Not just a heap of rubbish…

An important part of my role in the Metadata and Encoding Unit is to write introductions for the items that feature on the Digital Mirror. Last year, I was involved in the digitisation of The Oxyrhyncus Papyri, and was fascinated when I began researching into their history. Known as ancient Egyptian fragments of papyrus (paper made from the pith of the papyrus plant), and are the oldest manuscripts held here at The National Library. They are written in the Greek language, and although they are common, everyday papers – a poll tax receipt, a baker’s supply order and a private letter, the story of their preservation and discovery has captured my imagination.

In the late 1890s, two papyrologists of the Egypt Exploration Society, Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, began excavating the rubbish mounds of Oxyrhyncus – an ancient town in the north of Egypt. There, beneath the drifted sand, they discovered a 1000 years’ worth of papyri. Remarkably, these discarded fragments of paper had been preserved in ideal conditions because of the town’s location – it hardly rains in this part of Egypt, and although situated near a canal, Oxyrhyncus didn’t suffer from the annual flooding which was commonplace on the banks of the Nile.

Prior to this discovery, Oxyrhyncus wasn’t considered an ancient site of importance, however, this unusual archive revealed what the classical sites of Greece and Italy had failed to preserve – paper. Most of the papyri found at Oxyrhyncus are a record of daily life e.g. private letters, shopping lists and tax forms, and offer a valuable glimpse of the social activities of the ancient town’s inhabitants. Other papyri that were also found there are of a literary nature as well as several early copies of the New Testament.

Whilst preparing the papyri for digitisation, I was amazed to think that these papers had survived for nearly 1900 years and had, at one time, been thrown out with the rubbish!

If you’d like to view The Oxyrhyncus Papyri visit the Library’s Digital mirror.

Siân Medi Davies, Assistant Librarian (Metadata), Digital Developments Section.