Kelsey wanted to bring back antiquities for students at his Midwestern public university to study.”

“Although Kelsey died in 1927, there was still a great deal of money available during this period, particularly before the Stock Market Crash of 1929, so we were able to continue acquiring papyri until the 1940’s. Also, because more people were exposed to Greek, Latin, and the Classics in school during this period, and there was rather more popular interest in the recovery of ancient texts on papyri than there is today.  If you’re interested in Michigan’s history of antiquities collection and archaeology, the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology here on campus is a great place to visit.”

U of M’s Francis W. Kelsey (photo courtesy of UofM)

“All of Michigan’s papyrus came from Egypt and our Papyrus Collection began with the purchase of 534 papyri, which was curated by Kelsey himself. After that, U of M continued to purchase texts on the Egyptian antiquities market, many from the famed Egyptian antiquities dealer Maurice Nahman.”

“Since dealers never kept accurate records of where they acquired their papyri, we rarely if ever, have good provenance for texts acquired on the antiquities market. Controlling the circumstances of recovery is therefore extremely important.”

“With this in mind, Michigan obtained permission from the Egyptian government to excavate the ancient Graeco-Roman village of Karanis for eleven seasons, from 1924-1935. Located in Middle Egypt on the northeastern margins of the Fayyum, Karanis is known for producing mass quantities of Graeco-Roman antiquities, which offer great insight into everyday life in a country village.”

The Fayyum was at that time already well-known to antiquities dealers and European academic institutions as major source of papyri.  In fact, a major find of papyri from the region’s central capital city had been dispersed to Paris, Berlin, and Vienna in 1887-88.  So, we knew that excavation in the Fayyum was likely to be very fruitful.   And it turned out to be even more productive than we could have imagined.”

“Over 11 seasons, we acquired thousands of papyri and other artifacts, which we split with the Egyptian government. Fortunately, the desert margins of the Fayyum, where Karanis is located, are hyper-arid, so perishable organic material like papyri are well-preserved in an almost laboratory-perfect environment.  If you visit the Kelsey museum, you’ll see that they have everything from wooden artifacts to foodstuffs, perfectly preserved!”

c. late 1920’s University of Michigan in Karanis, the Fayyum, Egypt (photo courtesy of U of M)

“As for the papyri, Karanis gave us many fragments of Greek literature, including pieces of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Hesiod’s Works and Days and Theogony. It also gave us thousands of documents of great significance, such as the Karanis Tax Rolls from 171-175 AD, which allow us to reconstruct the population and demographics of the village during these years.”

“We also have a great many papyri from elsewhere in the Fayyum, including about 150 papyri from the Archive of Zenon, which is largest ancient archive to survive. Zenon was a Greek functionary in Egypt during the early Ptolemaic period (3rd century BC) and the papyri provides us with considerable insight into a period during which Greeks were still consolidating their power over Egypt.”

“But we don’t just have texts on papyri. We also have a great many parchment fragments, such as a piece of a codex of Demosthenes, the from 4th century BC Athenian orator, along with a great many ostraca, pottery sherds that people used for quick notes or short texts like receipts.”

“In 1972, Cornell University also donated all of their papyri to U of M, which had better facilities for the continued care and storage of such fragile material. So really, we have just a major collection, maybe 18,000 fragments. Let’s go take a look at some of this stuff.”

The Environmental Room

Environmental Room @ University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

“This room was specially designed in 1993 by Maria Grandinette and since it’s full of organic material, the stability of temperature and humidity is the most important thing, so we keep it at a cool 65 degrees F and about 45% humidity.”

“The majority of the papyri are stored in acid-free archival folders but we do have a few hundred “glazed” papyri, texts that have been put between two archival glass panes.”

“The great thing about this documentation is that it puts you in contact with ancient people. Although ancient people were in many ways very different from us, they are identical to us in the most important and fundamental ways.”

“For instance, we have two letters on papyrus written in Italy by a young man and sent back to his mother in Karanis.  He had joined the Roman military fleet and was very far from home so, of course, he wrote to let his mother know where he was and that he was safe and well.  What could be more relatable? Still, papyri like these can be a tease, revealing tiny, brief glimpses of the past and leaving us wanting more.  But usually we can never know more, as in the case of this mother and her son. These two short letters are all we have.”

Abstracts of Contracts papyrus (c. 40’s AD from Tebtunis, Egypt) @ University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

“But despite this shortcoming, we still have all sorts of material here: the tax rolls from Karanis, papyri from the Tebtunis notary office in the south of the Fayyum, a birth certificate for a young Roman-citizen girl from 190’s AD Alexandria, a drawer full of wooden mummy tags in Greek and Egyptian.” 

“We also have fragments of a book-binding where discarded papyrus was used to stiffen the covers, a large fragment of book 18 of the Iliad, almost anything you could imagine. It’s just so rich that you are constantly seeing something that you could spend hours investigating and only just begin to understand fully.”

“Our oldest piece is in fact a fragment from the Egyptian Book of the Dead from the 11th Century BC. It was purchased in 1925 in Egypt. The papyrus came from the tomb of a woman who is referred to as a Chantress of Amun. She was a temple singer and you can see her making an offering to a hawk-headed god named Re-Harakhte (pronounced ray ha-rock-tey) in the illustration on the papyrus.”

“Basically, the text is a collection of magic spells to ensure that the deceased person’s soul survives the underworld. There are hieroglyphs on the right and hieratic on the left. Some of the sentences are, “Thoth has come, fully equipped with magic” and “who gave jackals to those who are in the watery abyss.” It’s a neat piece and, in fact, it’s still not published since the surviving bottom portion of the fragment isn’t here but in Germany.”

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

“By far, however, our most popular papyri are the 30 leaves, i.e. 60 pages, of one of the earliest known copies of The Epistles of Saint Paul. Dating anywhere from the late 2nd-early 4th century AD, they’re written in Greek on papyrus.”

“Known as P46 to New Testament scholars, the pages were part of a large collection of early Biblical manuscripts, most of which were purchased by the businessman and antiquities collector, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty.”

“Another 56 leaves of this book survived and they are now in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland. Beatty bought them in 1930, U of M bought some in 1932 and two years later, Beatty purchased the rest.”

Epistles of St. Paul papyrus @ University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

What is Papyrus?

Papyrus growing along the Nile River in Egypt (photo courtesy of Pinterest)

Papyrus, which is a sedge, grows in Egypt and Sicily, however papyrus plants grew predominantly in marshlands along the Nile River, which is why Ancient Egypt had a veritable monopoly on papyrus production.

Papyrus plants can reach 15 feet tall. To make papyrus sheets for writing, you strip the green husk from the stems and then carefully cut the white pithy interior of the stem into thin strips. You then soak the strips in water for a time and afterwards line the strips up side by side vertically to form one layer, then you create another layer on top with strips running horizontally.

You then use either a mallet or, these days, a hand-cranked press, to smash the layers together and expel the water. The sheets are then and dried. In antiquity, these sheets could then be used singly or glued together to form a long roll.  These rolls could be of any length you wanted.

Papyrus in the dirt (photo courtesy of Rossella Lorenzi @ Archaeology Magazine)

Papyrus was an extremely valuable export commodity, especially for the Roman Empire. Papyrus was also used as cartonnage filler for mummy cases, those form-fitting cases which held mummies inside their sarcophagi.

Water and humidity are the enemies of papyri. Modern paper comes from wood pulp from ground up pine trees and has the same enemies.

To write on papyrus, the Egyptians would most commonly use either a rush pen or a Greek reed pen known as a kalamos. The ink was a mix of lampblack (fine charcoal soot from burning oil in lamps), gum from the acacia tree (gum Arabic) and water, somewhat similar to modern India ink.

The Edwin Smith Papyrus (photo courtesy of the New York Academy of Medicine)

How old are you?

Okay, now subtract your age from 4,500. Odds are, you’re probably somewhere in the 4420-4485 range. The oldest known papyrus, fragile yes but inexplicably resilient and durable enough to survive, is about that old.

Cool! What does that mean? It means that most papyrus pre-dates the Julian (46 BC) and Gregorian (1582 AD) calendars. Zero became a number around 3 BC in Mesopotamia. That’s right, papyrus predates the number zero by about 3,000 years! Mind = Blown. Canite Sapiunt.

Fast-forward to 4,500 years from now. Year 6,500 AD. Space archaeologists and paper-ologists revisit the old planet Earth to do some digging and uncover a 5,500-mile-long paper artifact. Upon closer inspection it turns out to be an insanely long CVS Pharmacy receipt from the year 2020 AD!

This is what they would be doing… if it were written on papyrus. CVS receipts long enough to wrap a mummy in will not be around in 6500 AD. However, papyrus from Ancient Egypt will most likely still be around.

Egyptology

Egypt (photo courtesy of Google)

“In 1798 when Napoleon invaded Egypt, the country was still terra incognita to Europeans. He brought scientists and engineers on his expedition to learn about Ancient Egypt. Through their scientific surveys they created The Description of Egypt (23-36 volumes), which comprises the foundation of Egyptology, the study of Pharaonic Egypt.”

