I was thinking, how do we know “who” wrote “what” in ancient Greece?

There were many scholars and artists grinding out monographs and plays over centuries, and they was all happening on paper-equivalents.

We must have surviving copies of materials that give ideas, but what exactly?

My first guess would be copies that survived 2k years in various monasteries/libraries. My second is paper materials in rubbish dumps in super-arid locations, e.g. deserts in Greek-Egypt.

Gpt5.1 generally agrees:

Greek writings survive from two main types of locations:

A. Medieval libraries (copies, not originals)

These give us most of the Greek canon—Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Thucydides, Euclid, etc.

1. Byzantine monastic libraries (Eastern Mediterranean)

  • Greek-speaking monks preserved classical texts through copying.

  • Materials: parchment codices (bound books).

  • Key centers:

    • Constantinople
    • Mount Athos
    • Sinai
    • Various Greek monasteries

2. Western medieval libraries (after 12th c.)

  • Greek texts copied or translated into Latin.
  • Important for Aristotle, Euclid, Galen.

How texts got preserved:

  1. Ancient scroll →
  2. Late antique parchment codex (4th–6th c.) →
  3. Medieval parchment codices (9th–14th c.) →
  4. Renaissance manuscripts → print editions

These are copies many generations removed from the originals.

B. Egyptian desert sites (original papyri)

This is where actual ancient Greek writing (not medieval copies) survives.

Why Egypt?

  • Dry climate preserves papyrus.
  • Large Greek-speaking population under Ptolemies and Romans.

Key types of locations:

1. Rubbish dumps in desert-edge towns

  • Example: Oxyrhynchus, a major source of ancient literature.

  • Found in enormous mounds of garbage.

  • Contents:

    • Fragments of plays (Sophocles, Euripides, Menander)
    • Philosophical texts (Epicurean, Aristotelian fragments)
    • Scientific works (e.g., Euclid, Archimedes pieces)
    • Everyday documents (receipts, letters, contracts)

2. Mummy cartonnage (papier-mâché mummy casings)

  • Papyri recycled to make funerary masks and casings.
  • When dissolved, they yield ancient Greek texts.

3. Abandoned houses and temple archives

  • Scrolls left behind in sealed rooms or storage areas.
  • Example: Tebtunis temple library.

Very nice.