Oxyrhynchus
OXYRHYNCHUS
A provincial capital (Coptic, Pemdije), about 200 kilometers south of Cairo, which became a large and important city during the Hellenistic period. In about a.d. 380 it was listed as a diocese with at least 10 churches, in addition to many monasteries in the surrounding region. During the Byzantine period it was the metropolis and commercial center of the province of Arcadia, but it gradually declined under Muslim rule and is now in ruins. Its chief importance lies in the immense collection of papyri discovered there, beginning with the excavations of B. Grenfell and A. Hunt (1897–1907), W. F. Petrie (1922), and Breccia (1927–28). They unearthed thousands of unknown and very important pagan and Christian documents: fragments of classical literature, gospels, apocrypha, Greek and Hebrew hymns, patristic texts, calendars, and inventories of churches, as well as civil and commercial items.
Bibliography: b. p. grenfell et al., eds., The Oxyrhynchus Papyri (London 1898—). k. preisendanz, Papyrusfunde und Papyrusforschung (Leipzig 1933). h. gerstinger, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 7:1324–35. h. delehaye, Analecta Bollandiana (Brussels 1882—) 42 (1924) 83–99.
[g. t. dennis]