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Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Classics)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Alexander’s conquest of Egypt in 332 BCE heralded two lengthy periods of foreign rule over the ancient civilization of the Nile. Following Alexander’s death, a Greco-Macedonian dynasty—the Ptolemies—obtained control of Egypt during the Hellenistic period. In 31 BCE, Octavian’s victory over the last Ptolemaic ruler, Cleopatra VII, led to Egypt’s incorporation into the Roman Empire and the beginning of another major new era of Egyptian (and Mediterranean) history. During these two periods of foreign rule, Egypt became a crossroads for the entire Mediterranean, inhabited not only by indigenous Egyptians but also Greeks, Jews, and many others. The wide-ranging trade networks, cultural exchanges, population movements, and religious interactions of these periods provide ancient parallels for modern phenomena such as globalization, imperialism, and tourism. Furthermore, thanks to the dry Egyptian climate, the extraordinary preservation both of material and textual (especially papyrological) evidence from these periods makes Egypt an exceptionally well-documented region of the Hellenistic and Roman Mediterranean. This wealth of data means that any comprehensive study of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt must combine the fruits of numerous disciplines, including (just to name a few) archaeology, philology, history, and art history. Scholars must additionally engage with at least two major languages (Egyptian and Greek—in addition to other languages preserved in fewer documents from Egypt, such as Latin and Hebrew); up to seven scripts (Greek, hieroglyphic, hieratic, Demotic, Latin, occasionally Hebrew, and, for the later Roman period, also Coptic); and multiple phases of the Egyptian language, because texts written in “classical” Middle Egyptian were still produced at periods when the spoken language had become dramatically different. Partly because of the increasing embrace of multidisciplinary approaches, research on Hellenistic and Roman Egypt has undergone immense changes in the later 20th and 21st centuries. These periods are sometimes categorized together as the “Greco-Roman period,” although some scholars challenge this practice (e.g., Lewis 1995, cited under General Overviews), arguing that the term “Greco-Roman period” conceals major social, political, and economic differences between Ptolemaic and Roman administrations. However, both periods do share certain distinctive cultural features—for example, the existence of a substantial element of the population that considered itself “Hellenic” (although definitions of “Hellene” were themselves subject to much change over time: see Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity). This article accordingly retains the term “Greco-Roman” as an umbrella term both for Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, while acknowledging the existence of profound differences between these periods. The chronological focus of this article starts with the death of Alexander in 323 BCE and ends with the transition to the “Late Antique” or “late Roman” period, here defined as dating from Diocletian’s accession in 284 CE. As a result, most of the rich literature on Late Antique Egypt and the rise of Coptic Christianity is omitted here (although some specific works cited do draw on material both earlier and later than the article’s primary focus). For references on Late Antiquity and early Christianity, readers should consult several other Oxford Bibliographies articles (e.g., Eric Rebillard’s articles Roman History: Late Antiquity and Early Christianity).
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
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  7. Bowman 1996 provides a historical and cultural overview of the Hellenistic and Roman periods (and beyond) in Egypt, while Bagnall and Rathbone 2004 describes the major archaeological sites. For the Hellenistic period in particular, Chauveau 2000 is an accessible introductory text, Hölbl 2001 and Huss 2001 are excellent histories, and Manning 2010 (cited under Ptolemaic Administration) discusses government and economy. Lewis 1999 offers a social history of Roman Egypt, and Ritner 1998 provides a brief survey of major political developments. Mitteis and Wilcken 1912 discusses—and provides primary papyrological sources on—many aspects of state and society in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Egypt; the authors’ four-volume study, foundational to papyrology as a discipline, helped shape the concerns and orientation of much subsequent papyrological research. Lewis 1995 (originally published in 1970) may at first seem an odd choice for inclusion in this section, since the article does not attempt to provide an “overview” of Hellenistic or Roman Egypt, focusing instead on administrative changes associated with the start of Roman rule. However, this study still serves as a useful starting point for problematizing any discussion of “the Greco-Roman period” in Egypt; citing numerous changes in society and government from the Ptolemies to the Romans, Naphtali Lewis launched an influential argument against the conflation of these periods through the use of the term “Greco-Roman.”
  8.  
  9. Bagnall, Roger S., and Dominic W. Rathbone, eds. 2004. Egypt from Alexander to the Copts: An archaeological and historical guide. London: British Museum.
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  11. Well-researched guide to the archaeological sites of Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Egypt. For each site, provides an overview of excavation history, historical context, current state as of 2004, and further bibliography.
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  13. Bowman, Alan K. 1996. Egypt after the pharaohs, 332 BC–AD 642: From Alexander to the Arab conquest. 2d ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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  15. General account of Egyptian history and culture in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods.
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  17. Chauveau, Michel. 2000. Egypt in the age of Cleopatra: History and society under the Ptolemies. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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  19. Useful, accessible introductory text on Hellenistic Egypt, emphasizing social history. Translation of L’Égypte au temps de Cléopâtre (Paris: Hachette Littératures, 1997).
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  21. Hölbl, Günther. 2001. A history of the Ptolemaic Empire. Translated by Tina Saavedra. New York: Routledge.
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  23. Excellent Egyptologically oriented political and military history of Ptolemaic Egypt, including a subtle and detailed analysis of the ideology of power. Translation and updated edition of Geschichte des Ptolemäerreiches: Politik, Ideologie, und religiöse Kultur von Alexander dem Grossen bis zur römischen Eroberung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buschgesellschaft, 1994).
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  25. Huss, Werner. 2001. Ägypten in hellenistischer Zeit 332-30 v.Chr. Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck.
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  27. Together with Hölbl 2001, forms one of the most recent studies of Ptolemaic political and military history. Note that Huss’s method of numbering the Ptolemaic reigns after Ptolemy VI—with Ptolemy Euergetes II now known as “Ptolemy VII” rather than “Ptolemy VIII,” and so on—is not shared by most other scholars.
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  29. Lewis, Naphtali. 1995. Greco-Roman Egypt: Fact or fiction? In On government and law in Roman Egypt: Collected papers of Naphtali Lewis. By Naphtali Lewis, 138–149. Edited by Ann Ellis Hanson. American Studies in Papyrology 33. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
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  31. Questions the validity of the term “Greco-Roman Egypt.” Surveys the spheres of government, economy, and society to conclude that “Roman domination brought more change than continuity in the administration of Egypt” (p. 148). Argues, accordingly, for discarding the term “Greco-Roman Egypt” as a misleading expression that “has outlived its usefulness” (p. 149). Originally published in Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Papyrology (Toronto: Hakkert, 1970), edited by D. H. Samuel, pp. 3–14.
