The city of Oxyrhynchus
Oxyrhynchus is an ancient town in the north of Egypt (situated near the modern town of al-Bahnasa), approximately 160km southwest of Cairo on one of the Nile's canals. Many ancient documents written on papyrus were found there—70% of all known papyri originated there. At the turn of the last century, almost half a million fragments of papyri were uncovered at Oxyrhynchus. Though unknown to the general public, this is one of Egypt's most important sites since among the texts were iconic records: fragments of the Gospel of Thomas and texts that illuminate the Classical histories. Though it was a prosperous city during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, little remains of Oxyrhynchus today.
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt.
How old are Oxyrhynchus papyri?
The earliest of the papyri are dated to the middle of the 2nd century, so they were copied within about a century of the writing of the original New Testament documents.
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri were discovered in excavations by two British archaeologists, Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, between 1896 and 1907. These are tens of thousands of documents produced over about a thousand years.
Oxyrhynchus Papyri Collection
The ancient city of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt is the location of a significant archaeological discovery: the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Situated about 100 miles south of Cairo, Oxyrhynchus had a large Greek community that ran the local and provincial government during Hellenistic and Roman times. These papyri represent the written remnants of that Greek community within the larger Egyptian/Roman context.
Oxyrhynchus Papyri
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt.
The manuscripts date from the time of the Ptolemaic (3rd century B.C.) and Roman periods of Egyptian history (from 32 B.C. to the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640 AD).
Only an estimated 10% are literary. Most papyri found mainly consist 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.
Although most papyri were written in Greek, some texts (Egyptian hieroglyphics, Hieratic, Demotic, primarily Coptic), Latin, and Arabic were also found. Texts
in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and Pahlavi have represented only a tiny percentage of the total.
The fragments of Papyri date to the 1st–7th centuries C.E. and represent almost all the types of documents found at Oxyrhynchus. They include fragments of significant literary texts from Euripides and Thucydides and, most importantly, the earliest surviving fragment of a Biblical New Testament book known as the Letter of James. There are also legal documents (sales records, a list of tax delinquents, a widow's plea to a judge to reconsider a case, a will, etc.) and personal letters. Other exciting documents are a wedding invitation that translates to "Eros invites you to a wedding tomorrow the 29th at the 9th hour" and a mummy foot tag.
Oxyrhynchus Papyri Excavations
These tens of thousands of documents dating over about a thousand years (3rd c. BCE–7th c. C.E.) were found in the town's garbage dump on the desert plateau above the city. Most of the documents are government records discarded when considered no longer necessary. However, many personal documents of private individuals and literary and religious texts made their way to the dumps over the centuries. During the first centuries C.E., a significant Christian community developed at Oxyrhynchus, and over 1/3 of the world's earliest known fragments of the New Testament come from this town.
Origin of the Spurlock Oxyrhynchus Papyri Collection
How did the Spurlock Museum wind up with 29 documents from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri? The Egypt Exploration Fund (EEF) of London ran their excavations with the support of private donations from universities, museums, and individuals. Under a system known as partage (sharing), the EEF received the papyri and other artifacts from the Egyptian government. Without a museum of their own, the EEF divided their finds among their sponsors. The EEF allowed private individual donors to choose a museum that would receive artifacts in their honor. Mr. and Mrs. William G. Hibbard, EEF donors from Chicago, designated the Museum of Classical Archaeology and Art at the U of I as a recipient of materials from the EEF beginning in 1911. In 1914 the EEF announced a particular distribution of Oxyrhynchus Papyri to museums already associated with them. The Classical Museum applied for a set and purchased the 29 papyri in the Spurlock Museum.
Oxyrhynchus, also spelled Oxyrynkhos, was the ancient capital of the 19th Upper Egyptian nome (one of the thirty-six territorial divisions of ancient Egypt; a province on the western edge of the Nile valley, in Al-Minya mu?afa?ah (governorate). It is best known for the numerous papyri uncovered there, first by B.P. Grenfell and A.S. Hunt (1897–1907) and later by Italian scholars early in the 20th century. The papyri—dating from about 250 BCE to 700 CE and written primarily in Greek and Latin but also in demotic Egyptian, Coptic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic—include religious texts (e.g., miracles of Serapis, early copies of the New Testament, and such apocryphal books as the Gospel of Thomas) and also masterpieces of classical Greek literature. Among the papyri were texts once considered lost, including selections of early Greek lyric poetry, Pindar, dramatists such
as Menander and Callimachus, and numerous prose works of oratory or history those of the Oxyrhynchus historian. The modern village of Al-Bahnasa is located on the site.
