oxyrinchus

Oxyrinchus is a variant spelling often encountered for Oxyrhynchus, the name of an ancient city in Lower Egypt. In scholarly usage, the standard and most widely accepted form is Oxyrhynchus; oxyrinchus appears in some historical or nonstandard sources as an alternate spelling.

The name derives from Greek elements oxys meaning sharp and rhynkhos meaning snout, a compound commonly translated as sharp-nosed. The exact reference of the epithet is linked to geographic features near the city on the Nile valley fringe and to the historical naming of the site. The archaeological site is located at el-Bahnasa in the Minya Governorate, approximately 200 kilometers south of modern Cairo.

Oxyrhynchus was a prosperous Hellenistic and Roman city and is best known to scholars for the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. These texts were recovered from ancient rubbish dumps during late 19th and early 20th century excavations led by Grenfell and Hunt. The papyri comprise thousands of fragments, including literary works, religious writings, and everyday administrative documents, and they have profoundly influenced the study of ancient Greek and Roman literature, language, and daily life. The site continues to be cited as a key source for reconstructing ancient life in Egypt under successive rule, as well as for the textual history of classical authors.