“Thus, Western political conquest of Egypt opened the country to international study. In 1882, the British took over and started the Egypt Exploration Fund. In 1922, Egypt was made “independent” by the Brits but they still controlled the government.”

“That same year, 1922, amateur archaeologist Howard Carter discovered King Tut’s tomb at a time when Egypt was beginning to be fed up with Western domination. King Tut’s Tomb was of a quality and quantity unseen before.”

“In response to popular pressure, the French scholars in charge of the Antiquities Service did not allow Carter to take any of Tut’s treasures out of Egypt. The discovery captured the world’s imagination. This sort of grand, romantic, Egyptomania gripped the entire world, including the Egyptians themselves. Art Deco design also started incorporating Egyptological elements.”

Howard Carter discovers King Tuts Tomb c. 1922 (photo courtesy of Smithsonian)

“After that, it became harder to get antiquities out of Egypt and other countries. The 1920’s-30’s was the last major era for getting stuff out of the country. This question started being asked heavily: To whom does this belong?

We owe the survival of documents to climate. Alexandria is on the Mediterranean Coast, it’s wet, eroding, and a lot of ancient Alexandria is actually today underwater. Regarding the big Library of Alexandria, we don’t know the size of the collection, how they were stored, etc. We are therefore dealing with the “survival of the least fit,” as the papyrologist Roger Bagnall has said. ”

“That is, we get the overwhelming majority of our papyri from small sites that were on the very edges of Egypt’s cultivated land, right along the margins of the desert. So, the Library of Alexandria was the literary and cultural center of the country and its contents tell us a lot of information about their culture, it would be a time-machine. There are no more ancient libraries to discover, sadly.”

“There’s not as much interchange between Papyrologists and Egyptologists as there could be. The disciplinary divides that exist are linguistic. Knowing all the ancient languages, knowing 8,000 years of history, etc, it’s just not possible, so you inevitably have to divide up the discipline. Languages alone, you must have expertise in Egyptian (hieroglyphs, hieratic, demotic, Coptic), Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Arabic, etc, it’s too much for any one person to master in a lifetime.”

Biography of Brendan Haug

Wooden mummy tags @ University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

“My academic interests include the environmental history of Graeco-Roman Egypt, the history of Egyptology and Egypt during the European colonial period. I work largely in Greek and Arabic although I have some training in Coptic.”

“I graduated from the University of Washington in 2004 with a B.A. in Classics and the University of California-Berkeley in 2012 with a PhD in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology.”

“Berkeley has the other large papyrus collection in the United States, the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri at the Bancroft Library, which is where I did my grad work. Overall, U of M has a more diverse collection than Berkeley, whose papyri largely come from a single site.”

Fragments of a leather hand-carved book where papyrus was used as paperboard (c. 3rd cen) University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

“It was by accident really that I became a papyrologist. I was majoring in Classical Studies and doing my undergrad work at Seattle, studying Greek and Latin. One of my history instructors was going to teach a grad seminar on the Hellenistic World and she invited me to join it. She assigned each student a region to research for the semester and I was given Egypt. I ended up sticking with it, pursuing an honors major, and wrote an honors thesis on certain aspects of Ptolemaic Egypt.”

“After that I got into Berkeley (barely) and began to work at their papyrus collection. The director, Prof. Todd Hickey, needed a student assistant and I was hired on and ended up working there for eight years.”

“Over time, I evolved more into an environmental historian, not a pure papyrologist. Specifically, I’m interested in the human-nature interactions in rural Egypt from the Hellenistic to the early Islamic periods.”

“The world’s largest collection of papyri has to be the 500,000 fragments from the Egypt Exploration Society. It’s housed at Oxford University in the Sackler Library.”

“The papyri came from the city of Oxyrhynchus (oxy-rink-us) in Egypt, which has produced the greatest number of surviving papyri of the Roman period.”

Brendan’s Final Thoughts

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

“There’s still a small black market for papyrus but it’s far harder to create monetary values for it because antiquities smuggling is easier to track now. Hobby Lobby, for example, was recently caught importing cuneiform tablets, which they labeled ‘roofing tiles.’”

“Every once in a while, something incredible pops up on Sotheby’s or somewhere but it’s fairly rare. Nowadays, you must have a permit to dig in Egypt, nothing is expatriated and anything you find goes to the government.”

The Classical world in general is not as big a part of the mental landscape as it used to be when it was a part of every educated person’s schooling. The thrill of the hunt and musing on what treasures are potentially buried in unexcavated urban centers is still fun though.”

