The Oxyrhynchus Papyri

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A few years ago we were told that the ossuary of James the brother of Jesus had been discovered. Then followed the Gospel of Judas. Finally, the very tomb of Jesus himself. So it seems that the last decade has offered up a veritable contest: What will be the greatest archaeological discovery of all time? But alas, each of these astonishing finds has come with a caveat or two.^a Compared with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Nag Hammadi Library, these later discoveries seem now to pale in significance. But even those two great discoveries of the 20th century cannot compare to an archaeological event that unfolded at the turn of the previous century in the dry sands of Upper Egypt, near the village of el-Behnesa—neither for drama, nor significance, nor surprise. It all happened at a place that ancients once called the “City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish.”

Late in the fall of 1896, two young scholars from Oxford embarked on the long steamer voyage to Cairo. Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt were slight in their mid-20s. Pals through graduate school, they had resolved to enter into this venture together. This was to be their second season in Egypt. The first had been spent in the Fayum learning the basics of field archaeology from more experienced French diggers. Now they were on their own, employed by the recently formed London-based Egypt Exploration Fund, to search for papyri that might reveal something of Egypt’s Christian and pagan past.

Papyrus was the “paper” on which most Greek and Roman writers committed their thoughts to writing. Sheets of this paper 061062were made by overlapping strips from the stems of papyrus plants, which were abundant in the Nile Delta, but it was a fragile medium, easily ruined by moisture and reduced to dust by the ravages of time. Only in places like the arid shores of the Dead Sea or the bone-dry climate of the Egyptian desert have significant inches of papyrus survived antiquity. Our rookie archaeologists knew enough of this to choose a likely site to begin: ancient Oxyrhynchus (named in Greek for the “sharp-nosed fish” that once swam the nearby waters of the Nile), a Christian and Roman administrative center located 100 miles south of Cairo and about 10 miles west of the Nile itself. The ancient city sat on a low rise in the valley floor, high enough to ride out the yearly flooding of the Nile that inundated the surrounding countryside and fertilized its fields. On this dry ground Grenfell and Hunt hoped to find what they were looking for.

Their mission held a tinge of romance and valor. The 19th century had made Egypt a place of mystery and intrigue for worldly Europeans. When Napoleon landed on Egypt’s shores in 1798, he brought with him a cadre of scholars to study this strange land of dog-faced gods and inscrutable symbols carved in gigantic stone temples. They discovered the Rosetta Stone and enough additional exotica to keep Europeans captivated with the resulting series of publications, Description de l’Égypt (1809–1826), for the rest of the century. Britain’s interest was piqued when the Egyptian Hall, a to-scale replica of the Temple of Dendera, was set up in Piccadilly in 1812. Popular books pictured Egypt’s ancient ruins and inspired imaginative interpretations of what might have been. Then in 1873 the novelist and adventurer Amelia Edwards traveled to Egypt and ascended the Nile as far as Abu Simbel. Her account, A Thousand Miles Up the Nile, deepened Europe’s fascination but also sounded an alarm: Egypt’s treasures were fast disappearing into the hands of grave robbers and unscrupulous antiquities dealers. Edwards herself helped to found the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1882, under whose auspices Grenfell and Hunt embarked on their mission to rescue for posterity some of these treasures.

Not much was left of the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus. Most of its buildings had been pillaged long ago, their stone blocks carried away for use in new construction elsewhere. Grenfell and Hunt knew there was little chance of finding papyrus among these bare foundations. Not far from the city, they located a cluster of tombs. Since ancients often buried their dead with favorite books or scrolls from the library of the deceased, they began prospecting here. But three weeks of work turned up nothing. Finally, on January 11, 1897, 063they turned to the low mounds that surrounded the city, its ancient trash heaps, in hopes of finding the remains of discarded papers, letters and books. That day turned out to be one of the most remarkable in archaeological history. Grenfell related its unfolding later that year in McClure’s Magazine:

On January 11th we sallied forth at sunrise with some 70 workmen and boys, and set them to dig trenches through a mound near a large space covered with piles of limestone chips, which probably denotes the site of an ancient temple, though its walls have been all but entirely dug out for the sake of the stone. The choice proved a very fortunate one, for papyrus scraps began to come to light in considerable quantities, varied by occasional complete or nearly complete private and official documents containing letters, contracts, accounts and so on; and there were also a number of fragments written in uncials, or rounded capital letters, the form of writing used in copying classical or theological manuscripts. Later in the week Mr. Hunt, in sorting through the papyri found on the second day, noticed on a crumpled uncial fragment written on both sides the Greek word KARFOS (“mote”), which at once suggested to him the verse in the Gospels concerning the mote and the beam [Matthew 7:3–5; Luke 6:41–42]. A further examination showed that the passage in the papyrus really was the conclusion of the verse, “Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye”; but the rest of the papyrus differed considerably from the Gospels, and was, in fact, a leaf of a book containing a collection of sayings of Christ, some of which, apparently, were new. More than that could not be determined until we came back to England.¹

This was Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1 (abbreviated POxy 1). It was Grenfell and Hunt’s first excavation. For weeks they had found nothing. And then in an ancient rubbish heap they 064hit the archaeological lottery: papyrus containing a series of heretofore-unknown sayings of Jesus. It was an unbelievable discovery. And yet, it was all true. Fifty years later the original gospel from which these words came would be discovered at Nag Hammadi, and we would soon come to know them as sayings 26–33 of the Gospel of Thomas.

