Join hands to decode ancient documents

Hundreds of thousands of pieces of papyrus were discovered more than 100 years ago in a warehouse in the city of Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, which was posted on the internet in the hope that many people will join them to decipher them.

These papyrus pieces contain ancient Greek characters written during the Egyptian period controlled by Greeks (then Roman). These documents contain very different content, from letters, receipts, literary works to other private stories. They were discovered in 1896 but until now scholars have been able to decipher about 2% only. Many texts have not been read by anyone in over 1,000 years.

These papyrus pieces contain ancient Greek characters

The digitization and the introduction of these ancient documents on the internet is a collaboration between scientists at Oxford University and the Egyptian Research Society. This website is called Ancient Live, http://ancientlives.org/. Visiting here will see a character board below the screen to compare and contrast with the ancient characters. So even though you are not an expert, you can translate these documents.

Among the decoded documents there are many interesting things, such as the story of Jesus chasing demons , Sappo 's poet masterpiece, Menander 's script and Sophocles .