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  33. Lewis, Naphtali. 1999. Life in Egypt under Roman rule. 2d ed. Classics in Papyrology 1. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
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  35. Readable, learned social history of Roman Egypt, written from a “bottom-up” perspective that focuses on lived experience. Includes numerous illustrative quotations from papyrological sources.
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  37. Mitteis, Ludwig, and Ulrich Wilcken. 1912. Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde. 4 vols. Leipzig and Berlin: B. G. Teubner.
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  39. Foundational work of juristic and historical papyrology. The first two volumes deal with historical papyri, the second two with juristic. Each “set” includes an introductory volume (Grundzüge) and a volume of texts (Chrestomathie). The Grundzüge volumes should be read in the context of more-recent scholarship (e.g., regarding Egypt’s supposed “Sonderstellung” in the Hellenistic and Roman world: Vol. 1, p. xv) but still provide foundational discussions of numerous aspects of society.
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  41. Ritner, Robert K. 1998. Egypt under Roman rule: The legacy of ancient Egypt. In The Cambridge history of Egypt. Vol. 1, Islamic Egypt, 640–1517. Edited by Carl F. Petry, 1–33. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  43. Brief but useful overview of Egyptian history during the Roman period, surveying major social and political developments and discussing the impacts of different emperors’ reigns on the province of Aegyptus.
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  45. Handbooks and Encyclopedias
  46.  
  47. The early 21st century has witnessed a flowering of handbooks and companion volumes filled with essays on different periods, individuals, or social phenomena from Antiquity. Such volumes are designed to survey the current state of the field and to collect bibliography to assist in further research. Lloyd 2010 contains essays on various aspects of culture both in Pharaonic-period and Greco-Roman Egypt, while Riggs 2012 focuses on Roman Egypt. Bagnall, et al. 2012 is a massive encyclopedia of the ancient world, with many articles on the history and society of Greco-Roman Egypt.
  48.  
  49. Bagnall, Roger S., Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, et al., eds. 2012. Encyclopedia of ancient history. 13 vols. Chichester, UK, and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
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  51. Online encyclopedia devoted to the ancient Mediterranean world. Numerous entries on topics, sites, and historical figures associated with Hellenistic and Roman Egypt; go to “Browse by Topic” and choose “Greco-Roman Egypt.”
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  53. Lloyd, Alan B., ed. 2010. A companion to ancient Egypt. 2 vols. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World 36. Chichester, UK, and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
  54. DOI: 10.1002/9781444320053Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  55. Collection of essays by specialists, with each essay providing an introductory overview of some topic related to ancient Egyptian history, society, and culture. For almost all major topics, there are two separate chapters: one on the topic in the Pharaonic period, and one on the topic in the Greco-Roman period.
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  57. Riggs, Christina, ed. 2012. The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  58. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  59. Useful collection of edited essays designed to serve as introductions to selected aspects of society and history in Roman Egypt. The 2012 publication date makes this volume particularly valuable as a source for further bibliography.
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  61. Conference Publications and Festschrift Volumes
  62.  
  63. Since the later 20th century, many conferences, symposia, and Festschrift volumes have produced important edited volumes covering many different aspects of life in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. The papers in Johnson 1992 and Criscuolo and Geraci 1989 span the Hellenistic and Roman periods (and beyond). Maehler and Strocka 1978; Van ‘t Dack, et al. 1983; and Buraselis, et al. 2013 collect papers on Hellenistic Egypt, while Grimm, et al. 1983 and Lembke, et al. 2010 deal with the Roman period. Bonacasa and Di Vita 1983–1984 focuses heavily, though not exclusively, on the site of Alexandria.
  64.  
  65. Bonacasa, Nicola, and Antonino Di Vita, eds. 1983–1984. Alessandria e il mondo ellenistico-romano: Studi in onore di Achille Adriani. 3 vols. Studi e Materiali 4–6. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider.
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  67. Collection of essays on numerous aspects of history and culture (especially material culture) in Greco-Roman Alexandria and the rest of the Hellenistic and Imperial Mediterranean world. Part I (Vols. 1–2) is devoted to Alexandria, while Part II (Vol. 3) deals with other parts of the Mediterranean. Essays are in Italian, German, French, English, and (in one case) Spanish.
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  69. Buraselis, Kostas, Mary Stefanou, and Dorothy J. Thompson, eds. 2013. The Ptolemies, the sea and the Nile: Studies in waterborne power. Papers presented at the Third International Ptolemaic Colloquium, held 18–20 September 2009 in Piraeus, Greece. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  71. Contributions explore the military, political, economic, and cultural importance of waterborne traffic, both riverine and oceanic, for the Ptolemaic Empire. All chapters in English.
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  73. Criscuolo, Lucia, and Giovanni Geraci, eds. 1989. Egitto e storia antica dall’ellenismo all’età araba: Bilancio di un confronto; Atti del colloquio internazionale, Bologna, 31 agosto–2 settembre 1987. Bologna, Italy: CLUEB.
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  75. Conference proceedings focusing on history and historiography of Egypt in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. Chapters are in English, French, German, and Italian.
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  77. Grimm, Günter, Heinz Heinen, and Erich Winter, eds. 1983. Das römisch-byzantinische Ägypten: Akten des internationalen Symposions 26.–30. September 1978 in Trier. Aegyptiaca Treverensia 2. Mainz am Rhein, Germany: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
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  79. Conference proceedings with twenty-five essays by prominent scholars on a range of topics related to Roman and Byzantine Egypt. In German, French, and English.
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  81. Johnson, Janet H., ed. 1992. Life in a multi-cultural society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and beyond. Papers presented at the Fourth International Congress of Demotists, held 4–8 September 1990 at the Oriental Institute, Univ. of Chicago. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 51. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago.
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  83. Proceedings of a symposium, held in association with the Fourth International Congress of Demotists, on the subjects of multiculturalism and cultural contact in Greco-Roman Egypt. Most articles are in English, with a few in French and German.
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  85. Lembke, Katja, Martina Minas-Nerpel, and Stefan Pfeiffer, eds. 2010. Tradition and transformation: Egypt under Roman rule; Proceedings of the international conference, Hildesheim, Roemer- and Pelizaeus-Museum, 3–6 July 2008. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 41. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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  87. Conference proceedings focusing on Roman-period Egypt. Subjects covered include iconography, archaeological fieldwork, epigraphy, imperial power and strategies, religion, philology, and social history. Chapters are in English, German, French, and Italian.
