{{Short description|British papyrologist}} '''John David Thomas''', FBA (born 1931), usually known as '''J. David Thomas''', is a papyrologist and classical scholar. He was Professorial Fellow in Papyrology at Durham University between 1990 and 1992. He completed his undergraduate education at Worcester College, Oxford, and then carried out doctoral studies at the University of Wales. He lectured at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, from 1955 to 1966, when he was appointed to a lectureship in palaeography at Durham. He remained there and was promoted to a readership in papyrology in 1977, before his appointed to the professorial fellowship in 1990. Since retiring in 1992, he has been an emeritus professor at Durham.<ref name=":0">[https://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-37405 "Thomas, Prof. John David"], ''Who's Who'' (online ed., Oxford University Press, December 2018). Retrieved 16 September 2019.</ref>
== Honours and awards == In 1989, Thomas was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.<ref name=":1">[https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/david-thomas-FBA-0 "Professor David Thomas FBA"], ''The British Academy''. Retrieved 16 September 2019.</ref> He was the subject of a Festschrift edited by Traianos Gagos and Roger S. Bagnall: ''[https://www.press.umich.edu/9749727/essays_and_texts_in_honor_of_j_david_thomas Essays and Texts in Honor of J. David Thomas]'' (2001), published by the University of Michigan Press as the 42nd volume in its American Studies in Papyrology series.<ref>[https://www.press.umich.edu/9749727/essays_and_texts_in_honor_of_j_david_thomas "Essays and Texts in Honor of J. David Thomas"], ''University of Michigan Press''. Retrieved 16 September 2019.</ref> He was awarded the Chancellor's Medal by the Senate of Durham University in 2017.<ref>[https://www.dur.ac.uk/dialogue/signposts/staff/?id=31168&itemno=31168 "Chancellor's Medals"], ''Durham University'', 21 April 2017. Retrieved 16 September 2019.</ref>
== Publications == * ''The Epistrategos in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt'', Papyrologica Coloniensia, no. 6 (Westdeutscher Verlag, in two parts, 1975 and 1982). * (Co-authored with Alan K. Bowman) ''Vindolanda: The Latin Writing Tablets'', Britannia Monograph Series, no. 4 (Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1983). * (Co-authored with Alan K. Bowman) ''The Vindolanda Writing-Tablets (Tabulae Vindolandenses)'', vols. 2–3 (British Museum Press, 1994 and 2003). Bowman, Thomas and Roger Tomlin published critical editions of the remaining tablets in 2010 and 2011 in the journal ''Britannia'' ([https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/britannia/article/vindolanda-writingtablets-tabulae-vindolandenses-iv-part-1/C2E56B4780ACB15D659ACF05EFC94F1A vol. 41, pp. 187–224], and [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/britannia/article/vindolanda-writingtablets-tabulae-vindolandenses-iv-part-2/FD4BB579F8F844A76932420137CBC887 vol. 42, pp. 113–144]).
Thomas made contributions to several of the volumes of edited Oxyrhynchus Papyri published between 1971 and 2013,<ref name=":1" /> and was general editor for volumes 66 and 67.<ref name=":0" /> He also edited the third and final volume of ''A Descriptive Catalogue of the Greek Papyri in the Collection of Wilfred Merton, F.S.A.'', which was published as a [https://www.jstor.org/stable/43768293 supplement to the 18th issue] of the ''Bulletin'' of the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, in 1967.
== References == {{Reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, J. David}} Category:Living people Category:1931 births Category:British papyrologists Category:Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford Category:Alumni of the University of Wales Category:Academics of Aberystwyth University Category:Academics of Durham University Category:Fellows of the British Academy Category:People educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys