Saturday 22 November 2014

An original ancient horoscope (from the Oxyrhynchus collection)!



It doesn't seem like much but the image you see above depicts a  miraculously preserved ancient horoscope! It is a horoscope in its textual form that was habitual in that period and it derives from the Hellenistic Egypt, which is the cradle of modern, "horoscopic" Astrology! There, the ancient Greeks (in collaboration with Egyptian, Jewish etc. priests and scholars) created two thousand years ago an incredibly sophisticated Astrology, which is the precursor to the one we are practicing today.

This horoscope was found in the ruins of the Hellenistic city of Oxyrhynchus (160 km south of modern Cairo), which is located on the banks of a Nile's tributary. In this region the holly egyptian fish which in Greek is called "oxyrhynchus" (sturgeon) was abounding, hence the name of the city (which was the third largest in Hellenistic Egypt). It is a horoscope written on papyrus, which remained relatively intact for 18 whole centuries because it was buried in the Egyptian desert sand - in some ideal that is for its maintenance conditions. In fact this papyrus was found - along with thousands of others and dozens of horoscopes - in the ancient rubbish dump of the city of Oxyrhynchus!

Wednesday 12 November 2014

A Fascinating Glimpse Into the Hellenistic Astrology through the miraculously Preserved Oxyrynchus Papyri !


The Oxyrhynchus papyri are a sort of time capsule miraculously preserving not only the literature but the daily life as well that was taking place some 2000 years ago, in the so called "Hellenistic Era"! Actually these papyri were discovered at an archeological excavation of an ancient rubbish dump near the Hellenistic city of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt (one of the largest cities back then). Among some unknown-until-now literary works and many everyday, prosaic documents (like transactions' receipts, petitions and wedding invitations) there have been found many scraps of horoscopes - mostly in a textual form. These horoscopes are revealing to us the methods, the skills and the shortcomings of the astrologers of the time!

You may attend my online lecture "A Fascinating Glimpse Into the Hellenistic Astrology through the miraculously Preserved Oxyrynchus Papyri!" at the IAA's "Breaking down the Borders III" mega online Astrology Conference, taking place at the weekend Friday 14 - Sunday 16, November 2014. You will find my lecture at the "Traditional Track", on Saturday, Novemeber 15, 2014 - at 11:30 am U.S.A. EST time. At 4:30 pm European GMT time. At 3:30 am Australian EDT (Sun., Nov. 16, 2014)

Thomas Gazis