   #copyright

Oxyrhynchus

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Archaeology

   Oxyrhynchus

   Location of Oxyrhynchus
   Image:Point rouge.gif

   Oxyrhynchus ( Greek: Οξύρρυγχος; "sharp-snouted or sharp-nosed";
   ancient Egyptian Per-Medjed; modern Egyptian Arabic el-Bahnasa) is an
   archaeological site in Egypt, considered one of the most important ever
   discovered. For the past century, the area around Oxyrhynchus has been
   continually excavated, yielding an enormous collection of papyrus texts
   dating from the time of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods of Egyptian
   history. Among the texts discovered at Oxyrhynchus are plays of
   Menander and the Gospel of Thomas, an important early Gnostic document.

Etymology

   The town was named after a species of fish of the Nile River which was
   important in Egyptian mythology as the fish that ate the penis of
   Osiris, though it is not known exactly which species of fish this is.
   One possibility is a species of mormyrid, medium sized freshwater fish
   that figure in various Egyptian and other artworks. Some species of
   mormyrid have distinctive downturned snouts or barbels, lending them
   the common name of elephantnoses among aquarists and ichthyologists. A
   figurine from Oxyrhynchus of one of these sacred fish has many
   attributes typical of mormyrids: a long anal fin, a small caudal fin,
   widely spaced pelvic and pectoral fins, and of course the downturned
   snout

History

   Oxyrhynchus is about 160 km south-southeast of Cairo, and lies west of
   the main course of the Nile, on the Bahr Yussef (Canal of Joseph), a
   branch of the Nile that terminates in Lake Moeris and the Fayum oasis.
   In ancient Egyptian times, there was a town on the site called
   Per-Medjed, but it did not become an important area until after the
   conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. It was then
   reestablished as a Greek town, called Oxyrhynchou Polis (Οξυρρύγχου
   Πόλις - "town of the sharp-snouted fish").

   In Hellenistic times, Oxyrhynchus was a prosperous regional capital,
   the third-largest city in Egypt. After Egypt was christianized, it
   became famous for its many churches and monasteries. It remained a
   prominent, though gradually declining, town in the Roman and Byzantine
   periods. After the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641, the canal system on
   which the town depended fell into disrepair, and Oxyrhynchus was
   abandoned. Today the town of el-Bahnasa occupies part of the ancient
   site.

   For more than 1000 years, the inhabitants of Oxyrhynchus dumped garbage
   at a series of sites out in the desert sands beyond the town limits.
   The fact that the town was built on a canal rather than on the Nile
   itself was important, because this meant that the area did not flood
   every year with the rising of the river, as did the districts along the
   riverbank. When the canals dried up, the water table fell and never
   rose again. The area west of the Nile has virtually no rain, so the
   garbage dumps of Oxyrhynchus were gradually covered with sand and were
   forgotten for another 1000 years.

   Because Egyptian society under the Greeks and Romans was governed
   bureaucratically, and because Oxyrhynchus was the capital of the 19th
   nome, the material at the Oxyrhynchus dumps included vast amounts of
   paper. Accounts, tax returns, census material, invoices, receipts,
   correspondence on administrative, military, religious, economic and
   political matters, certificates and licenses of all kinds—all these
   were periodically cleaned out of government offices, put in wicker
   baskets, and dumped out in the desert. Private citizens added their own
   piles of unwanted paper. Because papyrus was expensive, paper was often
   reused: a document might have farm accounts on one side, and a
   student's text of Homer on the other. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri,
   therefore, contained a complete record of the life of the town, and of
   the civilizations and empires of which the town was a part.

   The town site of Oxyrhynchus itself has never been excavated, because
   the modern Egyptian town is on top of it. But it is believed that the
   city had many public buildings, including a theatre with a capacity of
   11,000 spectators, a hippodrome, four public baths, a gymnasium, and
   two small ports on the Bahr Yusuf. It is also likely that there were
   military buildings, such as barracks, since the city supported a
   military garrison on several occasions during the Roman and Byzantine
   periods. During the Greek and Roman periods, Oxyrhynchus had temples to
   Serapis, Zeus- Amun, Hera-Isis, Atargatis- Bethnnis and Osiris. There
   were also Greek temples to Demeter, Dionysius, Hermes, and Apollo;
   there were also Roman temples to Jupiter Capitolinus and Mars. In the
   Christian era, Oxyrhynchus was the seat of a bishopric, and the town
   still has several ancient Coptic Christian churches.

   When Flinders Petrie visited Oxyrhynchus in 1922, he found remains of
   the colonnades and theatre. Now a single column meets the eye:
   everything else has been scavenged for building material for modern
   housing.

