The Date of the Tocra Graffiti

Abstract

The large numbers of roughly-cut inscriptions on the inner face of the ancient city wall at Tocra, in the area south of the east gate, have often attracted attention. Interest in them flagged when it was realised that they consisted essentially of personal names; but recent developments in onomastic studies have given a new significance to personal names. Moreover since R. G. Goodchild dug there in the sixties it has been apparent that the inscribed stretch of the city-wall had been utilised for one side of a gymnasium courtyard and that the inscriptions on it are ephebic, so that they should throw some light on a civic instituion very much at the heart of the city's life. My purpose here, however, is simply to clarify the date at which the surviving texts were cut.The gymnasium has produced two main and one subsidiary series of texts. The first consists of graffiti on blocks found in situ on the inner face of the city wall as described above, and also on the inner face of the gymnasium wall flanking the main east/west street of the city, with additional items on blocks which patently derive from the gymnasium, but are found loose or re-used in many other parts of the site. Their appearance gives the impression that they were the work of the ephebes themselves and, since they often overcut one another, that they were produced over a period of time. They normally present personal names without patronymics, often in groups or in pairs, and with a brief indication that the associated persons were customary companions and sometimes certainly lovers.