THE RUBBISH HEAP

A few years ago, during the preparations for my production of Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound at

the Royal Dramatic Theatre, I came into closer contact with a remarkable ancient rubbish heap.

Outside of circles of archaeologists, classicists, papyrologists, and the occasional philologist, it is

still quite an unknown story.

The rubbish heap, discovered as early as 1896, is located on the outskirts of the lost city of

Oxyrhynchus in central Egypt. The city’s lasted for almost 900 years, from Ptolemaic rule in the

4th century BC through Roman rule to the Arab conquest in the 7th century AD. When the canal

to the Nile slowly silted up during the 7th century, the city was abandoned and subsequently

forgotten. English archaeologists began excavating the sand dunes in the late 19th century and

uncovered the remains of one of antiquity’s largest free-standing theaters, with seating for over

11,000 spectators. They discovered squares, street networks, building foundations, and

irrigation systems. The archaeologists concluded that the city had once been Egypt’s third-

largest city.

However, the most significant find by far was the rubbish heap, which in some places was

9 meters deep and contained over 500,000 papyrus fragments.

Already in the first shovelful, unknown apocryphal biblical texts with sayings of Jesus and poems

by Sappho were discovered. It soon became clear that the rubbish heap contained fragments of

the entire known corpus of Western ancient literature, mixed with previously lost texts by

authors such as Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Homer, and Simonides, as well as many more

by unknown authors, theologians, philosophers, and mathematicians. It turned out that the

rubbish heap held the single richest find of ancient papyrus.

What is perhaps most special about the rubbish heap is not the literary fragments but all the

traces of everyday life. Unknown writers jotted down a shopping list, an inventory of what to

pack in the boat, the price of figs at the market, how many sacks of flour to deliver to one of the

40 churches, a letter to a daughter, or a registration of a child’s birth or death.

Today, all that remains of the city of Oxyrhynchos is rubble and sand. Yet, thanks to the rubbish

heap, we know more about this city than any other ancient city. We know where the fisherman

Thonis, the vegetable seller Philammon, and the dyer Anicetus lived. We know what farmers

had to pay when they brought dates, olives, and pumpkins to the market. We know that the

eight-year-old slave Epaphroditus tragically died on November 2, 182 AD, when he leaned out

of a bedroom window to get a better view of the dancers on the street below. We know that

Apollonius and Sarapis sent a thousand roses and four thousand narcissi to a friend’s wedding,

and we know what Paul wrote to Mary. Through the 500,000 papyrus fragments, we gain an

intimate glimpse into everyday life in a lost city spanning the period from 300 BC to 600 AD.

(Image from the excavation)

The project Sophögen (The Rubbish Heap) aims to introduce the city of Oxyrhynchos and its

history to a Swedish audience. The concept is to create a comprehensive book featuring

translations of a representative selection from the entire heap. A total of 500 translated papyri

will be published, accompanied by an appendix of supplementary texts and extensive

annotations. The project is divided into three parts: books, exhibitions, and performances.

Work began last winter, with translators Jan Stolpe, Lars-Håkan Svensson, and Daniel

Samuelsson continuously translating selections from approximately 6,000 deciphered and

published fragments (primarily from the editions of The Egypt Exploration Society/Oxford and

the Italian PSI). Only a few fragments in this selection have previously been translated and

published in Swedish. The project also involves collaboration with institutions specializing in

Ancient Greek, papyrology, and antiquity at the universities of Stockholm, Uppsala, and

Gothenburg.

Supplementary texts are being written by contributors such as Paul Linjamaa (historian of

religion in Lund), Denis Searby (professor and papyrologist at Stockholm University), and

Luigi Prada (professor in Uppsala).Three Parts

The project’s first stop is an exhibition at Galleri Duerr in Stockholm in February 2025. In

connection with the opening, an artist book will be published by Ellerström, linked to the

exhibition and the discovery in Oxyrhynchos.

The larger publication, the book The Rubbish Heap in Oxyrhynchos, will be released by

Ellerström’s publishing house in September 2025 and will be accompanied by a series of

seminars at the Mediterranean Museum in the fall of 2025.

At the same time as the book release, a theater production will take place at Orionteatern in

Stockholm. The performance takes the form of an exhibition, where the audience can come and

go as they wish during a 5-hour period. The core of the performance is an audio piece with

35 separate sound sculptures. The material is the fragments. At irregular intervals, played scenes

will emerge in the space, using fragments from unknown plays, letters, grotesques, mimes, slave

auctions, and much more. The performance will feature three actors, a puppeteer, a singer, four

elderly extras, and three musicians.

Karl Dunér

December 2, 2025

www.karlduner.com

073-9605597