Oxford University wants help decoding Egyptian papyri [ Oxyrhynchus ]

BBC ^ | Tuesday, July 26, 2011 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

Oxford University is asking for help deciphering ancient Greek texts written on fragments of papyrus found in Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of images have gone on display on a website which encourages armchair archaeologists to help catalogue and translate them. Researchers hope the collective effort will give them a unique insight into life in Egypt nearly 2,000 years ago... The collection is made up of papyri recovered in the early 20th Century from the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, the so-called "City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish". At the time the city was under Greek rule. Later the Romans settled the area. The papyri contain literature, letters and even a story about how Jesus Christ cast out demons. Scholars have been studying the Oxyrhynchus collection for more than 100 years and have already rediscovered many lost works that went missing during medieval times. They have found masterpieces by the ancient Greek poet Sappho and dramatists Menander and Sophocles.

[SunkenCiv]

I’m impressed. :’) Plus, you two are(/were) FReeping the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and I’m pretty sure that’s never been FReeped before.

[SunkenCiv]

This threw me off, showed up as a new story on one of the usual feeds, actually from 2011.

The first comic book? This recovered papyrus fragment depicts a scene, complete with line drawing illustrations, from the Labors of Heracles, a popular mythological tale in the Greco-Roman world. It narrates and illustrates the first of the 12 labors, the killing of the Nemean Lion. Wikimedia Commons

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Fragment from one of the works of Euclid, Elements of Geometry, showing a diagram of a geometric formulation of an algebraic relationship. Wikimedia Commons