The objective of the project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board for three years and then by the Italian Ministero per l'Istruzione, l'Università e la Ricerca Scientifica (Progetto PRIN "Edizione ed informatizzazione dei papiri di Firenze, Praga e Alessandria d'Egitto"), is to bring more substance to the process of assigning a date to Greek literary papyri, by a focused and systematic search for objectively dated material relevant to defining styles and analysing their development.

This material includes writing exercises; literary texts on the front or back of dated documents or with datable documentary annotation; dated documents in literary or sub-literary hands.