The Independent News reports on scientists who have begun to unlock the secrets of papyrus scraps bearing long-lost words by the literary giants of Greece and Rome.
For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure – a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.
Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.
Classical sitcoms?t m), I do!
It’s truly wonderful news. Another yeah for technology! I worried reading it that someone was pulling my leg. When I learned about the Oxyrhynchus papyrus (high school=dark ages) it seemed a hopeless case. But let’s not forget, “It could easily double the surviving body of lesser work – the pulp fiction and sitcoms of the day.” I want to see a production of an ancient Greek sitcom (http://www.ancienthistory.about.com/b/a/048609.h
I read it.
It’s the overwrought story of a “famed symbologist” and a “top cryptographer” who, in spite of working together, STILL manage to take an average of 15 pages longer than the reader to decypher EACH clue as they uncover the centuries-old mystery behind a recent murder in the Louvre.
Re:Classical sitcoms?
Papyri! Visualize a classical Homer (Simpson) saying “Doh”. My deepest apologies to my high school Latin teacher.