Papyrus from the Oxyrhynchus and El-Hibeh Sites

"The descriptions are paraphrased from "Western Reserve Papyri" by Henry B. Van Hoesen, Western Reserve Literary Bulletin v.16 #4, May, 1913. None of our fragments are "new classics," or documents leading to great discoveries regarding the life of the times on which they were written. They are valuable chiefly as examples of writing in their respective periods. Hibeh Nos. 147, 123, 108, 59 are among the oldest Greek manuscripts extant (the oldest dates from 270 B.C.) Oxyrhynchus 737 as an example of Latin writing in manuscripts, is probably the second in age only to a papyrus in the Vienna library of the date 17-14 B.C." ("from Western Reserve Papyri" by Henry B. Van Hoesen, Western Reserve Literary Bulletin v.16 #4, May, 1913). Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University)acquired the eleven papyrus manuscripts in 1906/7, from the EgyptExploration Fund. After a period of excavations and discoveries under thedirection of Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt around the turn of thecentury, selected universities were given small collections for study andresearch."