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  89. Maehler, Herwig, and Volker Michael Strocka, eds. 1978. Das ptolemäische Ägypten: Akten des Internationalen Symposions, 27.–29. September 1976 in Berlin. Mainz am Rhein, Germany: Philipp von Zabern.
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  91. Conference proceedings containing twenty-four essays by prominent scholars on various aspects of society, history, and religion in Ptolemaic Egypt. In German, English, French, and Italian.
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  93. Van ‘t Dack, Edmond, Peter van Dessel, and Willem van Gucht, eds. 1983. Egypt and the Hellenistic world: Proceedings of the international colloquium, Leuven, 24–26 May 1982. Studia Hellenistica 27. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
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  95. Twenty-one essays by prominent scholars on a range of Ptolemaic topics, emphasizing connections and relations between Egypt and the rest of the Hellenistic world. In English, French, and German.
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  97. Bibliographies
  98.  
  99. Several online bibliographies provide further references. Bennett 2012 and Hugot 2004 focus on Ptolemaic Egypt. Bibliography on the website of NYU’s archaeological project at Amheida covers the whole Greco-Roman period, with particular emphases on archaeology and the western deserts and oases.
  100.  
  101. Bennett, Chris. 2012. Bibliography: Ptolemaic Dynasty & Hellenistic Chronology. Egyptian Royal Genealogy. Tyndale House.
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  103. Bibliography associated with Chris Bennett’s website on Ptolemaic genealogy and chronology (and, accordingly, emphasizing those subjects). Website maintained by Tyndale House at the University of Cambridge.
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  105. Bibliography. 2008. New York University Excavations at Amheida.
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  107. Bibliography maintained by the New York University Excavations of Amheida and designed for use by undergraduate participants in fieldwork at Amheida. Emphasizes sources on the western oases and Western Desert. Also collects useful sources on the archaeology, society, and history of Greco-Roman Egypt.
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  109. Hugot, Christophe. 2004. Ptolemaica: Une bibliographie sur l’Égypte lagide. Bibliothèque des Sciences de l’Antiquité.
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  111. Extensive bibliography (more than 800 references) on a wide range of topics associated with Ptolemaic Egypt. Website maintained by the Bibliothèque des Sciences de l’Antiquité, Université Lille 3.
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  113. Ecology, Geology, and Environment
  114.  
  115. The unique ecological setting of Egyptian civilization—the “gift of the river,” in the celebrated and endlessly repeated phrase of Herodotus (Histories 2.5)—exerted a profound influence not only on Pharaonic but also Ptolemaic- and Roman-period society. Basic introductions to Egypt’s geography, ecology, and environmental conditions appear in Baines and Malek 2000 and Part I of Wilkinson 2010. On geology, see Said 1962 and Tawadros 2001. Said 1993 focuses on the hydrology of the Nile River. Butzer 1976 is a foundational study of human-environment interactions in Egypt, while Trampier 2010 provides a case study in geoarchaeology and landscape archaeology. For more on human-environment interactions in Greco-Roman Egypt, see Agricultural Practices and Irrigation.
  116.  
  117. Baines, John, and Jaromir Malek. 2000. Cultural atlas of ancient Egypt. Rev. ed. New York: Checkmark.
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  119. Surveys a selection of important archaeological sites; provides short descriptions of their cultural and historical significance. The first chapter is a short introduction to Egyptian geography and ecology, with helpful maps of topography, ecozones, ancient population density, and distribution of natural resources throughout Egypt.
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  121. Butzer, Karl W. 1976. Early hydraulic civilization in Egypt: A study in cultural ecology. Prehistoric Archeology and Ecology. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
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  123. Foundational study of the interaction of changing environmental conditions, including climate and the vicissitudes of the Nile flood, with the development of Egyptian society. Although he focuses on the rise and development of Pharaonic civilization, Butzer’s work has been influential to those who study later periods as well.
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  125. Said, Rushdi. 1962. The geology of Egypt. Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier.
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  127. Classic study of Egyptian geology; still useful, though should now be supplemented with more-recent publications.
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  129. Said, Rushdi. 1993. The river Nile: Geology, hydrology and utilization. Oxford and New York: Pergamon.
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  131. Focuses on the geology and hydrology of the Nile and Nile valley. Also discusses the changing technologies employed by humans to harness the Nile for agriculture.
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  133. Tawadros, E. Edward. 2001. Geology of Egypt and Libya. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Balkema.
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  135. Reference work on the geology of Egypt and Libya.
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  137. Trampier, Joshua Raymond. 2010. The dynamic landscape of the western Nile Delta from the New Kingdom to the late Roman periods. PhD diss., Univ. of Chicago.
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  139. Archaeological and geoarchaeological investigation of the western Nile Delta’s changing natural and cultural landscape from the New Kingdom to the end of the Roman periods. Aims to provide a methodology for future projects exploring long-term human-environmental interactions in Egypt.
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  141. Wilkinson, Toby, ed. 2010. The Egyptian world. Routledge Worlds. London and New York: Routledge.
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  143. Thematically organized handbook on ancient Egyptian civilization. Part I, “Environments,” surveys the geography and ecology of major environmental zones within Egypt, exploring relationships between environmental conditions and human activity in each region.
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  145. Government, Administration, and the Maintenance of Power
  146.  
  147. The sources in this section investigate different aspects of the maintenance of state power, from bureaucracy to military force. Much scholarship since the later 20th century addresses the differences between Ptolemaic and Roman forms of governance in Egypt. Another major focus of study has been various groups’ attempts to resist or rebel against the Ptolemaic and Roman governments. On the ideology of government, see also Ruler Cult and Royal Ideology, and on collection of taxes and control of labor, see also Taxation, Corvée, and Liturgies.
  148.  
  149. Political History
  150.  