Excavation

   Bernard Grenfell
   Bernard Grenfell

   In 1882 Egypt, while still nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, came
   under effective British rule, and British archaeologists began the
   systematic exploration of the country. Because Oxyrhynchus was not
   considered an Ancient Egyptian site of any importance, it was neglected
   until 1896, when two young excavators, Bernard Grenfell and Arthur
   Hunt, both fellows of Queen's College, Oxford, began to excavate it.
   "My first impressions on examining the site were not very favourable,"
   wrote Grenfell. "The rubbish mounds were nothing but rubbish mounds."
   However, they very soon realized what they had found. The unique
   combination of climate and circumstance had left at Oxyrhynchus an
   unequalled archive of the ancient world. "The flow of papyri soon
   became a torrent," Grenfell recalled. "Merely turning up the soil with
   one's boot would frequently disclose a layer."

   Being classically educated Englishmen, Grenfell and Hunt were mainly
   interested in the possibility that Oxyrhynchus might reveal the lost
   masterpieces of classical Greek literature. They knew that the
   Constitution of Athens by Aristotle had been discovered on Egyptian
   papyrus in 1890, for example. This hope inspired them and their
   successors to sift through the mountains of rubbish at Oxyrhynchus for
   the next century. Their efforts were amply rewarded: it has been
   estimated that over 70 per cent of all the literary papyri so far
   discovered come from Oxyrhynchus, both copies of well-known standard
   works, many in versions significantly closer to the originals than
   those that had been transmitted in medieval manuscripts, and previously
   unknown works by the greatest authors of antiquity.
   Arthur Hunt
   Arthur Hunt

   Yet of the many thousands of papyri excavated from Oxyrhynchus, only
   about ten per cent were literary. The rest consisted of public and
   private documents: codes, edicts, registers, official correspondence,
   census-returns, tax-assessments, petitions, court-records, sales,
   leases, wills, bills, accounts, inventories, horoscopes and private
   letters. Still, Grenfell and Hunt found enough texts of more general
   interest to keep them going in the hope of finding more. In their first
   year of digging alone, they found parts of several lost plays of
   Sophocles, such as the Ichneutae and many other books and fragments,
   including parts of what appeared to be an unknown Christian gospel.
   These discoveries captured the public imagination, and Grenfell and
   Hunt sent articles and photos to newspapers in Britain, arguing the
   importance of their work and seeking donations to keep it going.

   Grenfell and Hunt devoted the rest of their lives to work on the
   material from Oxyrhynchus, apart from the years of World War I. Until
   1906, every winter, when the Egyptian climate was bearable, Grenfell
   and Hunt supervised hundreds of Egyptian workers, excavating the
   rubbish mounds, digging up tightly packed layers of papyrus mixed with
   earth. The finds were sifted, partly cleaned and then shipped to
   Grenfell and Hunt's base at Oxford. During the summer, Grenfell and
   Hunt cleaned, sorted, translated and compared the year's haul,
   assembling complete texts from dozens of fragments and extracts. In
   1898, they published the first volume of their finds. They worked
   closely together, each revising what the other wrote, and publishing
   the result jointly. In 1920, however, Grenfell died, leaving Hunt to
   continue with other collaborators until his own death in 1934.
   Meanwhile, Italian excavators had returned to the site: their work,
   from 1910 to 1934, brought to light many further papyri, including
   additional pieces of papyrus rolls parts of which had been discovered
   by Grenfell and Hunt.

Finds

   Although the hope of finding all the lost literary works of antiquity
   at Oxyrhynchus was not realized, many important Greek texts were found
   at the site. These include poems of Pindar, fragments of Sappho and
   Alcaeus, along with larger pieces of Alcman, Ibycus and Corinna.

   There were also extensive remains of the Hypsipyle of Euripides, a
   large portion of the plays of Menander, and a large part of the
   Ichneutae of Sophocles. (The latter work was adapted, in 1988, into a
   play entitled The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus, by British poet and author
   Tony Harrison, featuring Grenfell and Hunt as main characters.) Also
   found were the oldest and most complete diagrams from Euclid's
   Elements. Another important find was the historical work known as the
   Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, whose author is unknown but may be Ephorus or,
   as many currently think, Cratippus. A life of Euripides by Satyrus was
   also unearthed, while an epitome of some of the lost books of Livy was
   the most important literary find in Latin.

   The classical author who has most benefited from the finds at
   Oxyrhynchus is the Athenian playwright Menander (342–291 BC), whose
   comedies were very popular in Hellenistic times and whose works are
   frequently found in papyrus fragments. Menander plays found in
   fragments at Oxyrhynchus include Misoumenos, Dis Exapaton,
   Epitrepontes, Karchedonios, and Kolax. The works found at Oxyrhynchus
   have greatly raised Menander's status among classicists and scholars of
   Greek theatre.

