richard-miles-archaeologist:Ancient Worlds - BBC Two Episode 6 “City of Man, City of God”In the Roma
richard-miles-archaeologist:Ancient Worlds - BBC Two Episode 6 “City of Man, City of God”In the Roman city of Oxyrhynchus (Upper Egypt), archaeologist found Papyri, thousands and thousands of them. So many that it’s going to take generations of scholars to decipher and publish them all.The manuscripts include thousands of Greek and Latin documents, letters and literary works, dating from the third century BC to the seventh century AD. Among the texts discovered are plays of Menander, fragments from the Gospel of Thomas, and fragments from Euclid’s Elements.Oxyrhynchus was the capital of the 19th nome; Egyptian society under the Greeks and Romans was governed bureaucratically so vast amounts of paper have been found: accounts, tax returns, census material, invoices, receipts, correspondence on administrative, military, religious, economic, and political matters, certificates and licenses of all kinds. Private citizens added their own piles of paper.Picture 2: This one addresses the serious problem of donkeys being driven too quickly through the busy streets of the city.Picture 3 & 4: This little note was written by two friends, Apium and Epimus, to a school mate of theirs, Ephroditos. And it contains the most extraordinary suggestion. ”If you let us bugger you, if it’s okay with you, ”we shall stop thrashing you.” And there’s even a helpful little illustration here (picture n. 4). Picture 5: This is a letter by Diogenes, to one of his employees. ”A thousand times I’ve written to you to cut down the vines of pohaya. ”But today again I get a letter from you asking what should be done. ”To which I reply - ”Cut them down. Cut them down. Cut them down. Cut them down ”and cut them down.Oxyrhynchus, Al Minya, Egypt -- source link
#*heavy breathing*