Oxyrhynchus Papyri

For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal
measure – a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the
map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the
holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to
open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect
that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be
revealed.

In the past four days alone, Oxford’s classicists have used it to make a
series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides,
Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They
even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of
which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New
Testament.

More here.  Hat tip to The Light of Reason.

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