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Egypt Exploration Society / Oxford Imaging Papyri Project
A 3rd-century papyrus fragment contains a snippet of text from a non-canonical Christian gospel.
Scientists are recruiting thousands of armchair archaeologists to help them decipher a "lost" gospel and other fragments of texts from ancient Egypt.
The Ancient Lives project draws upon the same type of people power that drives citizen-science projects such as Galaxy Zoo, Planet Hunters, Foldit and EteRNA. In all these cases, legions of human eyes and brains can do a better job of sifting through massive databases than supercomputers. For this particular project, however, the monster database that needs to be tamed does not consist of sky-survey data or molecular combinations — rather, they're ink letters, scrawled in Greek on centuries-old bits of papyrus.
Oxford University launched Ancient Lives just a couple of days ago, but project leader Chris Lintott told me that more than 400,000 papyrus images have already been served up as of today. "It's been a crazy few days," he said in an email.
Deluge of documents
That's the kind of participation Ancient Lives will need in order to cope with the deluge of documents from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. More than a century ago, archaeologists unearthed piles of papyrus pieces in an ancient rubbish dump near an Egyptian city once known as Oxyrhynchus, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Cairo. The manuscripts have been dated to between the 1st and the 6th century, covering a time when Greek and Roman culture was dominant in Egypt.
Egypt Exploration Society / Oxford Imaging Papyri Project
This papyrus from the 2nd or 3rd century is inscribed with an ink drawing showing the goddess Agnoia ("Ignorance"), from an illustrated edition of Menander's comedy "Perikeiromene," or "The Girl Who Had Her Hair Shorn."
Since its discovery, the treasure trove has yielded up some masterpieces of the age, including the comedies of Menander, the poems of Sappho and the gnostic Gospel of Thomas. Thousands of fragments have been cataloged and decoded. The only problem is, there are hundreds of thousands of fragments to go.
"Most of these haven't been read, and they weren't cataloged in what must have been extremely trying conditions in the field," said Lintott, an Oxford physicist and one of the pioneers behind Galaxy Zoo and its Zooniverse spin-offs. "As a result, our professional colleagues have been searching blind for the last century, like trying to do research by randomly selecting books off the Bodleian Library shelves."
University of Minnesota physicist Lucy Fortson, another project leader, said the fragments are completely out of sequence. "It's like if you have thousands of puzzles, take all the pieces and mix them together in one big box. Then you try to put the puzzles together," she said in a news release. "It's an enormous task."
Now the puzzle pieces have been digitized and made available for any Internet user to peruse.
"Until now, only experts could explore this incredible collection," Lintott said in this week's project announcement. "But with so much of the collection unstudied, there's plenty for everyone. We're excited to see what visitors can unearth."
Other leaders of the effort include Oxford's William MacFarlane, the lead developer and designer; James Brusuelas, the team's papyrologist; and Paul Ellis, an imaging specialist who helped digitize the texts. "It's with the digital advancements of our own age that we're able to open up this window into the past, and see a common human experience in that intimate, traditional medium, handwriting," MacFarlane said.
How you can help
The beauty part is that you don't even have to know Greek to help out. The online interface asks only that you compare the letters on each fragment with the shapes displayed on a keyboard. Lintott told me that the current plan calls for each fragment to be checked five times or so, to take advantage of the wisdom of crowds. Think of it as a variant of the "Captcha" type-in-the-phrase system that's used to block spammers.
Another task involves measuring the dimensions of the fragments, to help scholars figure out which fragments go together. You don't need a ruler: A click-and-drag measuring tool does all the work.
The transcribed fragments will be sent over to experts in ancient manuscripts for review, translation and potential publication. Will Internet users get credit for the work they've done? "Absolutely," Lintott said, "as with all Zooniverse projects, we'll take great care to attribute credit correctly."
Among the items recently picked out of the pile are fragments of a previously unknown apocryphal gospel that describes Jesus casting out demons, a lost play by Euripides titled "Melanippe the Wise" and newfound letters attributed to the philosopher Epicurus.
Who knows what else is waiting to be discovered? If you've ever wanted to put on an Indiana Jones fedora and delve into ancient mysteries, here's your chance. This tutorial shows you how the job is done, and this Zooniverse page is where you sign up to participate.
Update for 5:30 p.m. ET Aug. 1: Over the weekend, Oxford papyrologist James Brusuelas sent an email with further details about the juiciest bits of papyri:
"Gospel: In its current edited state, the gospel has not been overtly connected to any other sources. It remains a hot topic amongst historians of religion and Christianity. One must think about how the wider apocryphal (i.e., not included in the accepted canon of biblical texts) and biblical stories of Jesus relate to and inform the very act of casting out demons. Where does this particular narrative fit in the tradition of Jesus' acts? We have the text, we've identified it. Now it has to be studied and debated (that's why this project can be so cool).
"As for Euripides, we have the gist of the mythological story concerning Melanippe, her rape or seduction at the hands of Poseidon and the subsequent birth of twin sons, whom she tries to hide from her father Aeolus. All we know about the play is that it roughly begins as such:
"The children were hidden in a stable and discovered by a herdsman, who thought they were the unnatural offspring of a cow.
"Aeolus is persuaded to kill the twin as unnatural beings.
"Melanippe steps forward to rationally defend the children as the offspring of an unidentified girl.
"We've learned this from other sources that have quoted and given the background story to the myth, such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Aristotle, and Aristophanes.
"This roughly amounts to about 60 lines of the original text; everything pertains to the beginning of the story.
"Why is she wise? Her mother, Hippe, was the daughter of the wise centaur Chiron, the teacher and tutor of such great heroes as Ajax, Achilles, and Jason.
"How does the play unfold? We have no idea. And we don't know what we'll find, but we are waiting to learn how this story turns out."
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Leave a Comment:
Your use of the term "Citizen Science" reminded me of an article I just read today about a similar sub-discipline: Citizen History: http://futureofmuseums.blogspot.com/2011/07/more-crowdsourced-scholarship-citizen.html.
How do they know which way the paper goes in the picture it could be upside down. How do they even translate a laungage that no one knows?
They probably do know the language, but transcribing it all would take more man-hours than they could possibly manage. Hence transcribing it by a keyboard that the volunteer clicks.
For most any fragment at least as large as a single letter, it's easy to tell which way's up.
Most (maybe all) of the fragments are written in a known language, Koine Greek. Or maybe you misunderstood what they were asking people to do--they're not asking people to translate it, just transcribe it (convert the pictures into sequences of Greek characters). Once it's been transcribed, anyone who knows Greek can read and translate it--although I believe the real motivation is not to read the individual fragments (which anyone who knows Greek could already do), but to use computers to piece together the broken text from the fragments into coherent whole texts that can be read.
Another helpful hint as to which way is up on the paper is to look at the orientation of the "grains" in the paper. It wouldn't be a perfect way to do it, but from the photographs, you can clearly see a linear pattern in the fabric of the paper. So first, you would orient all the fragments in the same orientation, then since the 2nd photograph clearly shows a picture of a person, you could easily assume that the writing would be orientated in the same up down configuration as the picture. After all, not too many people will draw pictures upside down compared to their writing.
If all the writing is of the same language, and you have pieces with a clear association between writing and pictures, you can then take those samples of writing and look for them elsewhere on other sheets and orientate the sheets. New characters then could also be used to orientate other sheets.
Sorry for the rambling answer. I haven't had coffee yet this morning.
anyone see toilet paper around?
How did they know that is the lost gospel?
They gotta be kidding.
The Gospel is closed.
The gospel canon is closed. There were many "gospels" circulating in the first four centuries that didn't make the cut. Many have been found and probably many more will be found. Anyone who thinks the four canonical gospels, i.e., Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are the end of the story is a little bit deluded and also missing some of the great views of Jesus from the very earliest Christians.
hei
Thisby, the primary reason the apocryphal gospels weren't included in the modern cannon (which is NOT closed in all denominations) is because authorship couldn't be confirmed. That means we had no way of knowing if the author really WAS Thomas, or Judas, or whoever it claimed to be, or if it was someone looking to make a quick buck. Falsifying such documents was big money in that day and for centuries following, as was writing what someone wanted to read rather than the truth (just look at Josephus's histories).
Lets not forget that those in religious power are the ones that can dictate what gospels are excluded. You dont seriously think that they would let any passages or gospels get into print that would in any way lessen their power or control over the masses?
C. Smith - what makes you labor under the assumption that the canonical gospels' authorship can be confirmed? The earliest mention of Matthew and Mark's being ascribed to the respective texts that now bear their name is from Papias c. 120-135 C.E. It is Irenaeus who ascribes Luke to his c. 180 C.E., and it is the heresiarch Heracleon (of all people) who ascribes John to his c. 140-150 C.E.
You write: "That means we had no way of knowing if the author really WAS Thomas, or Judas, or whoever it claimed to be".