Book 18 of Homer’s Iliad @ University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

The ultimate goal of papyrology is publishing texts in an effort to reconstruct the culture and society of ancient civilizations, slowly refining our assumptions and arguments as more and more evidence accumulates. The difficulty is simply that there are so, so many documents out there, most of which are very fragmentary. Therefore, it might literally take until the year 4,000 AD for us to publish every papyrus in all the world’s major collections, that’s how slow and difficult it is.”

“Much of what we do these days is online, thanks to emerging digital technology. In 1996, our archivist Traianos Gagos helped create APIS, the Advanced Papyrological Information System, a digital catalog where all images of our photographed papyri are open-access to anyone in the world, it’s a tremendous resource.”

“Beyond that, I recommend that you come up to 807 Hatcher and visit us in-person to see the collection. We’re in the South Stacks, which is a sort of book storage and study space area. I also recommend checking out the 6th floor Special Collections Reading Room while you’re here.”

Epistles of St. Paul @ University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection

https://www.lib.umich.edu/papyrology-collection

 

Contact

[email protected]

 

U-M Papyrology Collection APIS (Advanced Papyrological Information System)

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/apis

 

Top 20 Most Impressive Ancient Manuscript Collections

https://www.onlinechristiancolleges.com/20-most-impressive-ancient-manuscript-collections/

 

LHPC (directory of over 3,000 known papyrus collections worldwide; around 230 are in the USA)

https://www.trismegistos.org/coll/index.php

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

 

Incomplete Timeline of Papyrus, Papyrology & Allied Interests

Compiled by Place from a variety of sources

Egypt (332 BCE) Alexander the Great conquers Egypt. Koine Greek becomes the official language of Egyptian power.

World (4000 BC) Clay tablets are all the rage.

Abydos, Egypt (3400 BC) The earliest known Egyptian hieroglyphs date back this far.

World (3000 BC-1000 AD) Papyrus is created in Egypt and replaces clay tablets. Papyrus lasts 4000 years until being phased out by parchment paper.

Egypt (3000 BC) Egyptians invent papyrus. Papyrus proves far more portable than heavy clay tablets, which had been the primary writing surface prior to papyrus.

Egypt (2562 BC) The Diary of Merer is the world’s oldest surviving writing on paper. Found by Pierre Tallet in 2013 AD. According to the Diaries, Merer worked for Pharaoh Khufu as head of transportation of the massive blocks of white tura limestone for Khufu’s Great Pyramid at Giza. Merer was also getting copper at Wadi-el-Jarf. His diary also contains the first known spreadsheet.

Egypt (2500 BC) Carrier pigeons carry messages written on scraps of papyrus.

Mesopotamia (Iraq) (2500 BC) Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets are used for record-keeping. An estimated 500,000 tablets survive today, mostly in broken chunks.

Egypt (1700 BC) Egyptian Book of the Dead spells and occult symbols and writing start popping up in tombs.

Thebes, Egypt (1633- 1552 BC) The sarcophagus of Queen Mentuhotep features some of the earliest known examples of the Book of the Dead.

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Egypt (1550 BC) Copies of the Book of the Dead start being written and passed around. The Book of Coming Forth By Day.

Mount Sinai, Egypt (1200 BC) Moses atop Mount Sinai. The Torah is copied by Moses onto a papyrus scroll.

Athens, Greece (399 BC) Socrates says papyrus scrolls are for sale everywhere in the local market, the Agora of Athens, their central public Forum.

Alexandria, Egypt (300 BC-48 BC) Ptolemy I Soter founds the legendary Library of Alexandria, the most important library of the ancient world. The library contains 500,000-1 million scrolls of papyrus. The library’s main mission was to collect a copy of every book in the world. Any works not written in Greek are translated.

Alexandria, Egypt (284 BC) Zenodotus of Ephesus is the first recorded librarian of Alexandria. He developed an organizational system of arranging books by subject matter, then organized alphabetically by the author’s name. Some of his compiled glossaries were found during the excavation of Oxyrhynchus.

Alexandria, Egypt (246 BC-222 BC) Sometime during this timeframe, Ptolemy III builds the Serapeum Library of Alexandria. An offshoot branch of the main library, the Serapeum contained around 50,000 papyrus scrolls.

Alexandria, Egypt (245 BC) Greek scholar Callimachus of Cyrene creates the world’s first library catalog at the Library of Alexandria. The cataloging system of Callimachus was based on alphabetical subject classification and his system was so effective that it was copied throughout the entire Roman Empire. His famous 120-volume Pinakes (Greek for “Tables”) was a master list of information on the books at the Library of Alexandria.