  151. Within the large bibliography on the political history of Ptolemaic Egypt, Hölbl 2001 and Huss 2001 (both cited under General Overviews) are excellent starting points. Both authors describe a “Blütezeit” (Huss) or “golden age” (Hölbl) in the 3rd century, followed by a period of Middle Ptolemaic decline and a final nadir in the 1st century BCE, preceding the Roman conquest. (For an alternative perspective on periodization, focusing less on the Ptolemaic court and more on changes in bureaucratic and fiscal institutions, see pp. 75–76 in Manning 2010, cited under Ptolemaic Administration.) More chronologically specific works, focusing on particular periods within the Ptolemaic dynasty, include McKechnie and Guillaume 2008, Heinen 2009, and Jördens and Quack 2011. Among the vast array of relevant primary sources for Ptolemaic political history, special attention should be given to Polybius, whose account of Rome’s rise to power serves as crucial evidence for the history of the Ptolemaic dynasty and its complex interactions with Rome. For an extensive annotated bibliography on Polybius, his work, and his impact, see Champion 2012; and for more sources on scholarly debates surrounding Polybius’s references to social unrest in Egypt, see Revolts and Resistance. For a discussion of other primary historical sources from Hellenistic Egypt, see Gozzoli 2006. For sourcebooks and anthologies of primary sources on Hellenistic history, see Austin 2006, Bagnall and Derow 2004, and Burstein 1985, all cited under Anthologies and Sourcebooks, and for documentary papyri that provide historical information both on the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, see Mitteis and Wilcken 1912 (cited under General Overviews). In order to place Ptolemaic political developments within the broader context of the Hellenistic world as a whole, see further sources cited in the “Political History” section of the Oxford Bibliographies article “Greek History: Hellenistic” (Chaniotis 2009). Chaniotis also provides bibliography on additional relevant Greek and Latin primary sources (e.g., Diodorus Siculus). For the Roman period, an overview of Egyptian history appears in Ritner 1998, cited under General Overviews; for political and military developments, see especially pp. 11–33. Beyond the province of Aegyptus alone, Potter 2011 gathers together a useful bibliography concerning Roman history in the Imperial period. Turning from etic to emic perspectives on the history of Roman Egypt, the so-called “Acts of the Pagan Martyrs” (Musurillo 1954) are a valuable primary source; these heavily fictionalized accounts of interactions between Alexandrian Greeks and Roman emperors provide information on indigenous perceptions of historical developments during the early Roman period (Harker 2008). In his analysis of the historical background of the stories, Andrew Harker also provides a useful discussion of political relations between Alexandria and Rome in the Imperial period.
  152.  
  153. Champion, Craige. 2012. Polybius. In Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. Edited by Dee L. Clayman. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  155. Annotated bibliographic article on the 2nd-century BCE Greek historian Polybius, whose Histories attempts to account for Rome’s rise to pan-Mediterranean power. In Polybius’s narrative, Ptolemaic decline stems ultimately from the reign of Ptolemy IV. Available by subscription.
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  157. Chaniotis, Angelos. 2009. Greek history: Hellenistic. In Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. Edited by Dee L. Clayman. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  159. Annotated bibliographic article on Hellenistic history. The scholarship collected in the “Political History” section provides a broader regional context for political developments in Ptolemaic Egypt, while the “Sources” section gathers bibliography on Greek and Latin primary sources for Hellenistic history. Available by subscription.
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  161. Gozzoli, Roberto B. 2006. The writing of history in ancient Egypt during the first millennium BC (ca. 1070–180 BC): Trends and perspectives. Egyptology 5. London: Golden House.
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  163. Discusses and contextualizes ancient textual sources that were written in (or, in some cases, written about) Late Period and Hellenistic Egypt, and that provide primary evidence for historical developments. Selected Hellenistic materials include royal stelae, the so-called “trilingual” priestly decrees, Manetho, and apocalyptic literature in Greek and Demotic and certain Egyptian literary texts, among others. The introduction includes a brief consideration of some of the problems involved in defining Egyptian “historical writing.”
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  165. Harker, Andrew. 2008. Loyalty and dissidence in Roman Egypt: The case of the Acta Alexandrinorum. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  166. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511482793Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  167. Analyzes the goals and historical background of the “Acts of the Pagan Martyrs.” While the texts are written to resemble official minutes, they are heavily fictionalized. Harker argues that these stories provide evidence for local interpretations of historical events within Roman Egypt and that they advance certain constructions of Hellenic, and Alexandrian, identity: “The promotion of the glorious city of Alexandria and her heroes is very much the driving force behind the literature” (p. 175).
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  169. Heinen, Heinz. 2009. Kleopatra-Studien: Gesammelte Schriften zur ausgehenden Ptolemäerzeit. Xenia 49. Konstanz, Germany: UVK Universitätsverlag Konstanz.
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  171. Collection of selected papers by a prominent Hellenistic historian, dealing with the waning days of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Includes a number of essays on late Ptolemaic interactions with Rome, particularly during Cleopatra VII’s reign. About half the book consists of a reprint of Heinen’s influential 1966 dissertation on Romano-Egyptian relations from 51–47 BCE, “Rom und Ägypten von 51 bis 47 v. Chr. Untersuchungen zur Regierungszeit der 7: Kleopatra und des 13. Ptolemäers” (pp. 13–153).
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  173. Jördens, Andrea, and Joachim Friedrich Quack, eds. 2011. Ägypten zwischen innerem Zwist und äusserem Druck: Die Zeit Ptolemaios’ VI. bis VIII; Internationales Symposion Heidelberg 16.–19. 9.2007. Philippika 45. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag.
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  175. Proceedings of an international symposium held in Heidelberg in 2007, reassessing the tumultuous period from 180–116 BCE: a time of dynastic struggles, civil unrest, and international conflict (e.g., with the Seleukid king Antiochus IV).
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  177. McKechnie, Paul, and Philippe Guillaume, eds. 2008. Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his world. Papers presented at the Ptolemy Philadelphus Conference held 13–16 July 2005 in Auckland, New Zealand. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.
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  179. Proceedings of a conference held in Auckland in 2005, examining different aspects of the reign of the second Lagid king (282–246 BCE): a period traditionally seen as something of a “golden age” for Ptolemaic Egypt. The essays in the second section (pp. 27–118) focus on foreign and domestic policy.
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  181. Musurillo, Herbert A., ed. 1954. The acts of the pagan martyrs: Acta Alexandrinorum. Oxford: Clarendon.
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  183. Edition, with commentary and some translations, of a series of texts describing the glorious deaths of elite Alexandrian Greeks on behalf of their homeland. In many of these stories, the Alexandrian heroes go to Rome, engage in arguments with the emperor—who sides with their enemies (often portrayed as Alexandrian Jews) in some dispute—and are executed for their pains.
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  185. Potter, David. 2011. Roman history: Imperial, 31 BCE–284 CE. In Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. Edited by Dee L. Clayman. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  187. Annotated bibliographic article on Roman history during the Imperial period; collects numerous sources that provide a broad, empire-wide context for historical developments of the time. Available by subscription.
  188. Find this resource:
  189. Ptolemaic Administration
  190.  
  191. The administrative structures of the Ptolemaic state have come in for much reconsideration in the early 21st century, as have those structures’ relationships to later, Roman-period institutions. Manning 2010 and Monson 2012 reassess various aspects of administration and state power under the Ptolemies, while Rowlandson 2010 (cited under Law and Legal System) offers a general overview of Ptolemaic and Roman administrative and legal systems. Thomas 1975, Verhoogt 1998, and Armoni 2012 provide detailed studies of specific positions within the administration, from the level of individual towns (Verhoogt) to the level of nomes (Armoni) and beyond (Thomas). Van ‘t Dack 1988 collects a number of essays by a prominent scholar of the Ptolemaic administration. Bagnall 1976 describes the administration of territories outside Egypt. Another productive area of research concerns the ethnic and cultural composition of the Ptolemaic administration, as well as the effects of that administration’s policies on the construction of cultural identities. Johnson 1991 and Lloyd 2002 discuss indigenous elites in the Ptolemaic administration (on which topic, see also Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity), while Thompson 1992 addresses fiscal policies possibly geared toward the production of Greek-literate bureaucrats.
  192.  
  193. Armoni, Charikleia. 2012. Studien zur Verwaltung des ptolemäischen Ägypten: Das Amt des Basilikos Grammateus. Paderborn, Germany: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh.
  194. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  195. Study of the administrative functions of the “royal scribe” in the Ptolemaic period; complements Thomas Kruse’s earlier work (Kruse 2002, cited under Roman Administration) on this office in Roman times. The basilikos grammateus was the chief record keeper and fiscal administrator within each nome and was deeply involved with the management and distribution of resources.
  196. Find this resource:
  197. Bagnall, Roger S. 1976. The administration of the Ptolemaic possessions outside Egypt. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 4. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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  199. Examination of the Ptolemaic administration of territories outside Egypt. Assesses the extent of the Ptolemaic dynasty; distinguishes between a more tightly integrated “central core” (Syria and Phoenicia, Cyrenaica, Cyprus) and a looser zone of control elsewhere.
  200. Find this resource:
  201. Johnson, Janet H. 1991. Ptolemaic bureaucracy from an Egyptian point of view. Paper presented at a symposium held 16–17 April 1983 at the Univ. of Chicago. In The organization of power: Aspects of bureaucracy in the ancient Near East. 2d ed. Edited by McGuire Gibson and Robert D. Biggs, 141–149. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 46. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago.
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  203. Demonstrates the participation of Egyptians in the Ptolemaic bureaucracy (building on earlier work by P. W. Pestman, W. Peremans, and A. E. Samuel, among others).
  204. Find this resource:
  205. Lloyd, Alan B. 2002. The Egyptian elite in the early Ptolemaic period: Some hieroglyphic evidence. Paper presented at a colloquium held 17–19 July 2000 in Hay-on-Wye, UK. In The Hellenistic world: New perspectives. Edited by Daniel Ogden, 117–136. London: Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth.
  206. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  207. Arguing that standard accounts of the Ptolemaic period overemphasize the “Hellenic” identity of the elite class and downplay the importance of wealthy, high-ranking Egyptians, Lloyd draws on early Ptolemaic hieroglyphic texts to analyze the background, activities, and self-presentation of indigenous elites. Discusses examples of indigenous Egyptians holding high-placed administrative posts.
  208. Find this resource:
  209. Manning, J. G. 2010. The last pharaohs: Egypt under the Ptolemies, 305–30 BC. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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  211. Reassessment of Ptolemaic governance; more heavily informed by Egyptian-language texts than many earlier accounts of Ptolemaic government and economy. Critiques earlier models of the Ptolemaic state as despotic, dirigiste, or colonialist. Sees central power as limited by local elites’ agendas and actions and by indigenous institutions. Characterizes the Ptolemaic state as a “bureaucratic empire.”
  212. Find this resource:
  213. Thomas, J. David. 1975. The epistrategos in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Vol. 1, The Ptolemaic epistrategos. Papyrologica Coloniensia 6. Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag.
  214. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-663-14297-3Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  215. Standard study of the office of epistrategos; Vol. 1 deals with the Ptolemaic period. A high-ranking position created after the Great Revolt in the Thebaid, the epistrategos was originally an official endowed with military and civil powers throughout the chora. However, the duties and powers associated with the office changed over the course of the Hellenistic period.
  216. Find this resource:
  217. Thompson, Dorothy J. 1992. Literacy and the administration in early Ptolemaic Egypt. Paper presented at the Fourth International Congress of Demotists, held 4–8 September 1990 at the Oriental Institute, Univ. of Chicago. In Life in a multi-cultural society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and beyond. Edited by Janet H. Johnson, 323–326. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 51. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago.
  218. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  219. Argues that there was initially a lack of sufficient numbers of Greek speakers to fill the ranks of the Ptolemaic bureaucracy, and that, accordingly, the early Ptolemaic introduction of tax breaks for speakers and teachers of the Greek language represented a government policy of encouraging Egyptians to learn Greek.
  220. Find this resource:
  221. Van ‘t Dack, Edmond. 1988. Ptolemaica selecta: Études sur l’armée et l’administration lagides. Studia Hellenistica 29. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
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  223. Volume collecting nineteen of Van ‘t Dack’s influential essays on the subjects of Ptolemaic administrative and military practices. Original essays range in date from 1952 to 1985.
  224. Find this resource:
  225. Verhoogt, Arthur M. F. W. 1998. Menches, komogrammateus of Kerkeosiris: The doings and dealings of a village scribe in the late Ptolemaic period (120–110 B.C.). Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava 29. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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  227. The komogrammateus, or village scribe, was an important figure of local administration. Verhoogt’s monograph analyzes surviving material discarded from the archive of the village scribes of Kerkeosiris, in order to reconstruct the activities and administrative milieu of the komogrammateus Menches. Consisting both of administrative documents and correspondence, these documents offer the most detailed available evidence on the Ptolemaic komogrammateus.
  228. Find this resource:
  229. Roman Administration
  230.  
