Taubenschlag, Raphael

TAUBENSCHLAG, RAPHAEL (1881–1958), papyrologist and legal historian. Born in Galicia, in 1913 Taubenschlag began to lecture at the University of krakow, from 1921 as professor of Roman law. He devoted most of his research to Egyptian legal documents and Greek inscriptions, also making important contributions to the study of Roman law and research on Polish law during the Middle Ages. When World War ^II broke out, he fled to France and then to the United States. There he wrote his main work, The Law of Greco-Roman Egypt in the Light of the Papyri 332 B.C.–640 A.D. (1944, 19552). He served as chair of papyrology at Columbia University. During that time he founded the Journal of Juristic Papyrology (JPP) in 1946, which he edited until his death. In 1947 he returned to Poland and was appointed professor of Roman law and ancient codes at the University of Warsaw. Since 1947 the JPP has been published annually in Warsaw under the auspices of the Department of Papyrology at Warsaw University.

Some of his numerous publications were collected posthumously by his students and published as Opera Minora (2 vols., 1959).

[Reuven Yaron / Ruth Beloff (2^nd ed.)]