Rome, Italy (240 BC) Livius Andronicus pens the first known literary works written in Latin when he writes his two stage plays.

Pergamum, Turkey (197-159 BC) Eumenes II expands the Library of Pergamum, one of the top libraries of the ancient world. Eumenes also invents parchment paper as a replacement for hard-to-obtain papyrus.

Pergamon, Turkey (150 BC) Crates of Mallus, scholar of the Library of Pergamum, creates the first-ever globe representing Earth.

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Greece (146 BC) Roman takeover of Greece.

India (150 BC) Bookbinding originates here in the form of Sanskrit texts bound by sewing palm leaves with twine. Traveling Buddhist monks helped spread the technique.

Rome, Italy (131 BC) the world’s first newspaper, the Acta Diurna, is first chiseled on stone and displayed in the public Forum for the public to read. It is soon copied by slave-scribes onto papyrus and distributed around Rome.

Rome, Italy (87 BC) The Tabularium, official records office of ancient Rome, was housed inside the Roman Forum and consisted of thousands of papyri scrolls.

Athens, Greece (86 BC) Roman General Sulla is Master of Athens and manages to steal the remains of Aristotle’s famous personal library of hundreds of papyri scrolls.

Edfu, Egypt (57 BC) The Temple of Edfu is completed. Inside the temple are two rooms of books comprising a private temple library, called the House of Books of Horus. The Archive of the library is chiseled on the wall and you can still view it to this day!

Alexandria, Egypt (48 BC) Roman Emperor Julius Caesar invades Alexandria, his fire ships attack Egyptian ships. The fire spreads to the shore and the famous Royal Library of Alexandria is torched along with 500,000 papyrus scrolls. The Ptolemies built the Library in 300 BC.

Rome, Italy (46 BC) Julius Caesar implements the Julian Calendar.

Rome, Italy (39 BC) Rome’s first public library is built atop Aventine Hill by Gaius Asinius Pollio inside the Atrium Libertatis. Pollio also organized literary clubs where authors read their works aloud. Virgil would read his Aenied here.

Egypt (30 BC-640 AD) Romans rule Egypt. Thus, most legal documents from that period are written in Latin.

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Mesopotamia (Iraq) (3 BC) Zero becomes a number.

Rome, Italy (64 AD) The Great Fire of Rome includes the destruction of the Palatine Library inside the Temple of Apollo.

Rome, Italy (77 AD) Pliny the Elder publishes instructions on how to make papyrus paper.

Herculaneum, Italy (79 AD) Mount Vesuvius erupts. It’s path of destruction incudes the Villa of the Papyri, which was the luxury estate of Lucius Calpurnius Piso (Julius Caesar’s father-in-law) and contained a world-class library of 2,000 or so papyrus scrolls. The papyrus scrolls were carbonized in the eruption and discovered mostly intact in 1752. Some of the scrolls included those from philosophers Epicurus and Philodemus and were written in Greek. You can see them on display at the National Archeological Museum in Naples, Italy.

China (105 AD) Cai Lun invents paper.

World (2nd  Century AD) Parchment begins eclipsing papyrus as the most popular paper of choice.

Rome, Italy (113 AD) Trajan opens the Ulpian Library around his famous column.

World (3rd century AD) The Codex becomes popular. A codex is pages of papyrus or parchment compiled into a book.

Tabennisi, Egypt (320 AD) Saint Pachomius establishes the first monastic lending library in Egypt, consisting of hundreds of scrolls of papyri.

Istanbul, Turkey (350 AD) Sometime hereabouts, the Imperial Library of Constantinople is built by Constantius II. He created a Scriptorium to preserve the ancient Greek classics, where an army of scribes transferred them from papyrus to parchment. The Library at one point contained 100,000 volumes. It was destroyed in 1204 AD during the Fourth Crusade. It was the last of the great libraries of antiquity.

Drawer full of wooden mummy tags @ University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Rome, Italy (388 AD) Saint Augustine confesses his love of papyrus over parchment.

Europe (4th -15th Centuries AD) Medieval European scribes write on parchment paper, not papyrus.

World (6th century AD) Papyrus rolls gradually vanish and codices become the main medium.

Squillace, Italy (538 AD) Cassiodorus, after succeeding Boethius, establishes the Vivarium Monastery library and scriptorium. Shortly afterwards, he moves to the walled city of Constantinople. Cassiodorus remains a lifelong believer in the supremacy of papyrus.

Seville, Spain (600 AD) the quill pen comes into vogue and its popularity spreads.

