Manchester’s historic John Rylands Library is to take its first major international exhibition to North America, showcasing one of the world’s most significant collections of ancient Egyptian papyri, in a groundbreaking collaboration with the The Harry Ransom Center (HRC) at The University of Texas at Austin.
The HRC is an internationally renowned humanities research library, archive, and museum.
Opening later this month, Lives and Literacy in Ancient Egypt is an immersive exhibition that brings to life the voices of the multilingual, multicultural society of Greco-Roman Egypt. The exhibition features rare papyrus manuscripts – fragile, handwritten documents rarely seen by the public. One key item on showcase is the world’s earliest known New Testament fragment – the St. John fragment – on view in North America for the first time, alongside rare papyri and artifacts from Greco-Roman Egypt. These humble sheets of papyrus revolutionized communication in the ancient world, preserving personal letters, legal petitions, magical spells, medical recipes, and early religious texts.
The John Rylands Library holds one of the finest collections of ancient Egyptian papyri in the world – an outstanding collection that has never been exhibited at scale. This exhibition will bring these remarkable artifacts to North American audiences for the first time supported by key objects from Manchester Museum, together offering an extraordinary glimpse of daily life, revealing the lives of ordinary people and their vibrant cultures along the Nile.
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The project aligns with the recent signing of a strategic alliance between The University of Manchester and The University of Texas at Austin, as well as the formal Friendship Cities agreement signed in March 2025 between Greater Manchester and Austin. The partnership connects the two fastest-growing cities in the UK and US respectively, highlighting the shared commitment to innovation, education, and cultural exchange that defines both metropoles.
The John Rylands Library in Manchester will also host a version of this exhibition in Autumn 2027.
Dr Jeremy Penner, curator of African and near eastern manuscripts at The John Rylands Library, said: “This exhibition focuses on a writing material that had been used in Egypt for millennia but that, in the Greek and Roman periods, survives in remarkable numbers.
“These papyri preserve letters, accounts, and petitions that record the everyday concerns of ordinary people and offer an unusually intimate view of life in the ancient world in ways that stone monuments never could. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to step into this ancient world and encounter these lives at a human scale, through the fragile traces they left behind.”
Professor Christopher Pressler, university librarian and director of The John Rylands Library, added: “Lives and Literacy in Ancient Egypt will open new chapters in international academic collaboration while bringing world-class scholarship to diverse audiences. The exhibition represents the beginning of what promises to be an ongoing partnership between these two distinguished institutions.”
Professor Angelia Wilson, associate vice president international at The University of Manchester, said: “Lives and Literacy in Ancient Egypt is a powerful example of what international collaboration can achieve. Bringing together the expertise of The University of Manchester and the University of Texas at Austin, this exhibition reflects our shared commitment to research, culture and global connection.
“As someone who grew up in Texas and now calls Manchester home, I’m especially proud to see these two places come together in such a meaningful way.”
