The Archive of Thotsutmis, Son of Panouphis presents for the first time one of the largest collections of Demotic ostraca to have been discovered intact by archaeologists in the twentieth century. Rarely have such deposits been found in situ. Excavated by Ambrose Lansing on behalf of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1915-16 at the site of Deir el-Bahari, the integrity and context of this find are critical to the proper understanding of the texts it contained. Through the publication and analysis of this archive of Demotic and Greek texts recorded on ostraca, Muhs, Scalf, and Jay reconstruct the microhistory of Thotsutmis, son of Panouphis, and his family, who worked in Egypt on the west bank of Thebes as priests in the mortuary industry during the early Ptolemaic Period in the third century BC. The forty-two ostraca published in this volume provide a rare opportunity to explore the intersections between an intact ancient archive of private administrative documents and the larger social and legal contexts into which they fit. What the reconstructed microhistory reveals is an ancient family striving to make it among the wealthy and connected social network of Theban choachytes and pastophoroi, while they simultaneously navigated the bureaucratic maze of taxes, fees, receipts, and legal procedures of the Ptolemaic state.

A comprehensive edition and commentary of 77 ostraka Ostraka in the Collection of New York University is a comprehensive edition and commentary of 77 ostraka, or potsherds with ancient texts written on them, from Greco-Roman and late antique Egypt. Seventy-two of these ostraca are housed in NYU Special Collections, originally purchased by Caspar Kraemer in 1932, then the chair of the NYU Classics Department. Although Kraemer advertised the imminent publication of the texts in 1934 and later collaborated with the famed papyrologist Herbert Youtie, neither completed the project. The ostraka in this small collection span the 2nd century BCE to the 8th century CE and include both Greek and Coptic texts. The majority, however, form a coherent dossier of tax receipts related to mortuary activities in Upper Egypt during the reign of Augustus (texts 7-70, dated from roughly the last quarter of the 1st century BCE to 12 CE). The five ostraka published in this volume not held by NYU include one that had been part of Kraemer’s original purchase but was subsequently lost (thankfully preserved in a photograph in Youtie’s archive at the University of Michigan), and four ostraka now held by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The latter four texts were purchased separately and published previously, but clearly belong to the same group of texts. They are included in this volume both for the sake of completeness and because the present authors were able to improve the readings in light of the context provided by the dossier as a whole. In addition to the scholarly edition of these texts, the volume contains a full discussion of their provenance, the taxes involved, the taxpayers and tax-collectors, and a ceramological analysis of the sherds as media for these texts. The book will be of interest primarily to specialists in papyrology and scholars who study the economic history of the ancient Mediterranean, Hellenistic Egypt, the Roman empire, and papyrology.

A compelling history of the Ptolemies, the decline of Egypt, and the rising power of the Roman Empire The Ptolemaic era, Egypt's last and one of its longest dynasties, was in many ways a gilded age. Its early rulers restored and even expanded Egyptian power. Over a span of 300 years the period was witness to intellectual enlightenment, imaginative state-building, and some of the most memorable characters in ancient history, including Alexander the Great and Cleopatra VII. But these Macedonian Greek pharaohs embarked on ruinous warfare, faced rebellion, and descended into murderous family feuds. Increasingly reliant on the dizzying rise of Roman power, Ptolemaic Egypt was finally annexed by Augustus in 30 BCE. How did such an ancient civilization come to this? Exploring the lives of the Ptolemaic pharaohs, de la Bédoyère reveals the jealousy, greed, and murderous ambition in their Egypt and the legendary city of Alexandria, their capital. This is a lively, accessible account of Ancient Egypt's last days--and of the new power rising in its place.

Study of papyri and ostraca in the Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago, which includes Demotic, Greek, and bilingual tax receipts from early Ptolemaic Thebes.

The choachytes (or morticians) of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes provided a rich documentation linking the city of the living on one side of the Nile with the city of the dead on the other. The family archives of these choachytes deal to a large part with their professional role in serving the dead entrusted to their care, but they are also virtually our only source of information about the city of Thebes, whose physical remains were ruthlessly obliterated in the nineteenth century. This material constitute one end of a chain which links the temple statues of Amun's servants and descriptions of their houses on the one hand with their tombs and their tomb inventories on the other, allowing us to identify individual choachytes from their papers. The papyrological finds can thus provide an exact dating for objects that might otherwise be only dated to within several centuries, while the objects themselves and the tomb architecture provide a factual dimension to historical and legal documents which might otherwise remain flat and arid. It was in order to draw attention to the richness of all the constituent parts of this documentation that a number of scholars were invited to present their views on Graeco-Roman Thebes at a colloqium held from 9 to 11 September 1992 in Leiden, the Netherlands. The survey papers and communications presented at this colloqium are published here.

Discover how the ancient Egyptians controlled their immortal destiny! This book, edited by Foy Scalf, explores what the Book of the Dead was believed to do, how it worked, how it was made, and what happened to it.

The author traces the development of Rudolf Otto’s attempt to construct a normative science of religion. This should respond to concerns facing Protestant theologians in Germany at the turn of the century. Moreover, he examines the reception of Otto’s ideas after World War One. The volume contains name and subject indexes.