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. The manuscripts date from the time of the Ptolemaic (3rd century BC) and Roman periods of Egyptian history (from 32 BC to the Arab conquest of Egypt in 640 AD). Only an estimated 10% are literary in nature. Most of the papyri found seem to consist mainly of public and private documents: codes, edicts, registers, official correspondence, census-returns, tax-assessments, petitions, court-records, sales, leases, wills, bills, accounts, inventories, horoscopes, and private letters. The Oxyrhyn papyrus 222 was discovered in 1897. Ancient Oxyrhynchos was located in Upper Egypt . After connecting Egypt to the Roman Empire , the city became an administrative center inhabited by descendants of Greek immigrants. The waste dumps of this ancient city concealed an enormous amount of papyrus of incalculable value. Papyruses were transported to Oxford where they began working on their reconstruction, which continues to this day. Texts on papyrus include fragments of accounts, wills, litigation, private letters, horoscopes, and other records. They revive the once thriving world of the city's inhabitants, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, and the origins of Christianity. Menalkes is on this greatly damaged papyrus listed in 38th line on the left has the victor is boxing at the Olympics in 468 BC. ----------------------------------------------------------- Unfortunately this is all we know, but a bit of general history never hurt anyone. In fact, most of the boxing history I know comes from general history. So if there's something you've been looking for and can't find it in any boxing history books check out a different history book that his loosely related. Like a history book on the same time period, or specific region, etc. That's not to say boxing historians are bad at what they do, it's just they lack the funds to do the type of research that goes into more mainstream history projects. [url]Heavyweight Champions from Ancient to Present[/url]
