Ptolemaic Egypt Research Articles

Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt - A Question of Loyalty -

Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt - A Question of Loyalty -

Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt by Raffaella Cribiore (review)

Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt by Raffaella Cribiore (review)

Handbooks and Anthologies: The Collection of Greek and Egyptian Incantations in Late Hellenistic Egypt

Handbooks and Anthologies: The Collection of Greek and Egyptian Incantations in Late Hellenistic Egypt

Crocodiles et saints du Nil : du talisman au miracle

Crocodiles and Saints of the Nile : From Talisman to Miracle The place of crocodiles in the history of mentalities in Egypt is singular indeed. To explain why crocodiles were so rare in Lower Egypt, European and Arab travellers had, since the twelfth century if not before, evoked the legend of a buried talisman, linking back to the days of the Pharaohs, which favoured the neutralisation of the feared beast. This was clearly recreating Horus with the crocodiles, well-known in Ptolemaic Egypt. With Christianity and then Islam came the era of the Egyptian saints, who were often crocodile tamers. This was a miracle that replaced the legend of the talisman but did not efface it entirely. Since the end of the 19th century, modernity has triumphed over the crocodile, henceforth relegated to folklore.

Legal Documents of the Hellenistic World: Papers from a Seminar Arranged by the Institute of Classical Studies, the Institute of Jewish Studies and the Warburg Institute, University of London, February to May 1986

Law and justice and Ptolemaic Egypt, Joseph Meleze-Modrzejewski family law in Hellenistic Babylonia, G.P.J. McEwan Hellenistic marriage contracts, Ranon Katzoff marriage and the family in Ancient Egypt I - marriage and family law, H.S. Smith marriage and the family in Ancient Egypt II - marriages, wills and leases of land - some notes in the formulae of Demotic contracts, Cary J. Martin appearance and reality in written contracts - evidence from bilingual family archives, P.W. Pestman ptolemaic wills, W. Clarysse recht im hellenistischen Babylonien - tempel-sklaven-schuldrecht - allgemeine charakterisierung, Joachim Oelsner zum ptolemaischen sklavenrecht, Reinhold Scholl land ownership in Babylonian cuneiform documents, Robartus J. van der Spek.

Pythagorean Theory and Dionysian Practice: The Cultic and Practical Background to Chemical Experimentation in Hellenistic Egypt

Pythagorean Theory and Dionysian Practice: The Cultic and Practical Background to Chemical Experimentation in Hellenistic Egypt

A Response to Anson Rainey's "Remarks on Donald Redford's Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times"

he present article is a response to Anson Rainey's comments on Chapter 4 of my recent book, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, which appeared in Bulletin 295 (1994): 81-85. The book anticipates lengthier articles on certain ethnic terms (including C'mw) and on Ashkelon and related reliefs at Karnak, so I shall not deal with those topics here. But nature of Rainey's diatribe on my stance on Middle Bronze Age, and its wholesale misinterpretation of evidence, I feel requires an immediate answer. One of most tiresome practices of some scholars in our field today is to slot colleagues according to a sort of scholastic genealogy. When employed as a weapon in an effort to dismiss out of hand an opposing case, it adopts ploy of suggesting that, because one sat at feet of Scholar X (whose views are now outmoded), one is merely parroting Scholar X. Rainey links my views loosely with those of Kenyon and Albright. While I did not have privilege of taking courses from latter, I did work under Dame Kenyon and treasure every moment of three seasons' training. But I honestly cannot remember what she said about Middle Bronze Age. The jumping-off point for my own research in chapter about which Rainey has reservations was Egyptian textual source material bearing on Palestine in 12th and 13th Dynasties. I was certainly not looking over my shoulder at Kenyon, Albright, or even Rainey. The whole notion of schools of thought and ramifications thereof are completely alien to empirical approach so desperately needed. For what Scholar X thought (or thinks) is simply not evidence. In assaying evidence of Egyptian texts in period under discussion, it is well to keep in mind paucity of material. When even a Hellenistic historian, armed with wealth of texts from Ptolemaic Egypt, can decry anecdotal way this evidence has been handled through the analysis of specific incidents or cases (Samuel 1989: 38), it behooves historian of Levant in second millennium B.C. not to be ashamed to admit ignorance, but to label all his reconstructions as educated guesses to be relinquished at a moment's notice. Unfortunately Rainey exhibits no such circumspection, but resembles old-fashioned rationalist who can easily get inside mind of ancients and knows ll about them (cf. Trigger 1993: 24). For 12th and 13th Dynasties our scant Egyptian textual sources may be grouped under following headings:

Legal Aspects of Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt

Legal Aspects of Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt

Metalwork from Ptolemaic Egypt

Metalwork from Ptolemaic Egypt

Culture and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: the Museum and Library of Alexandria

Within the palace complex in Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander in Egypt, a community of scholars was established in what was known as the Museum (or Mouseion); linked to this was a library, the Great Library of Alexandria. These two institutions are often celebrated for their role in the history of scholarship, but they were also the products of the Hellenistic age and of the competition which arose between the successors of Alexander. In many ways these two institutions encapsulate the ideology and policy of the early Ptolemies. It is the purpose of this paper to explore this aspect and set them in a wider context.

Catalogue of Demotic Papyri in the British Museum, Vol. 4: Ptolemaic Legal Texts from the Theban Area

This fourth volume of the British Museum Demotic Papyri series is a particularly important contribution to Demotic Egyptian studies. Although these texts have long been known (some of the papyri reached the British Museum as early as 1839), this catalogue publishes high quality photographs of these texts and also brings to the attention of a wide audience a significant array of information on Hellenistic Egypt. A brief bibliography is followed by a two page introduction wherein the author states that the project had its start in a desire to publish all remaining unpublished Theban demotic legal documents of Ptolemaic date in the Egyptian collection (p. 12). The result is this catalogue of forty-eight entries totalling fifty-five texts, all but one of which are papyri. The texts range in date from 311 to 119 B.C. and come from Upper Egypt. They are organized into three groups: 1) archives or otherwise related texts from eastern Thebes and Djeme (Medinet Habu); 2) archives or otherwise related texts from Hermonthis (modern Armant, eighteen kilometers south of Luxor); and 3) individual texts from these three areas whose principal parties do not control any known family archive. A brief description of the archives' contents, genealogy, and relevant bibliography precedes the transliteration and translation of each text. Extensive footnotes for each text contain many invaluable comments, particularly those which point out connections to other Theban papyri. Several indices conclude the book.

The Tazza Farnese: Augusto Imperatore "Redeunt Saturnia Regna!"

New suggestions are offered for the identity and meaning of both central and peripheral figures represented on the famous Tazza Farnese. It is argued that this splendid sardonyx phiale was not produced for the court of Ptolemaic Egypt, as is commonly believed, but was a product of Augustan art, probably created during the earlier part of the principate of Augustus. It is also proposed that this vessel, possibly commissioned by or for Augustus, was intended for use in some special sacrificial ceremony. The nature of its semiprecious material, the message of its interior composition, and the use of a Gorgoneion on its underside would be in keeping with a belief that the Tazza Farnese had certain magical properties, especially in warding off evil from the advent of the Golden Age of Augustus.

The Ptolemaic Base at Koressos on Keos

Evidence for the Ptolemaic occupation of the Cycladic island of Keos in the 3rd century B.C. is both contentious and exiguous. A recent archaeological surface survey of both the territory and thepolis-centre of Koressos (Ptolemaic Arsinoe, apparently the principal Egyptian foothold on the island) invites a review of relevant historical and epigraphical evidence, old and new. Contrary to some opinion, all the available evidence implies that the later Hellenistic period was not a time of material prosperity for Koressos. It is suggested that its incorporation into the Ptolemaic empire may have contributed to its demise as a city-state, and to its eventual transformation into a minor adjunct of the neighbouringpolisof Ioulis.

The Shifting Sands of History: Interpretations of Ptolemaic Egypt

The Shifting Sands of History: Interpretations of Ptolemaic Egypt

The Shifting Sands of History: Interpretations of Ptolemaic Egypt

The Shifting Sands of History: Interpretations of Ptolemaic Egypt

Horses in the Ptolemaic Egypt in the light of the papyri

Horses in the Ptolemaic Egypt in the light of the papyri

Alan E. Samuel: The Shifting Sands of History: Interpretations of Ptolemaic Egypt. (Publications of the Association of Ancient Historians, 2.) Pp. xiii + 85. Lanham, MD and London: University Press of America, 1989. $17.50 (Paper, $8.25).

Alan E. Samuel: The Shifting Sands of History: Interpretations of Ptolemaic Egypt. (Publications of the Association of Ancient Historians, 2.) Pp. xiii + 85. Lanham, MD and London: University Press of America, 1989. 8.25). - Volume 40 Issue 2

Hellenismen i Ægypten

The strong Greek influence on cultural development in Ptolemaic Egypt during the reign of the first kings of the Ptolemaic dynasty was later partly substituted by a stronger Egyptian influence. This is hown with examples from selected areas such as language, calendar, law, administration, communication and religious matters.

A dictionary of ancient Near Eastern architecture

This Dictionary gives a comprehensive survey of the whole range of ancient Near Eastern architecture from the Neolithic round huts in Palestine to the giant temples of Ptolemaic Egypt. Gwendolyn Leick examines the development of the principal styles of ancient architecture within their geographical and historical context, and describes features of major sites such as Ur, Nineveh and Babylon, as well as many of the lesser-known sites. She also covers the variations of typical ancient architectural structures such as pyramids, tombs and houses, details the building material and techniques employed, and clarifies specialist terminology.

Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt: Case Studies in the Social History of the Hellenistic World

The extensive conquests of Alexander the Great were followed by a flood of greek migration into lands formerly ruled by Persia, among them, Egypt. The survival of Egyptian family archives makes it possible to study the fortunes of some of these immigrants with an immediacy unmatched by any other ancient source. These archives tell such stories as the engineer Kleon's battle with problems of irrigation and silting, while the district officer Diophanes deals with disputes arising from the mutual hostility between the Greek and Persian populations. The Egyptians, Menkhes the village clerk and Peteharsemtheus the soldier gain priviliges enjoyed by the Greeks through such service, while Greek cavalry officer Dryton marries an Egyptian, and his descendants begin to lose their Greek identity. Through these and other case studies, Naphtali Lewis presents us with a vivid recreation of life in Ptolemaic Egypt.