  231. The Roman conquest transformed Egypt from an independent state to a single province within a larger empire. Scholarship since the late 20th century has addressed questions of change versus continuity vis-à-vis Ptolemaic administrative practices (e.g., Lewis 1995, pp. 138–149; Capponi 2005; Monson 2012), as well as the degree to which Egypt was, or was not, an entirely “exceptional” province within the Roman Empire (e.g., Jördens 2009). Jördens 2012 (cited under Taxation, Corvée, and Liturgies) and Rowlandson 2010 (cited under Law and Legal System) are survey articles; the former focuses specifically on government in Roman Egypt, while the latter covers both Ptolemaic and Roman administrative practices. Bowman 1971 (cited under Cities and Settlements) is a classic study of political organization within metropoleis (that is, the capitals of the nomes, or administrative districts, of Egypt), while Hagedorn 2007 responds to, and builds on, Bowman and Rathbone 1992 (cited under Cities and Settlements), an influential article on civic administration and metropolitan elites. Lewis 1995 collects numerous significant essays from one of the foremost authorities on the administration of Roman Egypt. Hagedorn 1985, Kruse 2002, and Jördens 2009 discuss specific offices: respectively, the dioiketes (a financial officer), the basilikos grammateus (“royal scribe”: the official account keeper within each nome), and the praefectus Aegypti (the Roman prefect who governed Egypt—although, in fact, Andrea Jördens’s book also deals more broadly with the general topic of Egypt’s Roman-period administration). Another specialized study of a particular branch of the administration, Swarney 1970, further demonstrates administrative changes between Ptolemaic and Roman times.
  232.  
  233. Capponi, Livia. 2005. Augustan Egypt: The creation of a Roman province. Studies in Classics 13. New York and London: Routledge.
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  235. Reassesses the administration of Egypt under Augustus, interrogating the balance between change from, and continuity with, Ptolemaic practices. Note some cautions raised in the review by Dominic Rathbone in Classical Review, n.s. 57.2 (2007): 488–490.
  236. Find this resource:
  237. Hagedorn, Dieter. 1985. Zum Amt des διοικητής im römischen Ägypten. Yale Classical Studies 28:167–210.
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  239. Although there was an official called the dioiketes both under Ptolemaic and Roman rule, Hagedorn demonstrates that this position illustrates change, not continuity, in administrative practices. The early Roman dioiketes was a less important, local office, contrasting both with the high-ranking Ptolemaic financial official and the later Roman imperial procurator in charge of regular revenue.
  240. Find this resource:
  241. Hagedorn, Dieter. 2007. The emergence of municipal offices in the nome-capitals of Egypt. In Oxyrhynchus: A city and its texts. Edited by Alan K. Bowman, Revel A. Coles, Nikolaos Gonis, Dirk Obbink, and Peter J. Parsons, 194–204. Graeco-Roman Memoirs 93. London: Egypt Exploration Society.
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  243. Investigates the early history of municipal offices in the metropoleis of Roman Egypt; tracks the earliest attestations of certain offices (kosmetes, exegetes, gymnasiarch). Demonstrates that municipalization, including the development of such offices, was a lengthy, multistage process in which different municipal offices appeared at different times.
  244. Find this resource:
  245. Jördens, Andrea. 2009. Statthalterliche Verwaltung in der römischen Kaiserzeit: Studien zum praefectus Aegypti. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
  246. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  247. In addition to examining the role of the prefect, Jördens also provides a broader reconsideration of the Roman administration in Egypt. Responding to earlier scholarship on the “exceptional position” (Sonderstellung) of Egypt within the empire, Jördens argues that Egypt was in some ways a much more typical province than often thought; she thus demonstrates the relevance of Egyptian evidence to the broader study of Roman provincial administration.
  248. Find this resource:
  249. Kruse, Thomas. 2002. Der königliche Schreiber und die Gauverwaltung: Untersuchungen zur Verwaltungsgeschichte Ägyptens in der Zeit von Augustus bis Philippus Arabs (30 v. Chr.–245 n. Chr.). Munich and Leipzig: K. G. Saur.
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  251. Standard work on the responsibilities of the basilikos grammateus, or “royal scribe,” in the Roman period. As the chief record keeper in each nome, the basilikos grammateus played an important role in numerous transactions associated with taxation, property, land use, census declarations, government oversight of temples, and more.
  252. Find this resource:
  253. Lewis, Naphtali. 1995. On government and law in Roman Egypt: Collected papers of Naphtali Lewis. Edited by Ann Ellis Hanson. American Studies in Papyrology 33. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
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  255. Collection of forty-nine articles on Roman Egypt’s administration and legal system. See especially “‘Greco-Roman Egypt’: Fact or Fiction?,” pp. 138–149, in which Lewis argues that “Roman domination brought more change than continuity in the administration of Egypt” (p. 148).
  256. Find this resource:
  257. Monson, Andrew. 2012. From the Ptolemies to the Romans: Political and economic change in Egypt. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  258. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139028196Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  259. Addresses the transition from Ptolemaic to Roman rule; chapter 6 focuses on administration and redistribution. Monson argues that the Roman administration was in some ways “stronger . . . with greater coercive power” than the Ptolemaic administration, given the Roman government’s power to compel urban elites to perform compulsory public services (p. 246).
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Swarney, Paul R. 1970. The Ptolemaic and Roman idios logos. American Studies in Papyrology 8. Toronto: A. M. Hakkert.
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  263. In the Ptolemaic period, the idios logos was originally the king’s “special account,” used for income from the sale of properties confiscated by the government; later it became a governmental bureau. In the Julio-Claudian period, the bureau sold state property and hereditary temple offices. Its functions expanded greatly under the Flavians and Antonines. In Roman Egypt, a handbook (the Gnomon of the Idios Logos) served as a guide to officeholders.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Thomas, J. David. 1982. The epistrategos in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Vol. 2, The Roman epistrategos. Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag.
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  267. Standard study of the office of epistrategos; Vol. 2 deals with the Roman period. Originally an official endowed with military and civil powers throughout the chora, the epistrategos changed substantially in function over time. Under Roman rule, there were multiple regional epistrategoi, who now were procurators of equestrian rank and held civil rather than military functions.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. Law and Legal System
  270.  