In that first remarkable season, Grenfell and Hunt unearthed hundreds of papyri. Many of the best manuscripts were turned over to Egyptian authorities. The rest, filling some 280 cartons, were shipped back to Oxford. Over the course of five seasons, they would fill 700 cartons with an estimated 500,000 papyri, enough to keep them and three generations of papyrologists busy deciphering and discerning their meaning—a project that continues to this day. Among them they would find two more fragments of the Gospel of Thomas, POxy 654 and 655. There were also fragments of other unknown gospels (POxy 210, 840 and POxy 1224) as well as many fragments of known New Testament texts and early Christian writings, such as the Gospel of Peter (POxy 2949 and 4009), the Gospel of Mary (POxy 3525) and the Sophia of Jesus Christ (POxy 1081).

Perhaps of greater interest at the time were the hundreds of literary papyri from the pagan world. Here were lost songs of Sappho, Pindar’s heretofore-unread Paean to Apollo and a lost comedy by Sophocles. Hundreds of Homeric fragments were found, as well as parts of Hesiod, Herodotus, Plato, Thucydides, playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the comedies of Menander, as well as popular literature: a pornographic work by Philainis (On Indecent Kisses), even an early “Classic Comic” book with pen and ink drawings of the Labors of Heracles. To a learned European public educated by reading the classics, Grenfell and Hunt became overnight academic celebrities. Their first publication, a pamphlet introducing POxy 1, titled Logia Iesu: Sayings of Our Lord (1897), sold more than 30,000 copies.

The remarkable story of Grenfell and Hunt and the Oxyrhynchus Papyri is told by Peter Parsons in a delightful new book, The City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish.² Parsons, employed since 1960 with cataloging, deciphering and publishing the Oxyrhynchus Papyri under the auspices of the British Academy and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, is just the person to narrate this saga. His assembled chapters explore the workings of the city of Oxyrhynchus, 065the presence of the empire and the imperial cult, the Nile and its rhythmic effects, economic matters, personal life, the literary predilections of its citizenry, ancient bureaucracy, the use of medicine and magic to cope with accident, disease and distress, and the city’s late-antique Christian legacy. Parsons introduces us to all of it with great erudition and expert commentary and a welcome sense of humor.

Papyrologists typically speak of two types of papyri: literary and documentary. Of the former there are many among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. They include the explicitly Christian religious texts as well as the many fragments of classical Greek texts, both formerly known and unknown. Together these literary papyri comprise about 10 percent of the whole. Outweighing them, both in number and importance, are the documentary papyri—90 percent of the collection. Here are bills, wills, lists, notes and brief letters, orders, minutes of town meetings—written remains of every conceivable sort documenting the life of the average person. A great number of papyri even give daily horoscopes culled from astrological tables and repeated astronomical observations.³ It is scarcely possible to calculate the value of this treasure trove of papyri. They offer countless insights into both family and public life. They help us understand how the Romans administered the empire, how they levied taxes and tribute, how they settled disputes and how their religious sensibilities found expression. Through them we can listen in on business dealings (“I am amazed that all that money went on olive oil!”⁴), love affairs (“Be aware that I do not see the sun … for I have no sun but you.”⁵) and family disputes (“If you don’t send for me, I shan’t eat, I shan’t drink. There!”⁶). For the historian interested in common things, they are a revelation.

Take, for example, the simple notion of friendship. It is a truism that we all need friends. But scholars of Roman society have learned—in part from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri—that friendship in the ancient world was far more than a pleasant affection. In our world, formal human networks are managed with technology and elaborate record-keeping. If one needs a loan, the bank does a credit check. In a world absent these mechanisms, trust and credibility had to be managed interpersonally, through declarations of friendship. As Parsons so aptly puts it: “Friends were a practical necessity, 066not simply an emotional footnote.”⁷ The urgency of friendly relations is seen again and again in the many personal letters that survived at Oxyrhynchus. POxy 292, a private letter dating to about 26 C.E., illustrates how such personal networks functioned:

Theon to the most honored Tyrannus very many greetings.

Heraclides, the bearer of this letter, is my brother, wherefore I entreat you with all my power to take him under your protection. I have also asked your brother by letter to inform you about him. You will do me the greatest favor if you let him win your approval.

