Papyrus Reveals New Clues to Ancient World

For the first time in over 2,000 years, we are now able to read the classic Greek and Roman literature, which has now opened up a whole new window to the ancient world for us. There is a collection at Oxford called the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, which includes many great writings by Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides. They have used multi-spectral imaging to uncover the texts which include parts of a lost tragedy by Sophocles, a novel by Lucian, and an epic poem by Archilochos. What the researchers hope to gain from this is to rediscover important classical writings and lost Christian gospels which have not made it into the New Testament. This is the first time they are using this technique on non-carbonized ancient manuscripts on papyrus, which is the paper of the ancient world.