Would you like to transcribe ancient Egyptian papyrus fragments written in Greek? Oh, you don’t know Greek … not a problem. Researchers at Oxford University have devised a way for you to help them transcribe these documents, even if you don’t know your thetas from your omegas. Hundreds of thousands of images of these fragments, owned by the Egypt Exploration Society, have been posted online, and a simple web interface can guide you in identifying most of the Greek alphabets.
Pieces of papyri, written during a period when Egypt was controlled by Greek settlers, were recovered in the early 20th century at the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, known as ‘City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish’ (a sacred fish of the Nile). Victorian archaeologists excavating rubbish mounds left by the city’s inhabitants collected the fragments, mostly written in Greek, and well preserved in dry desert conditions. To this day, many of them have yet to be transcribed.
Ancient Lives Project web site
Interactive tutorial to get you started
Via PF Anderson (@pfanderson).
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