Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 18 (P. Oxy. 18) is a fragment of the first book of the ''
Histories'' of
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...
(chapters 105-106), written in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
. It was discovered by
Grenfell and
Hunt
Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/ hide, bone/tusks, horn/antler, e ...
in 1897 in
Oxyrhynchus
Oxyrhynchus (; grc-gre, Ὀξύρρυγχος, Oxýrrhynchos, sharp-nosed; ancient Egyptian ''Pr-Medjed''; cop, or , ''Pemdje''; ar, البهنسا, ''Al-Bahnasa'') is a city in Middle Egypt located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo ...
. The fragment is dated to the third century. It is housed in the
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
(Department of Manuscripts). The text was published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1898.
[P. Oxy. 18]
at the Oxyrhynchus Online
The manuscript was written on
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
in the form of a roll. The measurements of the fragment are 182 by 87 mm. The fragment contains 13 lines of text. The text is written in a good-sized round formal
uncial
Uncial is a majuscule Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall. (1996) ''Encyclopedia of the Book''. 2nd edn. New Castle, DE, and London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one ...
hand. The style of writing resembles
great biblical codices. It has deep margins. The fragment supports the manuscript tradition though there are a few variations in the form of words representing differences in dialect.
See also
*
Oxyrhynchus Papyri
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt (, mo ...
*
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 17 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 17 (P. Oxy. 17) is a fragment of the second book of Thucydides' ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' (chapters 7-8), written in Greek. It was discovered by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897 in Oxyrhynchus. The fragment is dated to the ...
*
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 19 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 19 (P. Oxy. 19) is a fragment of the first book of the '' Histories'' of Herodotus (chapter 76), written in Greek. It was discovered by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897 in Oxyrhynchus. The fragment is dated to the second or third centu ...
References
{{P.Oxy.I.source
018
3rd-century manuscripts
Herodotus