John Rea, an Ulsterman from Belfast, was Lecturer in Documentary Papyrology, University of Oxford, from 1965 to 1996. His academic achievement was defined by his editions, mainly of documentary texts, in volumes of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri between 1962 and 2002. He had very few peers as an editor of Greek documents on papyrus, of which he published over 500 editions. At the core of his contribution to scholarship are numerous demonstrations that new evidence emerging from the rubbish dumps of Roman Egypt has an impact far beyond the parochial and sometimes ephemeral matters of the province of Egypt.
Posted to Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy, 23