oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus is an ancient city in Middle Egypt, located on the eastern bank of the Nile near the modern town of el-Bahnasa in the Minya Governorate. In antiquity it was a prosperous urban center in Greco-Roman Egypt and served as an administrative and commercial hub within the Thebaid region. The city benefited from agricultural productivity and river trade, and it remained active into late antiquity before gradually declining.

The site is best known for the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, a vast cache of papyrus manuscripts found in rubbish dumps around the city by archaeologists Grenfell and Hunt beginning in 1896. The papyri date from the 1st century BCE to the 6th century CE and include thousands of fragments of literary texts (Greek and Latin authors, poetry, drama), documentary records (letters, contracts, official documents), and early Christian writings. The dry desert conditions allowed many parchments to survive, making Oxyrhynchus one of the most important sources for daily life, administration, and culture in Greco-Roman Egypt. The manuscripts are published in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri series and are designated with P.Oxy. numbers.

Today, the site remains an archaeological location with visible remains near el-Bahnasa. The discovery of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri has had a lasting impact on classics, papyrology, and the study of early Christianity, supplying substantial primary material for scholars and enriching understanding of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt.