Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 7

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 7 (P. Oxy. 7) is a papyrus discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. It was discovered by Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt in 1897 in Oxyrhynchus, and published in 1898. It dates to the third century AD.[1] The papyrus is currently housed in the British Library.[2]

P. Oxy. 7

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 7 was the first non-biblical papyrus from the site to be published.[3] It preserves part of a poem by the archaic Greek poet Sappho.[lower-alpha 1][3] When the papyrus was first published, Grenfell and Hunt wrote that "it is not very likely that we shall find another poem of Sappho". In 1906, however, a major cache of literary fragments from the remains of two private libraries were discovered – the source of the majority of the Sappho fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus.[4]

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 7 measures 19.7 cm × 9.6 cm, and is written in an uncial hand.[5] Parts of twenty lines of a poem written in Sapphic stanzas survive, with one and a half feet missing from the beginning of each line.[6]

See also

• Oxyrhynchus Papyri
• Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 6
• Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 8
• Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1231

Notes

1. The poem preserved is Sappho 5 in Voigt's numeration.

References

1. Grenfell, B. P.; Hunt, A. S. (1898). Oxyrhynchus Papyri I. London. p. 11.
2. P. Oxy. 7 at the Oxyrhynchus Online
3. Obbink, Dirk (2014). "Two New Poems by Sappho". Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. 189: 32.
4. Williamson, Margaret (1995). Sappho's Immortal Daughters. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 48. ISBN 9780674789135.
5. Grenfell, B. P.; Hunt, A. S. (1898). Oxyrhynchus Papyri I. London. pp. 10–11.
6. Grenfell, B. P.; Hunt, A. S. (1898). Oxyrhynchus Papyri I. London. p. 10.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: B. P. Grenfell; A. S. Hunt (1898). Oxyrhynchus Papyri I. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.