Thanks to a tip from Robot Guy, Eric pointed me toward the latest article on the Oxyrhynchus papyri, promising a 20% increase in the body of classical texts. I'd seen an earlier, shorter version of the story but this one made it seem much more significant.

For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure - a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

I doubt they'll be able to produce much of any real significance (i.e. more or less complete works accessible to the public or even the mass of general scholars) for a number of years, having first to photograph the fragments, read them individually, and painstakingly reconstruct texts over time.

Individual scholars will find many tenure-seeking articles in the process and there will doubtless be much speculation and challenges to traditional thought ('For centuries scholars have believed X, but three lines attributed to Hesiod suggest rather that ...').

More importantly, though, scholars like Dirk Obbink (we're lucky to have him at the head) will ensure that the work is done properly and pays out as promised.

It will be a fertile period. And they laughed when I said I wanted to be a classicist. 'It's a dead language,' they'd always say.

But frankly I question the timing. This is a great boon to an Oxford classics program that is currently in a bit of turmoil, suffering criticism of lagging standards and finding itself in a quandary over funding.

Oxyrhynchus to the rescue!