Sofía Torallas Tovar

Professor of Classics and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Wieboldt 119
Ph.D., Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1995
Research Interests: Papyrology, Graeco-Roman Egypt, sociolinguistics

Sofía Torallas Tovar specializes in Greek and Coptic papyrology. Her interests range broadly across aspects of Graeco-Roman Egypt and the Ancient Mediterranean, with a special focus on languages and religions in contact. One of her current projects is the re-edition of the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri. This large-scale exploration of book production and circulation in Antiquity is funded by the Neubauer Collegium (Transmission of Magical Knowledge: the magical handbooks on papyrus). Since 2002, she has been the curator of the papyrological collections at the Abadia de Montserrat. Another interest of hers is the edition of Coptic texts. She is currently editing a previously unknown translation into Coptic of the Epistle of Athanasius to Dracontius, as well as collaborating with Anne Boud'hors (IRHT Paris) on the critical edition of the Gospel of Mark in Coptic.  She is also the Editor in Chief of the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists.

Recent Publications

  • with Christopher Faraone, eds. Greek and Egyptian Magical Formularies: edition, translation and commentary, California Classical Studies (vol. 1) Berkeley 2022.
  • with Raquel Martín Hernández, eds. The Materiality of Greek and Roman Curse Tablets: Technological Advances, Oriental Institute, Chicago 2022.
  • with Christopher Faraone, eds. The Greco-Egyptian Magical Formularies. Libraries, Books and Individual Recipes, University of Michigan Press (New Texts from Ancient Cultures).
  • How Egyptian is the Greek of Septuagint?: some lexical notes”, Journal for the Study of Judaism 53 (2022) 1-31.– Special Issue “The Septuagint within the History of Greek”, edited by J. Aitken and M. Dhonk.
  • with Anne Boud’hors, “The Shorter Ending of the Gospel of Mark in the Coptic Versions”, COMSt 8.2 (2022) 39-55.
  • with Raquel Martín Hernández “Magical texts from Barcelona (Montserrat Abbey and Palau Ribes collections)”, Symbolae Osloenses, 96:1 (2022) 243-259,
  • “Notes on ostraca and scribal practice”, In Y. Amory and K. Bentein (eds.) Novel Perspectives on Communication Practices in Antiquity. Towards a Historical Social- Semiotic Approach, Leiden: Brill 2023, 39-53.
  • “P.Heid. Inv.no. G 414: a Greek-Egyptian List and the Septuagint”, in Diliana Atanassova, Frank Feder, Heike Sternberg-el Hotabi (eds.), Pharaonen, Mönche und Gelehrte: Auf dem Pilgerweg durch 5000 Jahre ägyptische Geschichte über drei Kontinente. Heike Behlmer zum 65. Geburtstag [Texte und Studien zur Koptischen Bibel 4], Wiesbaden 2023.