Sarah Joanne Clackson (née Quinn) was born in Leicester on 11 December 1965, the youngest daughter of Peter D. and Audrey I. Quinn. She attended Loughborough High School, where she later acknowledged the influence of her Classics teacher, Mr Hammond, and the school library. At St. John's College, Cambridge, she studied Classics followed by Egyptology (1985–1989). A part-time PhD at University College London was completed in four years (1992–1996) and resulted in her first major book, P.Mon.Apollo (2000). At the same time, she worked as Project Officer for the Manichaean Documentation Centre and was active in the publication of their work. Research appointments followed the award of her doctorate: the Eugénie Strong Fellowship in Arts at Girton College, Cambridge (1996–1998), an Honorary Research Fellowship at the Institute of Archaeology, University College, London (1998), and the Lady Wallis Budge Fellowship in Egyptology at Christ's College, Cambridge (1998–until her death). In 2001 she was in the United States as H. P. Kraus Fellow in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale and later as Visiting Researcher in Papyrology at the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library, University of Michigan. In 2002 she was awarded a Deutsche Akademischer Austauschdienst senior research stipendium to work in Heidelberg, and for 2003 a Humboldt Fellowship. Recognition of her importance in the field came early. Based in Cambridge, she became a well-known presence in her subject both in Europe and the United States. Her (joint) masterclass in Coptic at Yale University (1997) was followed by lectures in Cambridge, Oxford, London, Brussels, Leiden, Leuven, Lille, Münster, Trier, Vienna, Lawrence (Kansas), Princeton, Washington DC, and Cairo. She was elected to the Editorial Board of Bulletin of American Society of Papyrologists (2001–), to the Board of the International Association for Coptic Studies (2000–), and to the Committee of the Egypt Exploration Society (1998–2001, 2002–).

In too brief a life, Sarah Clackson played a very active and fruitful role in her chosen field of study. She brought to the discipline of Coptic papyrology many of the best practices developed within Greek papyrology. Similarly, she brought order to many collections – in Cambridge, for instance, to the Egyptian collection in the Lawrence Room at Girton College and to Egyptological  manuscript and papyrological collections in the University Library. In her search for texts from the Apa Apollo monastery, she travelled extensively, working not just on the texts that she found but also investigating the history and formation of the different collections. In her publications, she showed how this information brought new light not only to the life and economy of a key monastic community of early Christian Egypt, but also more widely to evaluating the historical role of Coptic writing and reading in the broader culture of the period. This was a career that had a long-lasting impact on her field.

In her marriage to James Clackson in 1991 she gained great happiness, intellectual stimulus and support. When cancer was first diagnosed in 1998, she faced the threat positively, with courage and mordant good humour. Her ability to enjoy life to the full was strongly on display in those final years. Once the outcome was clear, her talent for order and control, so constantly exercised in her professional work, was directed to sorting her files, to making available for others her still unpublished work. Coptology is an international field; her library went to Warsaw and her files to the Griffith Institute in Oxford, where a fund was instituted in her memory. She died in Cambridge on 10 August 2003, and a commemorative meeting resulted in the volume entitled Monastic Estates in Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt. Ostraca, Papyri, and Essays in Memory of Sarah Clackson (P. Clackson), ed. Anne Boud’hors, James Clackson, Catherine Louis, and Petra Sijpesteijn, American Studies in Papyrology 46, Cincinnati, Ohio 2009.

For appreciations of Sarah Clackson and her work, see:

Terry J. Wilfong, Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 40 (2003), 7–10; Petra Sijpesteijn, Journal of Juristic Papyrology 33 (2003), 9–14; W. J. Tait, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 33 (2003), 43; S. Emmel, Journal of Coptic Studies 6 (2004), 1–3; R. S. Bagnall, P. Clackson (2009), xi–xiv.

