Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 26 (P. Oxy. 26) is a fragment of ''Prooimia Demegorica'' (26-29) by
Demosthenes
Demosthenes (; el, Δημοσθένης, translit=Dēmosthénēs; ; 384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prow ...
, 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, et ...
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 second 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. 26]
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 115 by 526 mm. The text on recto is written in a medium-sized
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. There are occasional stops and marks, a few corrections were made in a later
half-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, p. 494. script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th t ...
hand. Grenfell and Hunt collated the text of the manuscript on the basis of the Dindor-Blass edition (1885).
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 25 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 25 (P. Oxy. 25) is a fragment of Demosthenes' speech "On the Crown", written in Greek. It was discovered by Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt in 1897 at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, and first published by them in 1898.
*
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 27
References
026
2nd-century manuscripts
{{OxyrhynchusGR-stub