Before all else I pray that you have health and the best of success, unharmed by the evil eye. Goodbye.⁸

To have friends is to have connections; connections mean protection and access to the web of trust represented by friendship. To do business, join the army, buy property, it all required connections—and friendship. And if friendship failed? Parsons illustrates with a letter from a certain Horis to Horion:

This is the second letter I’m writing to you and you haven’t written back a single one. I love you always, but you rate me nowhere …⁹

The access one gains to the private lives of the Oxyrhynchites in these papyri is sometimes breathtaking. Consider, for example, the following oft-reprinted letter from a certain Hilarion to his “sister” (i.e., his wife), in which he tries to manage family life while earning a living in the distant metropolis of Alexandria:

Hilarion to his sister Alis, many greetings, likewise to my lady [his mother] and Apollonarion [likely his son].

Know that we are still even now in Alexandria. Do not worry if they all come back and I stay in Alexandria. I urge and beg you, be concerned about the child and if I receive my wages soon, I will send them up to you. If by chance you give birth, if it is a boy, let it be, if it is a girl, throw it out. You have said to Aphrodisias, “Do not forget me.” How can I forget you? So, I urge you not to worry.¹⁰

The practice of exposure—leaving a child out in the elements to die—is well known to students of the ancient world. But to encounter it here, embedded in a real life, is quite astonishing. This little scrap is so revealing of its times: the hardship of working away from the family, of too many mouths to feed, the preference for boys and the harsh fate of girls, and through it all, the intimate love of husband and wife.

Of course the papyri expose other shades of life as well, such as the dispute that lay behind this 067request to the oracle of Serapis Helios:

O Lord Serapis Helios, beneficent one.

[Say] whether it is fitting that Phanias my son and his wife should not agree now with his father, but oppose him and not make a contract. Tell me this truly.

Goodbye.¹¹

At the other end of the spectrum, scholars have also learned from the papyri a great deal about the routines and practices of public life. Egypt was the prize of the provinces in imperial Rome, and the details of its administration are disclosed in the treasures of Oxyrhynchus. At the top of the provincial hierarchy sat the prefect, whose power was absolute. But the secret to the efficient administration of the province lay with the midlevel officials, the strategoi, or “generals,” who presided over the various districts, or nomes. The strategos was the chief public figure in local life, presiding at all public festival events. He was a kind of public high priest but also the judicial authority, the public keeper of records, census-taker and, most importantly, the gatherer of revenues. He collected all taxes, but he also was responsible for tapping the local citizens to do their duty to the empire by providing the public liturgies: all the local expenses associated with public life and administration, from trash collection to buying sacrificial animals for the upcoming festival. Resistance from the local population was to be expected. One of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri recounts the minutes of the town council meeting:

Ptolemaios son of Damarion, Chief Priest, said “I entreat you, I cannot serve. I am a man of moderate means, I live in my father’s house…” The Mayor replied (to the council), “Ptolemaios still requires to be pressed by you, for he too shrinks from so great an office.”¹²

The strategoi were also responsible for seeing that the empire was properly represented in the district. This could sometimes prove a challenge when the empire rocked with violence and change. Such was the case in the early third century C.E., when the emperor Septimius Severus died leaving his two sons, Geta and Caracalla, to rule as co-emperors. The arrangement lasted for about a year, when Caracalla double-crossed and murdered his brother, it is said, as he clung to the arms of his own mother. In the months and years that followed, 068the memory of Geta was damned in the empire, such that the mere mention of his name could result in execution for those who uttered it. Throughout the empire this damnatio memoriae found expression in all sorts of ways. In Oxyrhynchus the strategos had the name of Geta scratched out of official documents and removed from imperial portraiture. There is a notable example from Oxyrhynchus of this last procedure, a painted disc about 12 inches in diameter. It is a portrait of the royal family: Septimius Severus, beside him his wife Julia Domna, and in front of them the two sons, Caracalla and, presumably, Geta. But Geta’s face is not actually present. Someone has scratched it out and painted over it with a drab brownish paint. But there is more to these ancient smear tactics than meets the eye. According to the conservator, when moistened, this brown smudge gives off a foul odor. It would seem that the face of the once-mighty, then-maligned emperor was not just blotted out but ignominiously daubed with feces.¹³ The stench of partisan politics can apparently last for centuries.

For more than 100 years the Oxyrhynchus Papyri have served as an ever-expanding portal to the ancient world and early Christianity, offering context and texture to the historian’s abstractions. Grenfell and Hunt published the first volume of Oxyrhynchus Papyri in 1898; in 2007, volume 72 appeared. Forty more volumes are planned—enough to keep another generation of scholars fascinated and hard at work. As archaeological discoveries go, there are few that can rival the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. In a day when it can sometimes prove difficult to tell the authentic from the hoax, the important from the trivial, the Oxyrhynchus Papyri are the real deal.

Discovered in the Egyptian desert over a century ago, the Oxyrhynchus Papyri have provided invaluable insights into the life and times of an early Roman Christian community of the Nile Valley. As our author explains, these priceless documents, which include everything from little-known gospels to revealing personal letters, intimately portray the beliefs and daily lives of ordinary Romans and Christians, making them one of the greatest archaeological finds ever.