Ancient Lives Project

Schoolchildren, pensioners and office workers are helping scholars at Oxford University to transcribe 2,000-year-old documents. In the 1890s archaeologists dug up a huge haul of papyri written in ancient Greek in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. But until last year, scholars had managed to translate just 1% of them. Now the Ancient Lives project has enlisted thousands of internet users, who have already helped to transcribe more texts than diligent scholars had managed in the previous 100 years. Everything from shopping lists to a new gospel has been revealed in this extraordinary example of 'citizen science'.