Precisely. And the same fact happens to hold true for the four revered canonical Gospels as well. We don't know who wrote them either. I wouldn't put any bets upon the people to who they are attributed, anyway. None of them are eyewitness accounts of the events they purport to relate - for example, conveying absolutely no sense of historical verisimilitude at cardinal points, not to mention none of them being written in the first-person (as one might expect from a personal relation of an eyewitness).
I'm afraid that lionizing the "Four That Got In" the canon as "true and authentic" because some ancient Bishop or Church Father said so and condemning as heretical forgeries all these "Lost Gospels" (again) because some ancient Bishop or Church Father said so holds about as much water as a cheese grater.
That "cheese grater" comment reveals nothing so brilliantly as it does the shallowness and vulgarity of such thinking.
The Apostle John was an eyewitness to the life of Jesus Christ and His sayings, and it was his testimony about the books written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul, Peter, and Jude that we have in the CLOSED Canon, that made them authentic in the understanding of the church.
Just as the Hebrew bible was a CLOSED canon by the authority of the prophets, e.g., Zechariah (13) and Isaiah (8:16-20), so also the New Testament is a CLOSED canon by the authority of the prophets, e.g. Isaiah and John (Revelation 5:1).
There is nothing accidental or random in the Kingdom of God.
Randomness is the stock-in-trade of those who pride themselves on being "scientists."
But we believe in a divine revelation which is "precept upon precept; precept upon precept; line upon line; line upon line; here a little and there a little" and is in that level of detail far too unified, coherent, meaningful, and complete to ever have been fabricated by the mind of man.
If the atheist cannot find the unity, coherence, meaning, or completeness therein, it is because these things have been hidden from that kind of impatient, base, and ugly thing which is unworthy of it.
John knew Matthew, he knew Mark, knew Luke, knew Paul and Peter. There is a reason that Jesus kept him alive in the world until after Paul had converted the Gentiles and Peter had converted the Jews and these two had then gone on each to his rest. It was JOHN's verbal testimony at the end of the first century that put the stamp of authenticity on the canonical books of the New Testament. This seal of completeness and authenticity was itself authentic and authoritative. It cannot be broken by mere man, least of all by atheistic "scientists."
"This is the disciple which testifies of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.."
You take it or you leave it. This cannot be changed. It's far too late for that. The skeptics will challenge this, but then, they have been challenging every facet and feature of the Christian gospel ever since they first began murdering those who preach it.
It is enough to say that these fragments were found in the trash, and include some of the writings of Sappho. Clearly, someone of antiquity knew where these pages belonged then, as now.
You will find nothing of the Christian gospel in these intellectually and spiritually worthless documents.
I find it funny that you christians always seem to think that we atheists weren't at one time full blown christians. Not that all of us were but most of us. We've read your holy books and we have rejected them as false and misleading. We find them useless as guidebooks for morality, truth or how we ought to live our lives. Don't preach to us because we have already been preached to and we now rely on reason, logic, sound scientific theory base our worldview on rather than majic, conjecture and pure speculation left to the interpretation of anyone and everyone.
Here is a good litmus test for finding truth: if 99% of the people who study X agree on a particular subject then it is probably true. example: evolution. most evolutionary scientists agree on the subject of evolution. if 99% of the people who study Y disagree on the subject then it is probably false. example: god. most theologians don't agree on god. there are jewish theologians, baptist, protestant, southern baptist, lutherans, catholics, muslims, hindus and on and on and on.
This maybe some religious documents the Catholic church decided to discard because it didn't make the religion sound as appealing upon the foundation. Even if there are more contradictions disproving Christianity, they will again be conveniently ignored by the religious right. I hope though however this adds to the piles of evidence how barbaric the Christians were at that time. Other than that, I do not see how it provides any more scientific advancement for the betterment of mankind.
The pieces contain not only parts of lost writings about Christianity ( possibly Gospels ) but also literary works and letters from philosphers and great thinkers of the day.
Volunteers are not helping only to transcribe missing Gospels but also various other works. No one knows how many different items may be contained in all the scraps.
I'm surprised though, that they haven't got a computer program to scan all the pieces and put them together like a jigsaw puzzle. Seems a tremendous waste of human time when this is a task that could be handled by computer. Transcribing the text, though, would probably need a human hand and eye, but at least they could have complete documents to be transcribed.
@Phil. Your making the same mistake most people make when using the term 'Christian'. There are many who claim to be Christians, but Jesus himself said, there would come time when 'many would come on the basis of my name...and will mislead many'. (Matthew 24: 5) Remember, just because a religion 'claims' to be Christian, and its leaders 'claim' to be Christ deciples, does'nt mean they are. (Matthew 7:15-20, 22,23)
What is ironic about this is that many Christians will quickly denounce those "Christians" that commit any violent acts of a terrorists nature and or cults that claim they are Christian that do bad things. But they have no problem saying that all Muslims are terrorists.