  271. Wolff 1978–2002 is the fundamental study of Greek law in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Rowlandson 2010 provides a general overview of legal systems in Greco-Roman Egypt. Mélèze Modrzejewski 1975 focuses on an unusual aspect of Ptolemaic law: the existence of two parallel legal systems, one Greek and one Egyptian, whose jurisdiction was determined by language. A later article, Mélèze Modrzejewski 1995, provides further discussion of various cultural influences on the Ptolemaic legal system, as well as some remarks on Jewish law. Important primary sources on indigenous Egyptian law are the so-called “legal handbooks” or “legal manuals” known from the Ptolemaic period (for which, see Lippert 2004). Another set of useful primary sources, this time on laws concerning debt and credit, are Demotic surety documents such as those published in Sethe and Partsch 1920. For a discussion of Demotic legal documents concerning agreements between private persons, see pp. 139–148 in Depauw 1997, cited under Egyptian Demotic. Katzoff 1980 and Jördens 1997 discuss the prefect’s role as a source of law in Roman Egypt; Lewis 1995 (cited under Roman Administration) collects numerous influential essays from a prominent authority on the legal system of Roman Egypt, and Lerouxel 2012 provides a useful contribution to an ongoing debate about the functions of one particular aspect of Roman-period property law. On the subject of legal citizenship in Roman Egypt, where the population was divided into Roman citizens, citizens of the Greek poleis, and “Egyptians” (the majority of the country), see Andrea Jördens’s article “Status and Citizenship” (pp. 247–259) in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt (Riggs 2012, cited under Handbooks and Encyclopedias). For sources on the legal status of women, see also Women and Gender.
  272.  
  273. Jördens, Andrea. 1997. Erlasse und Edikte: Ein neuer Erlass des Präfekten M. Sempronius Liberalis und die Frage der statthalterlichen Rechtsetzungskompetenz. Paper presented at a symposium held 1–5 September 1995 in Corfu, Greece. In Symposion 1995: Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte (Korfu, 1.–5. September 1995). Edited by Gerhard Thür and Julie Vélissaropoulos-Karakostas, 325–352. Cologne: Böhlau Verlag.
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  275. Draws on a decree of the prefect M. Sempronius Liberalis as evidence for the different types of legal pronouncements that the prefect of Egypt might issue. Distinguishes several different types of pronouncements or decrees, discussing the varying uses of each.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Katzoff, Ranon. 1980. Sources of law in Roman Egypt: The role of the prefect. In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Vol. II.13, Principat: Recht. Edited by Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase, 807–844. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
  278. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  279. Papyrological study of the evidence for legally recognized sources of law in Roman Egypt, not including laws that applied to the empire as a whole. Particular emphasis is placed on prefects’ edicts as a source of law. Judicial precedent was also frequently invoked but does not appear to have been binding (p. 843).
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Lerouxel, François. 2012. Le marché du crédit privé, la bibliothèque des acquêts et les tâches publiques en Égypte romaine. Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 67.4: 943–976.
  282. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  283. Laws concerning property rights changed substantially in the Roman period, when all titles to property now legally needed to be registered in a new archive, the bibliotheke enkteseon. Employing a theoretical stance derived from neo-institutional economics, Lerouxel contributes to early-21st-century debates on this institution’s functions and origins. He connects the bibliotheke enkteseon to changing practices in the private credit market, as well as the Roman practice of imposing liturgies on wealthy elites.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Lippert, Sandra Luisa. 2004. Ein demotisches juristisches Lehrbuch: Untersuchungen zu Papyrus Berlin P 23757 rto. Ägyptologische Abhandlungen 66. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag.
  286. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  287. Text edition of a Demotic “legal manual,” probably recorded in the 3rd century BCE. Argues that this and similar texts derive from collections of Egyptian law, and associated commentaries, that ultimately go back to the Persian-period compilation of Egyptian laws. The texts thus shed light on the question of pre-Ptolemaic written laws in Egypt. The ancient commentaries further demonstrate the existence of an indigenous tradition of legal scholarship (p. 177).
  288. Find this resource:
  289. Mélèze Modrzejewski, Joseph. 1975. Chrèmatistes et laocrites. In Le monde grec: Pensée, littérature, histoire, documents; Hommages à Claire Préaux. Edited by Jean Bingen, Guy Cambier, and Georges Nachtergael, 699–708. Brussels: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles.
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  291. Discussion and interpretation of P. Tebt. I 5, an ordinance discussing the assignment of legal cases to Egyptian or Greek courts on the basis of the language of the original contract. Sees the ordinance as an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to protect the traditional rights of the Egyptian laokritai.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Mélèze Modrzejewski, Joseph. 1995. Law and justice in Ptolemaic Egypt. In 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. Edited by Markham J. Geller and Herwig Maehler, 1–11. London: Warburg Institute, Univ. of London.
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  295. Introduction to an edited volume on Hellenistic law, providing an overview of the Ptolemaic legal system, an analysis of the interplay of indigenous Egyptian and imported Greek legal concepts within that system, and some remarks on the status of Jewish law in Ptolemaic Egypt.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Rowlandson, Jane. 2010. Administration and law: Graeco-Roman. In A companion to ancient Egypt. Vol. 1. Edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 237–254. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World 36. Chichester, UK, and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
  298. DOI: 10.1002/9781444320053Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. A general introduction to administration and law in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Provides a good overview of the state of the field and current disputes.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Sethe, Kurt, and Josef Partsch. 1920. Demotische Urkunden zum ägyptischen Bürgschaftsrechte vorzüglich der Ptolemäerzeit. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.
  302. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  303. Edition and German translation of an important collection of Demotic security guarantees, in which a third-party guarantor agrees to pay a person’s debts if necessary. Other, similar texts have come to light since Sethe and Partsch’s study: for example, Françoise de Cenival’s Cautionnements démotiques du début de l’époque ptolémaïque (P. dém. Lille 34 à 96) (Paris: Éditions Klincksieck, 1973); see also Depauw 1997, pp. 137–138 (cited under Egyptian Demotic).
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Wolff, Hans Julius. 1978–2002. Das Recht der griechischen Papyri Ägyptens in der Zeit der Ptolemäer und des Prinzipats. 2 vols. Munich: Beck.
  306. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307. Monograph on Greek law, legal institutions, and legal documents in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. A good example of juristic papyrology, although Wolff does not much discuss Demotic law; see the points raised in Peter van Minnen’s review in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 43 (2006): 183–188.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Army and Military
  310.  
