When we think of Greek mathematics, we think of Euclid, Archimedes and Apollonius of Perga: elegant proofs and general rules. Alongside that tradition ran a humbler one, which rarely makes it into textbooks. It was maths for getting a job done, and a new study argues that the people who practised it leaned heavily on […]

For years, a small fragment of papyrus lay unnoticed in the collections of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo. No one had looked closely at it until, in early 2026, Belgian papyrologist Nathan Carlig of the University of Liège realized what he had in front of him: a previously unknown fragment of the […]

In 1919, when someone began to carefully examine the binding of an 8th-century codex preserved in the Chapter Archive of the Cathedral of Barcelona, they discovered that the back cover hid something more than leather and stitches. Beneath the skin, placed in folds, appeared ten fragments of papyrus. More than a century later, six of […]