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...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.

In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.

*snip*

The previously unknown texts, read for the first time last week, include parts of a long-lost tragedy - the Epigonoi ("Progeny") by the 5th-century BC Greek playwright Sophocles; part of a lost novel by the 2nd-century Greek writer Lucian; unknown material by Euripides; mythological poetry by the 1st-century BC Greek poet Parthenios; work by the 7th-century BC poet Hesiod; and an epic poem by Archilochos, a 7th-century successor of Homer, describing events leading up to the Trojan War. Additional material from Hesiod, Euripides and Sophocles almost certainly await discovery.

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*graciously changes pants and begins reading The Frogs in anticipation*

check this web page:

http://oxyrhynchus.biography.ms/

The infra-red thing uses the difference in reflection between ink and papyrus under IR light to reveal more letters and words than otherwise might be visible. They tried it a few years back on the Dead Sea Scrolls to great effect, both finding new characters in damaged areas and also being able to confirm the nature of some less-certain characters (on the level of 'is that a j or a messy i?').

Edit: Reassemble your own papyrus fragments

[ 18 April 2005: Message edited by: aRoused ]

But it is hard to read all those distinguished specialists quoted in the Independent article and not think that something special has happened.

I'm not a classics scholar although I've worked with some, and I have a teensy notion of how much it would mean to them to have Archilochos to read. Theories about Homer (and how those works got written, over how long a time, by how many) are rich and various, and any new data added to the discussions could send them in new directions.

[ 18 April 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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...In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia...

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...Now scientists are using multi-spectral imaging techniques developed from satellite technology to read the papyri at Oxford University's Sackler Library. The fragments, preserved between sheets of glass, respond to the infra-red spectrum - ink invisible to the naked eye can be seen and photographed...

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[ 18 April 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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I'm curious to know how they can take a couple of words or a couple of sentences from a fragment and somehow 'know' it's Aeschylus or what have you.

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One way may be that there do exist lists of plays by Aeschylus, plays which had been lost.

I believe he won the Olympic play writing contest several times with plays now unknown.

There also exist numerous references to the lost plays, including character names and even snatches of dialogue.

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and that the new techniques had been used on papyri from Herculaneum, which had been carbonized but in which now the ink could be distinguished from the carbon, or something like that.

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How long have these specific imaging techniques been available?

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