Egypt (639 AD) Egypt is conquered by the Arabs.

Talas River Valley, Kyrgyzstan (751 AD) Arabs capture Chinese paper-makers. They’re brought to Samarkand, Uzbekistan and begin teaching others.

Baghdad, Iraq (794 AD) Arab paper mills are built using the Chinese method of paper-making. In less than 300 years, Chinese paper totally eclipses papyrus throughout Arabia.

Vatican, Rome (1083 AD) the last papal bull written on papyrus. They are henceforth written on parchment.

Spain (1100’s AD) The secret art of paper-making finally reaches Europe.

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico (1200 AD) The Dresden Codex and its fabulous Venus Tables is published. Consisting of 39 sheets (front and back), it is the oldest Mayan manuscript and was written on Mesoamerican bark paper (Amate). You can view it on display at the Saxon State Library in Dresden, Germany.

Runnymede, Surrey, England (1250 AD) The Magna Carta is written on sheepskin parchment.

Strasbourg, France (1440) Gutenberg invents the moveable type printing press, which quickly revolutionizes the world. His famous Gutenberg Bible is published in 1455 on vellum.

Italy (1490) Leonardo Da Vinci supposedly hunts for “rare” papyrus.

Europe (1582) The Gregorian Calendar is implemented.

England (1623) Shakespeare’s First Folio is published on rag paper.

Herculaneum, Italy (1752) Papyri is discovered in this south Italian city. They had been buried by the eruption of Vesuvius 79 BC.

Vatican, Rome, Italy (1755) Padre Antonio Piaggio, noted Vatican calligrapher, begins deciphering the charred papyri from Herculaneum.

World (1788) Papyrology as a discipline begins when Danish classicist Niels Iversen publishes a papyrus written in Greek, the Charta Borgiana (aka: the Schow Papyrus) from 193 BC detailing daily work in Faiyum, Egypt. The papyrus was a roll with 12 and ½ surviving columns. It was bought in 1778 near Memphis. The Papyrus is donated to Cardinal Stefano Borgia. You can view it on display at the Museuo Nazionale Archeologico in Naples, Italy.

Egypt (1798) Napoleon invades Egypt. Egyptology starts in the 1800’s after Napoleon’s information about the fascinations of Egypt spreads around the world.

Homer’s Iliad (2nd cen AD) @ University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Rosetta, Egypt (1799) The Rosetta Stone (created 196 BC) is discovered at Fort Julien in Rosetta, Egypt. In 1801, the British seize the stone and it’s now on display at the British Museum.

Luxor (1820) The Turin King List papyrus is purchased by Bernardino Drovetti. You can see it on display at the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy.

Thebes, Egypt (1822) Drovetti buys the Turin Papyrus Map of Egypt from 1160 BC, it’s the oldest surviving map of the ancient world. You can see it on display at the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy. Drovetti later dies in an insane asylum in Turin in 1852.

Egypt (1824) The Westcar Papyrus is purchased. Dating from somewhere in the 1800-1650 BC range, it contains five stories about magic at the Royal Court of Cheops and is often called ‘King Cheops & the Magicians’.

Berlin, Germany (1828) Germany establishes the Egyptian Museum of Berlin.

Halifax, Canada (1838) Newsprint (paper from wood pulp) is invented by Charles Fenerty.

London, England (1842) the Illustrated London News becomes the world’s first illustrated weekly news magazine.

Germany (1842) German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius publishes a collection of ancient mortuary texts, which he calls Totenbuch (“The Book of the Dead”).

Karnak, Egypt (1843) Prisse d’Avennes rescues the Karnak Kings List, a list of 60 kings carved on tablets from 4,000 BC and a papyrus scroll from 1800 BC later named the Prisse Papyrus. Widely considered the oldest literary work on paper, it is 18 pages of The Maxims of Pthahhotep by the Grand Vizier Ptahhotep. You can see it on display at the Louve in Paris.

Cairo, Egypt (1851) French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette becomes famous for finding the Serapeum of Memphis. He then founded the Egyptian Department of Antiquities.

Homer’s Iliad (2nd cen AD) @ University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Nineveh, Iraq (1851) Sir Austen Layard discovers the ancient Royal Library of Ashurbanipal. This was the kings two-room private library inside the Palace of Ashurbanipal, which was built sometime 668-627 BC. It once contained some 30,000 cuneiform clay tablets, including the Epic of Gilgamesh. The library was noted for being the world’s first systematically organized reference collection. You can view several of these tablets at the British Museum.

Turin, Italy (1852) Drovetti dies in an insane asylum.

