Sunday, June 05, 2005

More on the Oxyrhynchus Papyri

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/31/features/hype.php
An article which describes some of the responses to The Independent's article about the Oxyrhynchus papyri: "Unearthed from centuries-old garbage dumps in central Egypt in the late 19th century, the Oxyrhynchus Papyri - a trove of classical material dating from the second century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. - have yielded gem after gem: plays by Aristophanes, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides; early fragments of the Gospels; accounts of daily life in the Greco-Roman empire 2,000 years ago. But the papyri, old forms of paper made from reeds that grew along the Nile, are fragmentary and fragile, and the pace of translating them and placing them in context is mind-numbingly slow. Scholars have become accustomed to the decorous pace of the Oxyrhynchus work, which is published as it goes along, in a new volume every year or two. With only 5,000 or so of the estimated 500,000 fragments translated so far, Volume 69 is being published this month. There is no end in sight".
I found this a really interesting piece, although it is out of my period/field of interest. It is a particularly good insight into heritage journalism.

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