Dear Madam or Sir,

We hope this message finds you well.

As members of the project ‘Of Parts and Pieces: Protecting cultural heritage by unearthing, reassembling, and documenting papyri and linen objects in US libraries’ we contact you to inquire about the presence of ancient Egyptian artefacts, especially papyri and linen objects, in your collection.

The project is funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung (Düsseldorf, Germany). It intends to locate and document ancient Egyptian objects in US libraries. The pilot project ‘Of Parts and Pieces: Reassembling the Osiris liturgies of the Hood-Hearst Papyrus’ started in May 2019 and showed the potential of such work; thus, we were able to locate several papyrus fragments belonging to this particular manuscript.

With this new project, we hope to collect all the information concerning the presence of papyri and linen artefacts in libraries across the US. We hope that your institution can contribute to our work by providing us with any data in your possession, hence enabling us not only to document the objects themselves, but also to gain a deeper understanding of how they came to the US and how they were distributed.

We are deeply grateful for any help and information you may offer and apologise for any inconvenience we might cause with our request. Please, do not hesitate to contact us for further information or clarification. We thank you very much in advance for your time.

With all best wishes,
Ann, Eva, and Martina