City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish

In 1897 two Oxford archaeologists began digging a low sand-covered mound a hundred miles south of Cairo. When they had finally finished, ten years later, they had uncovered 500 000 fragments of papyri. Shipped back to Oxford, the meticulous and scholarly

An authentic window on everyday life in the Nile Valley 2,000 years ago An epic story of decoding and deciphering ancient papyri which began in 1897 and is still going on today Received rave reviews on hardback publication: 'The story... is a wonderful one, expounded with all the intelligence, humanity, clarity and wit that have ever been the hallmarks of the finest scholarship' Literary Review 'Parsons has entertainingly revived a noisy, gossiping world of migrant greeks who lived through the decline of Rome and the rise of Christianity' The Times 'A learned and engrossing book' Daily Telegraph 'A wonderfully rich portrait of the people of Oxyrhynchos' Sunday Times 'So rich and so remarkable is the detail that a greed for more soon sets in' Tom Holland, Guardian 'He brilliantly conveys both the difficulty of working on the material and the excitement of the historical detective involved in the thrill of the chase' William Dalrymple, New Statesman

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