Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 7

File:P.Oxy. I 7.jpg

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 7 (P. Oxy. 7) is a papyrus found at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. It was discovered by Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt in 1897, and published in 1898. It dates to the third century AD.{{cite book|last1=Grenfell|first1=B. P.|last2=Hunt|first2=A. S.|title=Oxyrhynchus Papyri I|url=https://archive.org/details/oxyrhynchuspapyr07gren|year=1898|location=London|page=[https://archive.org/details/oxyrhynchuspapyr07gren/page/11 11]}} The papyrus is now in the British Library.[http://163.1.169.40/cgi-bin/library?e=d-000-00---0POxy--00-0-0--0prompt-10---4----ded--0-1l--1-en-50---20-about-1708--00031-001-1-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&c=POxy&cl=CL5.1.1&d=HASH66d2209e4ce504d692ae08 P. Oxy. 7] at the Oxyrhynchus Online

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 7 was the first non-biblical papyrus from the site to be published.{{cite journal|last=Obbink|first=Dirk|title=Two New Poems by Sappho|year=2014|journal=Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik|volume=189|pages=32–49 |jstor=23850358}} It preserves part of a poem by the archaic Greek poet Sappho.{{efn|The poem preserved is Sappho 5 in Voigt's numeration.}} When the papyrus was first published, Grenfell and Hunt wrote that "it is not very likely that we shall find another poem of Sappho". In 1906, however, a major cache of literary fragments from the remains of two private libraries were discovered – the source of the majority of the Sappho fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus.{{cite book|last=Williamson|first=Margaret|title=Sappho's Immortal Daughters|year=1995|publisher=Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge, MA|isbn=9780674789135|page=[https://archive.org/details/sapphosimmortald00marg/page/48 48]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/sapphosimmortald00marg/page/48}}

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 7 measures 19.7 cm × 9.6 cm, and is written in an uncial hand.{{cite book|last1=Grenfell|first1=B. P.|last2=Hunt|first2=A. S.|title=Oxyrhynchus Papyri I|url=https://archive.org/details/oxyrhynchuspapyr07gren|year=1898|location=London|pages=[https://archive.org/details/oxyrhynchuspapyr07gren/page/10 10]–11}} Parts of twenty lines of a poem written in Sapphic stanzas survive, with one and a half feet missing from the beginning of each line.{{cite book|last1=Grenfell|first1=B. P.|last2=Hunt|first2=A. S.|title=Oxyrhynchus Papyri I|url=https://archive.org/details/oxyrhynchuspapyr07gren|year=1898|location=London|page=[https://archive.org/details/oxyrhynchuspapyr07gren/page/10 10]}}