Purchasing Oxyrhynchus

The other night I went and spent some time in the DTS library. It was like old times...except that I didn’t have anything that was due. I spent a good bit of time looking for published papyri, mostly for kicks, but also for use in the class (though, yes, I know, some can be found online). Of course, the best stuff would be papyri that were published long enough ago that copyright would have expired so I could put them online with notes, vocabulary, and translations. At least that’s the plan. Getting permission from publishers would be fine to, but I have no idea how hard that is to pull off. If anybody has any comments about this, let me know.

One set that I spent a good bit of time in was the published volumes of the Oxyrhynchus papyri. Some of them were recently published, though the publication of the series began with volume 1 in 1898. I was a little surprised on how useful these volumes were. I’m not sure what I expected, but I didn’t expect them to be so useful...user friendly...something. Part of it is that I didn’t really expect translations and discussions of the text (though the discussions and such are brief and sparse).

Of course, the volumes can be very expensive. However, I was very surprised to find that some go for sale for $10. They must have printed too many. Anyway, if you’re interested, here’s the website: http://www.oxbowbooks.com/trade.cfm/Publisher/Egypt%20Exploration%20Society//Location/DBBC