Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus

Abstract

This work presents nearly two hundred hitherto unpublished astronomical texts and horoscopes written in Greek on papyrus. The papyri are part of the collection excavated at Oxyrhynchus by Grenfell and Hunt for the Egypt Exploration Society (P. Oxy.), and a provisional list of contents, without texts, was published in P. Oxy. LXI. The present volume is thus a complement to the series, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Through these texts we obtain the first coherent picture of the range of astronomical activity, chiefly in the service of astrology, during the Roman Empire. The astronomy of this period turns out to have been much more varied than we previously thought, with Babylonian arithmetical methods of prediction coexisting with tables based on geometrical models of orbits. Editions of the texts are accompanied by facing translations and explanatory and philological commentaries. The introduction provides the first comprehensive treatment of astronomical papyri, explaining their contents and purpose, the underlying astronomical theories, and strategies for analysing and dating them.