Cairo, Egypt (1858) Egypt’s Department of Antiquities is established by Frenchman Auguste Mariette. This department still exists today under the name Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Luxor, Egypt (1858) Alexander Henry Rhind purchases a 16-foot-long roll of papyrus, which comes to be known as the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus. Written in Hieratic in 1550 BC, it’s the world’s best-known example of Ancient Egyptian mathematics.

Luxor, Egypt (1862) The Edwin Smith Papyrus is purchased. The contents prove that Egyptians invented medical surgery. You can view it on display at the New York Academy of Medicine.

Boston, Massachusetts (1863) Wood is pulped and turned into paper, creating the Boston Weekly Journal.

Kiman Faris, Faiyum, Egypt (1877) Peasants digging in ancient mounds find thousands of papyri. Called the ‘First Faiyum Find’, most are purchased in Cairo by Austrian dealer-collector, Theodor Graf. He sells them to Archduke Rainer in 1884. Rainer ends up donating the collection to the Austrian National Library.

Alexandria, Egypt (1880) Herbert Greenfield purchases the Greenfield Papyrus, an 121 foot long copy of the Book of the Dead and one of the best surviving examples of a funerary papyrus. Dating from 970 BC it was a funerary papyrus for Princess Neisitanebtashru. His wife Edith donated it to the British Museum, where you can see it on display.

Egypt (1881) Russian Egyptologist Golenischcheff purchases the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor. It’s a papyrus dating from 2000-1710 BC and is possibly the oldest fantasy text ever written. You can see it on display at the Imperial Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Egypt (1882) British military occupation of Egypt. The Egypt Exploration Fund is created to fund excavations in the Nile Delta area.

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Hawara, Egypt (1888) British Egyptologist, Sir William Flinders Petrie, excavates the area and discovers a fabulous rolls of papyrus containing most of Homer’s The Iliad. Dated to 150 AD, this document is now called ‘The Hawara Homer‘ and is currently kept at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England.

Luxor, Egypt (1888) Wallis Budge swipes the Papyrus of Ani. Dating from 1250 BC, the 78-foot-long papyrus is from Theban royal scribe Ani, who was also governor of a large granary at Abydos and inventory tracker of temple property at Thebes. It is the world’s most complete surviving version of the Book of the Dead. You can view it on display at the British Museum in London.

Gurob, Faiyum, Egypt (1889-90) Whilst digging in the ancient Ptolemaic cemetery, Sir Flinders Petrie finds papyri written in Greek inside Ptolemaic tombs from 250 BC. The papyri includes Plato’s Phaedo and Homer’s Iliad. He finds mummies covered in cartonnage of demotic and Greek papyri.

World (1891) The “miracle year” for papyrologists in terms of papyri being translated and published. Poems of Herodas and Aristotle’s ‘Constitution of the Athenians’ are published from papyrus at the British Museum.

Thebes, Egypt (1892) Russian Egyptologist Golenischev purchases the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus from 1850 BC, Egypt’s oldest math text. You can view it on display at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, Russia.

Abu Gorab, Egypt (1893) The Abusir Papyrus is purchased. Dating from 2500 BC, it is the largest and most important papyrus on Ancient Egyptian administration from the Old Kingdom.

Egypt (1890’s) Egyptomaniac Wallis ‘Budgie’ Budge acquires 47,000 artifacts from Egypt for the British Museum. “In doing so, he committed almost every crime of cultural thievery in the book,” says John Gaudet, “Budge left a record. He and possibly Napoleon had taken the largest number of items ever removed from Egypt.”

Oxyrhynchus, Egypt (1896) Two Brits, Grenfell (Egyptologist) and Hunt (papyrologist) find papyri, then Jan 13, 1897 they hit the mother lode while digging in rubbish mounds. They find a codex leaf, the Logia Iesu, containing the “sayings of Jesus” from the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas. The Egypt Exploration Fund sells it to the Bodelein Library. “The flow of papyri soon became a torrent,” said Grenfell. They dig until 1907. These excavations are the source of the world’s largest collection of papyri, including fragments from the Gospel of Thomas, Euclid’s Elements, plays of Menander, writings of Pindar, Sappho, Sophocles, the Apocalypse of Baruch, etc.

Egypt (1896) Wallis Budge acquires a 15ft long papyrus containing 20 poetic Odes of Bacchylides.

University Chicago (1898) Papyrology in the USA begins with Greek papyri from Egypt via Edgar J. Goodspeed who sells them to Chicago Egyptologist James H. Breasted. You can view them on display at the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library.