Publications

Books

1. The Elephantine Papyri in English. Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change, Documenta et Monumenta Orientis Antiqui 22, Leiden: Brill 1996 (with B. Porten, J. J. Farber, G. Vittmann, L.S.B. MacCoull, and contributions by S. Hopkins and R. Katzoff).
2. Dictionary of Manichaean Texts, Vol. 1. Texts from the Roman Empire (Texts in Syriac, Greek, Coptic and Latin), Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum 2, Turnhout: Brepols 1998 (with E. Hunter and S.N.C. Lieu, in association with M. Vermes).
3. Coptic and Greek Texts Relating to the Hermopolite Monastery of Apa Apollo, Griffith Institute Monographs, Oxford: Griffith Institute 2000.
4. Checklist of Editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca and Tablets, 5th ed. Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists Supplement 9, Oakville, Conn. 2001 (with J. F. Oates, R. S. Bagnall, A. A. O'Brien, J. D. Sosin, T. G. Wilfong, and K. A. Worp).
5. It is Our Father Who Writes: Orders from the Monastery of Apollo at Bawit, American Studies in Papyrology 43, Oxford: Oxbow 2008.
6. Papyrus grecs et coptes de Baouît conserves au Musée du Louvre, Bibliothèque d’Études coptes 22, Cairo: IFAO 2014 (joint with Alain Delattre).

Articles and Contributions

1. (as Sarah J. Quinn) ‘A New Kingdom stela in Girton College showing Amenophis I wearing the hprs’, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 77 (1991), 169–175.
2. ‘The Michaelides Coptic manuscript collection in the Cambridge University Library and British Library’, in Acts of the Fifth International Congress of Coptic Studies, Washington, 12–15 August 1992, ed. D. W. Johnson, Rome 1993: vol. 2, 123–138.
3. ‘Jonathan Byrd 36.2: Another ⲡⲉⲛⲉⲓⲱⲧ ⲡⲉⲧⲥϩⲁⲓ text’, Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 30 (1993), 67–68.
4. ‘The Michaelides manuscript collection’, Zeitschrifi für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 100 (1994), 223–226.

5, ‘Four Coptic papyri from the Patermouthis archive in the British Library’, Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 32 (1995), 97–116.

6, Contribution to Gardner, I.  (ed.), Kellis Literary Texts, vol. I, Dakhleh Oasis Project 4, Oxbow Monograph 69, Oxford 1996.