Perhaps those that lump the actions of extremists in any religion should pick up a dictionary to read up on what the word extremist actually means.
IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!!!
Hahahah, "Twilight Zone" - "How to Serve Man"
I have translated it. It says:
"You are wrong and I am right"
I just had an insight since these fragments were all found at a dumping site....could they have been on the shelves of the Alexander Library that was sacked and burnt but the Romans. This could be a plie of discards from that fire....? Just a thought....It seems that there are so many different writings from Roman and Egyptain to the Gospels....I will send this on to the Zoo and see what they think. Just an insight folks so don't go over board telling me what an idiot I am...OK...
I think this is a great oppotunity for all of us armchair archeologists to do a little"field work".
I think these are books that have been copied by scribes and then discarded, with many of the new copies also lost. Oxyrhncus was an important city on the Fayum Canal and it must have had a library, which were as popular as baths in Roman times.
If you are going to participate, Googling Oxyrhyncus will give you some background on how these fragments were found and will add some context to what you will be doing.
I think it is funny that whenever Christianity is brought up in an article it becomes ok for everyone to bash it. As someone who has studied how the Bible was brought together I can obviously see that the "Bible Experts" in this thread don't know what they are talking about. The gospels were chosen to give who power and control over the masses? What are your sources for this claim? Regarding the Muslim/Christian comment, what a fallacy! The Bible takes on many forms of literature and one of those forms is History. The Bible shares what happened in history but that doesn't mean the God of the Bible approves of what happened. Just an FYI, the Bible doesn't document any Christians committing acts of terrorism so again what is your source?
The Bible itself, This sounds like terrorism to me....
Leviticus 21:9
A priest's daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death.
Leviticus 21:9
And the daughter of any priest…
The Targum of Jonathan restrains it to one that is betrothed; but others, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra, whether betrothed or married; and all confess, as the former says, that the Scripture does not speak of one that is single or entirely free: but there is no exception in the text; and besides, the daughter of any man that was betrothed to a man, and guilty of the crime here spoken of, was to die, (Deuteronomy 22:23,24) ; and therefore such a law respecting the priest's daughter would be needless; unless it can be thought that it was made merely for the sake of the different kind of death she was to be put to, and that burning was a more terrible one than stoning:
if she profane herself by playing the whore;
which brings scandal and disgrace on any person, and much more on anyone that had the honour of being related to a person in such a sacred office, and the advantage of a more strictly religious education, and had eaten of the holy things in her father's house; all which were aggravations of her crime, and made it the more scandalous and reproachful to her: some render it, "when she begins to play the whore" F2; as soon as ever it is discovered in her, and she is taken in it; even for the first that she commits, she is not to be spared, but put to death:
she profaneth her father:
which is another aggravation of her sin; she brings him under disgrace, disparages his office, and exposes him to censure, reproach, and ridicule, as not having taken care of her education, and taught her better, and kept her under restraints; men will upbraid him with it, saying, this is a priest's daughter that has committed this lewdness; nor will say of him, as Jarchi observes, cursed be he that begat her, and cursed be he that brought her up:
she shall be burnt with fire;
not with hot melted lead poured down her mouth, but with faggots set about her; (See Gill on 20:14); no punishment is here fixed for the person that lay with her, but, according to the Jewish canons F3, she was to be strangled.
Isaiah 13:15-18
Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children.
An evil book with evil intentions to allow one class to rule over another through fear. The definition of terrorism.
Does anyone know why the collection bears the species name of the fish Atlantic sturgeon (genus Acipenser)? Recently (say 5 years ago) the species spelling was corrected to oxyrinchus because a senior synonym was found. Does that mean they need to correct the name of the collection?
Wow this is way over my head--- you smart guys get at it- I will love to read what you come up with
Volunteers are making headway, link.
blogs.zooniverse.org/ancientlives/2011/10/08/how-to-identify-a-papyrus-fragment/
Does anyone know why Oxyrhynchus, as used in the article, is the genus name for several species of sturgeon? The spelling was recently revised to Oxyrinchus, by the way. Was sturgeon a holy fish? What is the connection? Some species can be quite large, so could the implication be that Jonah was swallowed by a sturgeon? Improbable in reality, but these fish can be so impressively huge that ancient people may have chosen them for the story or, more likely, recent people may have adopted the name for a group of big fish.