Oxyrhynchus Papyri Online
From Eleutherotypia, 29.07.2011.
The important archaeological find of the Papyri of Oxyrynchus (500 B.C.-1000 A.D.) has been known since the beginning of the last century.
Part of it has been kept since its discovery in Oxford, where attempts to decode the material continue. The latest discovery, according to the Times, is an unknown Gospel (3rd cent.) which recounts cases of exorcisms performed by Christ. The decoding of this document has not been completed, nor has that of many thousand other papyri, which include texts of great importance (including works of Aristotle, Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, Archilochus, Saphfo and others). In order to decode this cast material the researchers in Oxford are not enough. For this reason they have chosen to use technology, asking the help of surfers worldwide: they have uploaded scanned versions of 200,000 pieces of papyri to the site www.ancientlives.org and, using specialised software they ask visitors to identify letters, allowing for the reading of each scrap of papyrus!
A.M. Note:
The whole process is easy to understand and fun! A useful way to brush up your palaeographical skills!!
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