Oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus is the site of an ancient Egyptian city in Middle Egypt, located in Minya Governorate near the modern town of al-Bahnasa. It is best known for the enormous quantity of papyrus texts recovered from its rubbish mounds beginning in the late 19th century.

The site’s principal highlight is the archaeological tell where streets, houses and public buildings are preserved in fragmentary form, and the huge assemblage of papyrus fragments that includes private letters, legal documents and literary works. Many thousands of fragments survive, and large portions remain unpublished or in study collections.

Excavations at Oxyrhynchus were started by Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt in 1896 and continued intermittently thereafter; finds span the Hellenistic and Roman periods into late antiquity. The papyri collection contains both documentary and literary texts and has been distributed among several museums and university collections for study and conservation.

The site sits in the Nile valley of Minya Governorate on the west side of the river, at the modern settlement of al-Bahnasa (often identified with ancient Oxyrhynchus). It lies in Middle Egypt between the major cities of Cairo and Asyut and occupies a raised archaeological tell visible from the surrounding agricultural plain.

• Papyri importance: Excavations that began in the late 19th century recovered tens of thousands of papyrus fragments that transformed knowledge of ancient Greek, Roman and early Christian texts.

What to See #

• Ancient tell: The raised archaeological mound containing the street plan, houses, and public buildings of the ancient city; excavations revealed private letters, official documents and discarded texts preserved in dry rubbish mounds.
• Oxyrhynchus Papyri: A large corpus of papyrus fragments recovered from the site, including literary works, official records and private documents largely dating to the Hellenistic and Roman periods; many fragments are held in institutional collections and ongoing publication projects.