7. ‘An unedited Coptic leaf of Genesis in Cambridge University Library (P.Camb. UL Or. 1699 TI i)’, Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 35 (1998), 135–144.
8. ‘Something fishy in CPR XX’, Archiv für Papyrusforschung 45 (1999), 94–95.
9. ‘Ostraca and graffiti excavated at el-Amarna’, in Akten des 6. Jnternationalen Koptologenkongresses, Munster, 20.-26. Juli 1996, ed. S. Emmel et al., Sprachen und Kulturen des christlichen Orients, Coptic Series 2, Wiesbaden 1999: vol. 2, 268–278.
10. ‘The papyrus collections of Cambridge’, in Papyrus Collections Worldwide, 9–10 March 2000 (Brussels/Leuven), ed. Willy Clarysse and Herbert Verreth, Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van Belgie voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten. Brussels 2000: 25–36.
11. ‘Reconstructing the archives in the monastery of Apollo at Bawit’, in Atti del XXII Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia, Firenze, 23–29 agosto 1998, ed. I. Aondorlini, G. Bastianini, M. Manfredi and G. Menci, Florence 2001: vol. 1, 219–236.
12. ‘Fish and chits: the Synodontis schall’, Zeitschrift fur ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 129 (2002), 6–11.
13. Korr. Tyche 484–489: 484. ‘P.Vindob. G 16802. 2 Lemlakati (Man from Alexandria)–A new αnthroponym; 485. P.Vindob. K. 11375; 486. MPER XVIII 219 = BKU 1 57–ἐπἰ τῶι ⲉⲣⲟⲓ; 487. CPR IV 198; 488. P.Laur. V 205, 23–ξυλοκόπιον; 489. P.Bingen 150–Another Apollo’, Tyche 17 (2002), 260–262.
14. ‘Nouvelles recherches sur les papyrus de Baouit’, in Etudes coptes VIII: Dixième journée d'études, Lille 14-16 juin 2001, ed. C. Cannuyer, Cahiers de la bibliothèque copte 13, Lille/Paris 2003: 77–84.
15. ‘Appendix E: A Coptic inscription from Sinai copied by Linant de Bellefonds’, Syria 80 (2003), 103.
16. ‘12. Mani's imprisonment and death’, ‘13. Mani’s entry into parinirvana’, ‘14. Praise for the martyred Mani’, ‘15. The sufferings of Mani compared to those of other true apostles’, ‘16. The Institution of the bema’, ‘19. Persecution of the Manichaean church’, ‘20. The prayer and martyrdom of Sisinnios (Mar Sisin)’, in Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire, ed. Iain Gardner and Samuel N. C. Lieu, Cambridge 2004: 85–88, 89–94, 102–108.
17. ‘Papyrology and the utilization of Coptic sources’, in Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt, ed. Petra Sijpesteijn and Lennart Sundelin, Leiden/Boston 2004: 21–44.
18. ‘Museum archaeology and Coptic papyrology: the Bawit papyri’, in Coptic Studies on the Threshold of a New Millennium. Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Coptic Studies. Leiden, 27 August–2 September 2000, ed.M. Immerzeel and J. van der Vliet, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 133, Leuven/Paris/Dudley, Mass 2004: 477–490.
19. ‘Monasteries of Middle Egypt’, in Egypt from Alexander to the Early Christians: An Archaeological and Historical Guide, ed.Roger S. Bagnall and Dominic W. Rathbone,London/Los Angeles: British Museum Press 2004: 174–182. [Revised, updated, electronic edition. Cairo/New York: American University in Cairo Press 2017]
20. ‘Greek and Coptic medical prescriptions from the Michaelides Collection in Cambridge University Library’, in Gedenkschrift Ulrike Horak (P.Horak), ed. Hermann Harrauer and Rosario Pintaudi, Papyrologica Florentina 34, Florence 2004: vol. 1, 73–83.
21. ‘Coptic and Greek ostraca from Kom el-Nana’, in Late Roman Pottery at Amarna and Related Studies, ed. J. Faiers, EES Excavation Memoirs 72, London 2005: 245–262.
22. Translation and Commentary of catalogue numbers 117, 118 and 119, in Stelae from Egypt and Nubia in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, c. 3000 B.C. – A.D. I 150, ed. G. T. Martin, Cambridge 2005: 174–177.
23. ‘Archimandrites and andrismos: a preliminary survey of taxation at Bawit’, in Akten des 23. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses. Wien 22.-28. Juli 2001, ed. B. Palme,Papyrologica Vindobonensia 1, Vienna 2007: 103–107.
24. ‘Coptic Oxyrhynchus’, in Oxyrhynchus: a City and its Texts, ed. A. K. Bowman, R. A. Coles, N. Gonis, D. Obbink, and P. J. Parsons, EES Graeco-Roman Memoirs 93, London: 2007: 332–341.
25. ‘A Greek-Coptic glossary from the Beinecke Collection’ in Monastic Estates in Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt. Ostraca, Papyri, and Essays in Memory of Sarah Clackson (P. Clackson), ed. Anne Boud’hors, James Clackson, Catherine Louis, and Petra Sijpesteijn, American Studies in Papyrology 46, Cincinnati, Ohio 2009: 52–60 (joint with James Clackson).
26. ‘P. Clackson 45-46. A mid-eighth-century trilingual tax demand related to the Monastery of Apa Apollo at Bawit’, in Monastic Estates in Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt. Ostraca, Papyri, and Essays in Memory of Sarah Clackson (P. Clackson), ed. Anne Boud’hors, James Clackson, Catherine Louis, and Petra Sijpesteijn, American Studies in Papyrology 46, Cincinnati, Ohio 2009: 102–121 (joint with Petra Sijpesteijn).
27. ‘Coptic or Greek? Bilingualism in the papyri’ in The Multilingual Experience in Egypt, from the Ptolemies to the Abassids, ed. Arietta Papaconstantinou, Farnham 2010: 73–104 (edited and annotated by Arietta Papaconstantinou).

Reviews

1. K. Schussler (ed.), Biblia Coptica. Die koptischen Bibeltexte. Bd. 1. Das sahidische Alte und Neue Testament (Wiesbaden 1995), Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 35 (1998), 229–234.
2. R. Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (Atlanta 1996), Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 86 (2000), 22–29.
3. C. Cannuyer, Coptic Egypt: The Christians of the Nile (New York 2001), Egyptian Archaeology 19 (2001), 43.
4. J. Cledat, Le Monastère et la nécropole de Baouit, MIFAO 111(Cairo 1999), Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 39 (2002), 189–204.
5. P. Bridel et al., Explorations aux Qouçour el-lzeila lors des campagnes 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1989 et 1990, EK 8184, tome III (Louvain 1999), Bibliotheca Orientalis 60, 1/2 (2003), 142–144.