Secular texts
Although most of the texts uncovered at Oxyrhynchus were non-literary, the archaeologists succeeded in recovering many literary works that had previously been thought to have been lost. Many of these texts had previously been unknown to modern scholars.
Greek
Several fragments can be traced to the work of Plato, for instance, the Republic, Phaedo, or the dialogue Gorgias, dated around 200-300 CE.
Historiography
Another important discovery was a papyrus codex containing a significant portion of the treatise The Constitution of the Athenians, which was attributed to Aristotle and had previously been thought to have been lost forever. A second, more extensive papyrus text was purchased in Egypt by an American missionary in 1890. E. A. Wallis Budge of the British Museum acquired it later that year, and the first edition of it by British paleographer Frederic G. Kenyon was published in January 1891. The treatise revealed a massive quantity of reliable information about historical periods that classicists previously had little knowledge of. In particular, 21–22, 26.2–4, and 39–40 of the work contain factual information not found in any other extant ancient text. Two modern historians even went so far as to state that "the discovery of this treatise constitutes almost a new epoch in Greek historical study."
The discovery of a historical work known as the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia also revealed new information about classical antiquity. The identity of the author of the work is unknown; many early scholars proposed that, but many modern scholars are now convinced that Cratippus wrote it. The work has won praise for its style and accuracy and has even been compared favorably with the works of Thucydides.
Christian texts (Biblical manuscript)
The Christian texts found at Oxyrhynchus were fragments of early non-canonical Gospels, Oxyrhynchus 840 (3rd century A.D.) and Oxyrhynchus 1224 (4th century A.D.). 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 to 6th century: P3); John 1 and 20 (3rd century: P208); Romans 1 (4th century: P209); the First Epistle of John (4th-5th century: P402); the Apocalypse of Baruch (chapters 12–14; 4th or 5th century: P403); the Gospel according to the Hebrews (3rd century A.D.: P655); The Shepherd of Hermas (3rd or 4th century: P404), and a work of Irenaeus, (3rd century: P405). There are many parts of other canonical books and many early Christian hymns, prayers, and letters also found among them.
Old Testament
The original Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) was translated into Greek between the 3rd and 1st centuries B.C. This translation is called the Septuagint (or LXX, both 70 in Latin) because there is a tradition that seventy Jewish scribes compiled it in Alexandria. It was quoted in the New Testament and bound with the New Testament in the 4th and 5th centuries.
Greek uncial codices Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Vaticanus. The Septuagint included books called the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical by Christians, which were later not accepted into the Jewish canon of sacred writings. This section lists the portions of Old Testament books of undisputed authority found in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri.
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Glossery:
Al-Minya - governorate, in Upper Egypt, between Bani Suwayf governorate to the north and Asyu? governorate to the south. It occupies the floodplain of the Nile River and extends for about 75 miles (120 km) along the river but also includes a section of the Western Desert, extending out toward the oases. It merges into desert terrain to the west and east, and the cultivated floodplain on the eastern bank is very narrow. Iron ore is found in the desert west of the river valley, and limestone is quarried on the eastern bank, north of Al-Minya city. The area is heavily agricultural, the chief crops being cotton, corn (maize), wheat, dates, sugarcane, millet, and onions. Industrial activities include cotton ginning and flour milling. Al-Minya city, Abu Qurga?, and Shaykh Fa?l have sugar mills. Other towns include Mallawi and Bani Mazar.
Sites with antiquities are located at Bani ?asan al-Shuriq, Al-Ashmunein (ancient Hermopolis), and Tunat al-Jabal, all south of Al-Minya city. Mallawi has a regional museum with antiquities from sites in the governorate. Area 873 square miles (2,262 square km). Pop. (2006) 4,179,309.
