The Greek medical papyri from Graeco/Roman Oxyrhynchus: An edition of 60 unpublished texts from a centre of learning and scholarship in middle Egypt. (360G-Wellcome-079234_Z_06_Z)

The project which is being proposed here is truly interdisciplinary. It brings together scholars in the field of the history of medicine and papyrologists who are trained to decipher the most difficult texts. The aim of this project is to publish the Greek papyri of medical content which were excavated among many others in the town of Oxyrhynchus in Middle Egypt. While poetic and prose texts of all kinds, as well as documents, have been published in great numbers, the medical pieces have remained nearly untouched by scholars. Oxyrhynchus was a hellenized city with a high living standard; scholars from Alexandria spent their leisure time there. Studying papyri found in Oxyrhynchus enables us to have at least a glance into the holdings of the lost library at Alexandria. It is time finally to address this gap. These papyri, which range from recipes to fragments of learned treatises, some perhaps by famous names from Alexandria and elsewhere, show at which level medical care was offered and received by people living in this place in which the Greek and Egyptian cultures met. The texts will be edited, along with translation and commentary, in one or two volumes in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri series.