Introduction

Abstract

Abstract The site of the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus lies some 180 km south of Cairo, at the junction between a desert route from the Small (Bahriya) Oasis and the major watercourse running along western edge of the Nile valley, the Bahr Yusuf. The town, called Permedjed in Egyptian, was already in Pharaonic times the centre of its administrative region (the Nineteenth nome). It had an important cult of Thoeris, the hippopotamus-goddess of childbirth, and later also a cult of the ‘sharp-nosed’ fish, the oxyrhynchos, from which the town derived its Greek name. Under Ptolemaic and Roman rule Oxyrhynchus became an increasingly important centre of regional administration, reaching a peak of prosperity in the Byzantine period. After the Arab conquest of Egypt it retained some significance, suffering a sharp decline only under the Mamelukes. The site of the ancient city was abandoned, but its impressive limestone ruins became a source of building material and lime for the remaining inhabitants of Bahnasa, the small town which now clings to the western bank of the Bahr Yusuf, and of the equally modest Sandafa al-Fâr on the opposite bank. Part of the site has also been covered in modern times by a cemetery.