Tebtunis, Faiyum, Egypt (1899-1900) The Tebtunis Papyri are found by Grenfell and Hunt in an expedition financed by Phoebe Apperson Hearst at the University of California-Berkeley. They find papyri from mummies and also crocodile mummies, including Sobek the ancient Egyptian crocodile god, also known as Soknebtunis (Lord of Tebtunis). You can view these at UCal-Berkeley’s Bancroft Library.

World (1900) Papyrology finally becomes an accepted and respected discipline.

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Susa, Iran (1901) The Code of Hammurabi is found. Dating from 1754 BC, it’s an ancient Babylonian code of law carved into a stone slab. You can view it on display at the Louvre in Paris.

Germany (1902-14) Germany creates the Deutsches Papyruskartell to purchase papyri from dealers in Egypt and sell to German institutions.

England (1908) Grenfell and Hunt produce the first volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri where they gave every papyrus a name and number.

Armann, Egypt (1912) The famous Nefertiti Bust is found by German Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt inside the ancient workshop of sculptor Thutmose who created it in 1345 BC. It is now housed at the Neues Museum in Berlin. Borchardt also found the Timotheos Papyrus in a wooden sarcophagus at Abusir.

Faiyum, Egypt (1914) Archives of Zenon discovered. Some 2,000 papyri from 258 BC, detailing life in early Ptolemaic Egypt.

Egypt (1920) Oxford papyrologist Bernard Grenfell and University of Michigan scholar Francis Kelsey visit several archeological sites across Egypt.

Egypt (1922) Howard Carter discovers King Tuts Tomb.

Karanis, Egypt (1924-35) Francis Kelsey, University of Michigan Latin professor and philologist, starts excavating Karanis, Egypt. Kelsey dies in 1927 and the digging continues. Finds are sent back to U of M to Elinor Husselman, the curator of manuscripts and papyri.

Michigan (1927) The University of Michigan Department of Manuscripts and Papyrology is founded.

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Brussels (1930) Papyrologists first assemble internationally for the first time.

Tebtunis, Egypt (1931 and 1934) Enormous amounts of papyri found during Italian excavations.

Saqqara, Egypt (1935) Walter Emert finds two blank yet fully intact rolls of papyrus in the Tomb of Hemaka. At 5,000 years old, they are verified as the most ancient paper ever found.

California (1938) the UC-Berkeley papyri collection starts.

Nag Hammadi, Egypt (1945) The Nag Hammadi codices on papyrus are found, 13 total, bound in leather.

Khirbet Qumran, Israel (1946-56) The Dead Sea Scrolls are found in 11 caves. 930 documents total: 800 written on parchment 130 written on papyrus. 590 documents alone are found in Cave Four. The stash was thought to be from the Essenes.

University of Michigan Papyrology Collection with Brendan Haug (photo by: Ryan M. Place)

Nahal Hever, Judean Desert (1960-61) Archaeologist Yigael Yadin finds cave of letters in Judean desert from the survivors of the Bar Kockhba revolt, who hid here in 132 BC. The papyri are written in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic.

Derveni, Macedonia, Greece (1962) the only papyrus found in Greece is the Derveni Papyrus, which consists of 266 fragments of an ancient Macedonian papyrus from 340 BC and widely considered to be Europe’s oldest surviving manuscript.

Vatican, Rome (2006) The Bodmer Papyrus Codex (renamed the Hanna Papyrus) containing the Gospels of Luke and John (c. 175 AD) is donated to the Vatican by Frank Hanna. The papyrus was originally found in Dishna, Egypt and sold to Martin Bodmer Foundation, library of the famous collector, who had 150,000 works in Geneva, Switzerland in his private collection.

London (2011) Two heretofore unknown poems of the female Greek lyric poet Sappho are discovered on papyrus written in ancient Greek. Her poetry was once collected into 9 volumes at the Library of Alexandria but was lost to history.

Egypt (2013) Digging since 2011, Pierre Tallet finds 30 caves hidden in a limestone hill. It was a boat storage area 4,600 years ago. In 2013, he finds papyrus written in hieroglyphics and hieratic (ancient Egyptian cursive script). Turns out to be the world’s oldest known papyrus. Written by two Egyptians who helped build the Great Pyramid (Pharaoh Khufu’s tomb) at Giza. He found 30 papyri at the Red Sea port of Wadi-al-Jarf. The Diary of Merer (4500yrs old) are logbook-diaries, telling of his transporting limestone to Giza. They are now on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Egypt (2019) The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities operates 72 antiquities warehouses in Egypt. Egypt recently announces they are imposing life imprisonment and millions in fines for antiquities smuggling.