Ancient Lives -- Help us to Transcribe Papyri [Photographs courtesy of Credit Body -- University of Oxford]
I did a few translations of Oxy Papyrus in grad school, spells mostly. It is a fascinating collection.
Not sure why they picked that particular fragment to illustrate the story.
Was it because it looks like a bear thumbing its nose; or because it looks like a parody map of the west coast of Britain?
Hmmm ....
B ... U ... L ... L ... W ... I ... N ... K ... L ... E ...... I ... S ...... A ...... D ... O ... P ... E ......
I think it`s a bunch of lost emails from Arab Springtime:
one fragment:
line 1 mia pinet = `someone drinks` ??
line 2 orontte p [orontes river?]
line 3 ein osa kai ro = `which` [`and`] —or `Cairo`
line 4 xios tela an = or `600` or `Chios` [island] `would end`
line 5 i_g ep
line 6 e egei = `raise [d]`[up?], `awaken`?
line 7 g
line 8 kith = `harp`
other fragment:
einen `which`[?]
xoros dancing
translation: 600 guys from Cairo were having a bash on the Ortontes River, comlete with a pole dancer with her harp player loud enough to raise the dead. The locals thought it would never end.