The volume offers an account of Oxyrhynchus as an ancient city and archaeological site by surveying its material culture and art objects, including sculpture and draftsmanship, against the backdrop of the papyrus texts. It includes treatments of the site itself (city plan, topography, monuments, art and architecture), the history of the excavations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as a synthesis of the study of social, cultural and intellectual life under Greek, Roman and Byzantine rule. Original contributions by E. G. Turner and W. M. F. Petrie are reprinted; the original archaeological reports are edited with notes.

Close analysis of formal and conventional features of the bookrolls not only provides detailed information on the bookroll industry- but also, in turn, suggests some intriguing questions and provisional answers about the ways in which the use and function of the bookroll among ancient readers may differ from modern or medieval practice.

"Investigates private letters and official documents found at the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus pertaining to Christians in the pre-Constantinian era, taking the reader to the marketplace, church, and court room. Analyzes scribal habits, discovers the city's first known bishop and examines his work, and finds evidence of Christian resistance during times of persecution"--Provided by publisher.

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Presents 200 hitherto unpub. astronomical texts & horoscopes written in Greek on papyrus, which were excavated a century ago in the rubbish heaps of Oxyrhynchus, a district capital of Roman Egypt. Through these documents we obtain the first coherent picture of the range of astronomical activity, chiefly in the service of astrology, during the Roman Empire. The astronomy of this period turns out to have been much more varied than we previously thought, with Babylonian arithmetical methods of prediction coexisting with tables based on geometrical models of orbits. Editions of the texts are accomp. by facing translations & explanatory & philological commentaries. The intro. provides the first comprehensive treatment of astronomical papyri, explaining their contents & purpose, the underlying astronomical theories, & strategies for analyzing & dating them. Tables & graphs.

A provocative book from a highly original scholar, challenging much of what we know about early Christian manuscripts In this bold and groundbreaking book, Brent Nongbri provides an up-to-date introduction to the major collections of early Christian manuscripts and demonstrates that much of what we thought we knew about these books and fragments is mistaken. While biblical scholars have expended much effort in their study of the texts contained within our earliest Christian manuscripts, there has been a surprising lack of interest in thinking about these books as material objects with individual, unique histories. We have too often ignored the ways that the antiquities market obscures our knowledge of the origins of these manuscripts. Through painstaking archival research and detailed studies of our most important collections of early Christian manuscripts, Nongbri vividly shows how the earliest Christian books are more than just carriers of texts or samples of handwriting. They are three-dimensional archaeological artifacts with fascinating stories to tell, if we’re willing to listen.