TheRylands Papyri are a collection of thousands ofpapyrus fragments and documents fromNorth Africa andGreece housed at theJohn Rylands University Library,Manchester,UK. The collection includes theRylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the "St John's fragment", a fragment from apapyruscodex, generally accepted as the earliest extant record of aCanonical gospel.^[1][2]

The Rylands Papyri collection held by the John Rylands University Library, is one of the most extensive and wide-rangingpapyrusmanuscript collections in theUnited Kingdom. It includes religious, devotional, literary and administrative texts. The collection includes 7hieroglyphic and 19hieratic papyri which are funerary documents dating from the 14th centuryBCE to the 2nd centuryCE. It also holds 166demotic papyri, mostly dating from thePtolemaic period, including the famousPetition of Petiese (pRylands 9)^[3] from the reign ofDarius I of Persia.^[4]

The collection also houses about 500Coptic papyri, and around 800Arabic papyri consisting of private letters, together with tradesmen's and household accounts. Among the roughly 2,000Greek papyri are the famous fragments of theGospel of John andDeuteronomy, the earliest surviving fragments of theNew Testament and theSeptuagint (Papyrus 957, the Rylands Papyrus iii.458)^[4][5] respectively;Papyrus 31, a fragment of a papyrus manuscript of theEpistle to the Romans; andPapyrus 32, a fragment of theEpistle to Titus. Also held in the collection isPapyrus Rylands 463, a copy of the apocryphalGospel of Mary inGreek, and John Rylands Papyrus 470,a prayer inKoine Greek to theTheotokos, written between 3rd to 9th centuries^[6][7] in brown ink, the earliest known copy of such a prayer. It was acquired by the Library in 1917.^[8]

• Crum, W.E. (1909),Catalogue of the Coptic Manuscripts in the Collection of the John Rylands Library, Manchester{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link). (P.Ryl.Copt.)
• Griffith, F.Ll. (1909),Catalogue of the Demotic Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link). (P.Ryl.Dem.)
  • Volume I: Atlas of Facsimiles.
  • Volume II: Hand-copies of the earlier documents.
  • Volume III: Key-list, Translations, Commentaries and Indices.
• Hunt, A.S. (1911),Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester. Volume I: Literary Texts, Manchester{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link). (P.Ryl. I)
• Johnson, J. de M.; Martin, V.; Hunt, A.S. (1915),Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester. Volume II: Documents of the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, Manchester{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link). (P.Ryl. II)
• Roberts, C.H. (1938),Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester. Volume III: Theological and Literary Texts, Manchester{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) (P.Ryl. III)
• Roberts, C.H.;Turner, E.G. (1938),Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester. Volume IV: Documents of the Ptolemaic, Roman and Byzantine Periods, Manchester{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link). (P.Ryl. IV)

• John Rylands Library
• P.Ryl. I 4 (p⁴ on the list Gregory-Aland) — fragment of theEpistle to the Romans in Greek;
• P. Ryl. I 5 (p⁵ on the list Gregory-Aland) — fragment of theEpistle to Titus in Greek;
• P.Ryl. III 457 (p⁵² on the list Gregory-Aland) — fragment of theGospel of John in Greek; 2nd century;
• P.Ryl. III 458 — fragments of theBook of Deuteronomy in Greek; 2nd century BC;
• P.Ryl. III 463 — Greek manuscript of the apocryphalGospel of Mary; 3rd century

• The Rylands Papyri on theJohn Rylands University Library website
• An Arabic Papyrus From The John Rylands Library, 65 AH / 684-685 CE
• Petition by Pediese, a priest of Amen serving during the reign of Darius I

• 2nd-millennium BC manuscripts
• 1st-millennium BC manuscripts
• 1st-century manuscripts
• 2nd-century manuscripts
• 3rd-century biblical manuscripts
• Biblical manuscripts
• Papyri from ancient Egypt
• University of Manchester
• Egyptian inscriptions
• Arabic inscriptions
• Roman-era Greek inscriptions
• Papyrus collections

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• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from April 2022
• CS1 maint: location missing publisher