   Among the Christian texts found at Oxyrhynchus, the fragments of early
   non- canonical Gospels are Oxyrhynchus 840 (3rd century AD) and 1224
   (4th century AD). Other Oxyrhynchus texts preserve parts of Matthew 1
   (3rd century: P2 and P401), 11-12 and 19 (3rd to 4th century:
   P2384,2385); Mark 10-11 (5th-6th century: P3); John 1, and 20 (3rd
   century: P208); Romans 1 (4th century: P209); the 1st epistle of John
   (4th-5th century: P402); the Apocalypse of Baruch (chapters 12–14; 4th
   or 5th century: number P403); the Gospel according to the Hebrews (3rd
   century AD: number P655); The Shepherd of Hermas (3rd or 4th century:
   number P404), and a work of Irenaeus, (3rd century: number P405). There
   are many parts of other canonical books as well as many early Christian
   hymns, prayers, and letters also found among them. Reports of fragments
   of the Gospel of Thomas, also known as the Sayings of Jesus, appearing
   on Papyrus number 1654 are spurious. This fragment, probably dating c.
   AD 150, actually contains an account of notarial expenses .

The project today

   Since the 1930s, work on the papyri has continued. For the past twenty
   years, it has been under the supervision of Professor Peter Parsons of
   Oxford. Sixty-seven large volumes of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri have been
   published, and these have become an essential reference work for the
   study of Egypt between the 4th century BC and the 7th century AD. They
   are also extremely important for the history of the early Christian
   Church, since many Christian documents have been found at Oxyrhynchus
   in far earlier versions than those known elsewhere. At least another 40
   volumes are anticipated.

   Since the days of Grenfell and Hunt, the focus of attention at
   Oxyrhynchus has shifted. Modern archaeologists are less interested in
   finding the lost plays of Aeschylus, although some still dig in hope,
   and more in learning about the social, economic and political life of
   the ancient world. This shift in emphasis had made Oxyrhynchus, if
   anything, even more important, for the very ordinariness of most of its
   preserved documents makes them most valuable for modern scholars of
   social history. Many works on Egyptian and Roman social and economic
   history and on the history of Christianity rely heavily on documents
   from Oxyrhynchus.

   In 1966, the publication of the papyri was formally adopted as a Major
   Research Project of the British Academy, jointly managed by Oxford
   University and University College London and headed by Peter Parsons.
   The project's chief researcher and administrator is Dr Nikolaos Gonis.
   The Academy provided funding until 1999; the project then enjoyed a
   grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Board, which funded ongoing
   work until 2005. Today some 100,000 papyrus fragments are housed at the
   Sackler Library, Oxford, with their indexes, archives and photographic
   record; it is the biggest hoard of classical manuscripts in the world.
   About 2,000 items are mounted in glass — the rest are conserved in 800
   boxes.

   The focus of the project is now mainly on the publication of this vast
   archive of material: by 2003 4,700 items had been translated, edited
   and published. Publication continues at the rate of about one new
   volume each year. Each volume contains a selection of material,
   covering a wide range of subjects. The editors include senior
   professionals but also students studying papyrology at the doctoral or
   undergraduate level. Thus recent volumes offer early fragments of the
   Gospels and of the Book of Revelation, early witnesses to the texts of
   Apollonius Rhodius, Aristophanes, Demosthenes, and Euripides,
   previously unknown texts of Simonides and Menander and of the
   epigrammatist Nicarchus. Other subjects covered include specimens of
   Greek music and documents relating to magic and astrology.
   Another Oxyrhynchus papyrus, dated 75-125 A.D. It describes one of the
   oldest diagrams of Euclid's Elements. Enlarge
   Another Oxyrhynchus papyrus, dated 75-125 A.D. It describes one of the
   oldest diagrams of Euclid's Elements.

   Recently, a joint project with Brigham Young University using
   Multi-Spectral Imaging technology has been extremely successful in
   recovering previously illegible writing. With Multi-Spectral Imaging,
   many pictures of the illegible papyrus are taken using different
   filters, finely tuned to capture certain wavelengths of light. Thus,
   researchers can find the optimum spectral portion for distinguishing
   ink from paper in order to display completely illegible papyruses. The
   amount to be deciphered by this technique is potentially huge. A
   selection of the images obtained during the project and more
   information on the latest discoveries has been provided on the
   project's website

   On 21 June 2005 the Times Literary Supplement published the text and
   translation of a newly reconstructed poem by Sappho, together with
   important discussion by Martin West. Part of this poem was first
   published in 1922 from an Oxyrhynchus papyrus, no. 1787 (fragment 1).
   Most of the rest of the poem has now been found on a papyrus kept at
   Cologne University, .
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyrhynchus"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
