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Thursday, April 02, 2020

They were still excavating Oxyrhynchus in 2020.

OXYRHYNCHUS WATCH: New findings in Oxyrhynchus archaeological site (University of Barcelona press release).
The archaeological mission returned this March to the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. The work had to finish early due to the COVID-19 epidemics, although the campaign could focus on the study of architectonic structures and funerary rituals from the Saite Period (corresponding to the Late Period of Egypt, which started in the 7th century BC) until the Christian-Byzantine period.

[...]
And they are still finding inscribed materials:
They highlighted the remains of a papyrus with a Greek carved text, which is under study, and a gravestone with an engraved text in Coptic.
The phrase "Greek carved text" is "una inscripciĆ³ en grec" in the Catalan release: "a Greek inscription."

For earlier substantive PaleoJudaica posts on the Oxyrhynchus papyri, see here links, and also the blog archive. For the recent scandal of the missing Oxyrhynchus papyri, see here and links.

UPDATE: I have adjusted my title to make clear that the excavation has been suspended due to the coronavirus crisis.

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