  311. For social histories of the military in Egypt, see Fischer-Bovet 2014 on the Ptolemaic period and Alston 1995 on the Roman period. The Ptolemaic army included both cleruchs, who were rewarded with land grants, and misthophoroi, who were paid in coin wages; on the first category, see Uebel 1968, Bagnall 1984, and Scheuble-Reiter 2012, and on a category of individuals who may be associated with the second category, see Vandorpe 2008, cited under “Persians of the Epigone”. Peremans and Van ‘t Dack 1952 is a prosopography of individuals associated with the Ptolemaic army. Another useful source on the Ptolemaic army is a collection of essays by Edmond Van ‘t Dack on military and administrative topics (Van ‘t Dack 1988, cited under Ptolemaic Administration. For the Roman period, Haensch 2012 provides an introductory overview of the military presence in Egypt, and Lesquier 1918 remains a useful resource, albeit one that requires supplementing with more recently published data. Such data come from (among other things) the survey and excavation of Roman military installations in the Eastern and Western Deserts, where a system of Roman fortresses controlled the roads, policed the desert, supplied water to travelers, and provided an important communication network (e.g., see Cuvigny 2003).
  312.  
  313. Alston, Richard. 1995. Soldier and society in Roman Egypt: A social history. New York: Routledge.
  314. DOI: 10.4324/9780203272633Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  315. Takes a bottom-up perspective, turning away from “institutional military history” (p. 8) to write a social history of soldiers and those with whom they interacted. Note some cautions in Roger S. Bagnall’s review, “A Kinder, Gentler Roman Army?,” in Journal of Roman Archaeology 10 (1997): 504–512.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Bagnall, Roger S. 1984. The origins of Ptolemaic cleruchs. Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 21.1–4: 7–20.
  318. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  319. Argues that the majority of cleruchs, throughout the Ptolemaic period, were descendants of the original army of Ptolemy Lagus; that is, that cleruchs were “almost a closed class” (p. 18), and mercenaries who joined the army later in the Hellenistic period were unlikely to be rewarded with land.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Cuvigny, Hélène, ed. 2003. La route de Myos Hormos: L’armée romaine dans le désert Oriental d’Égypte. 2 vols. Cairo, Egypt: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale.
  322. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  323. Publication of the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale’s (IFAO’s) survey and excavation of a series of Roman forts along the Wadi Hammamat. Also contains some discussion of the numerous ostraca from the forts, on which see Cuvigny’s Ostraca de Krokodilô: La correspondence militaire et sa circulation (Cairo, Egypt: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 2005). Cuvigny also directs excavations at another Roman military installation at Didymoi.
  324. Find this resource:
  325. Fischer-Bovet, Christelle. 2014. Army and society in Ptolemaic Egypt. Armies of the Ancient World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  326. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139035231Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  327. Social history of the army in Hellenistic Egypt. Criticizes interpretations of the army as a “colonial tool” reinforcing Greek supremacy, interpreting the army instead as an “engine of socio-economic and cultural integration” (p. 7) that promoted new patterns of land redistribution, ethnic interactions, and social mobility.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Haensch, Rudolf. 2012. The Roman army in Egypt. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 68–82. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  330. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  331. A general introduction to the Roman army in Egypt. Discusses garrisons, soldiers’ geographical and ethnic origins, the distinctive features of the army in Egypt, and the life and status of soldiers.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Lesquier, Jean. 1918. L’armée romaine d’Égypte d’Auguste à Dioclétien. Cairo, Egypt: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale.
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  335. Classic reference work on the army of Roman Egypt, still worth reading despite the publication of much new papyrological and archaeological data since Lesquier’s time.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Peremans, Willy, and Edmond Van ‘t Dack. 1952. Prosopographia Ptolemaica. Vol. 2, L’armée de terre et la police. Studia Hellenistica 8. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
  338. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  339. Prosopographical study of the Ptolemaic army and police force, collecting all names and references to individuals attested as part of these groups in ancient documentary sources. For more-recent work building on the Prosopographia Ptolemaica series, see also the still-expanding Trismegistos.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Scheuble-Reiter, Sandra. 2012. Die Katökenreiter im ptolemäischen Ägypten. Vestigia 64. Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck.
  342. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343. Comprehensive study of Ptolemaic katoikoi (cavalry cleruchs); takes advantage of much new evidence not available to Jean Lesquier or Fritz Uebel, for example. In Egypt, the term katoikoi had a restricted use, specifically describing cavalrymen who formed a high-status subset of cleruchs. Among other points, Scheuble-Reiter suggests that the katoikoi came to include more people of indigenous descent than is often assumed, and she argues that cleruchs’ land plots never fully became private property in Ptolemaic times.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Uebel, Fritz. 1968. Die Kleruchen Ägyptens unter den ersten sechs Ptolemäern. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
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  347. Classic reference work on the Greek cleruchs, or military settlers, who received plots of land in the Egyptian countryside as rewards for their service.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Police and Prisons
  350.  
  351. Bauschatz 2013 is a general study of police and law enforcement in Ptolemaic Egypt, while Homoth-Kuhs 2005 focuses specifically on the role of phylakes, or guards. Taubenschlag 1959, Krause 1996, and Bauschatz 2007 examine prisons and imprisonment. Important data on the social and economic status of policemen come from tax registers: see Thompson 1997 and Clarysse and Thompson 2006. In Roman Egypt, the professional Ptolemaic police force (phylakitai) was replaced with a two-part system of law enforcement in the chora, incorporating both military stationes and village phylakes: see Bagnall 1977.
  352.  
  353. Bagnall, Roger S. 1977. Army and police in Roman Upper Egypt. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 14:67–86.
  354. DOI: 10.2307/40000369Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  355. Investigation of the organization of police forces in the Roman-period Thebaid. In place of the usual practice elsewhere in Roman Egypt, where policing was done through “a combination of scattered military posts and a liturgical system of village guards” (p. 76), Bagnall argues that police work in the Thebaid was a corvée duty.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Bauschatz, John. 2007. Ptolemaic prisons reconsidered. Classical Bulletin 83.1: 3–47.
  358. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  359. Reconsiders existing models of Ptolemaic imprisonment. Argues, among other things, that individuals in Ptolemaic Egypt could be jailed for a greater variety of public and private offenses than previously recognized. Papyrological evidence also paints a vivid picture of the horrors and deprivations of Ptolemaic incarceration.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Bauschatz, John. 2013. Law and enforcement in Ptolemaic Egypt. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  362. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139583770Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  363. The most recent comprehensive study of police and policing in the Ptolemaic period. Argues for a fairly effective, smoothly functioning police system, with relatively little evidence for police corruption.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Clarysse, Willy, and Dorothy J. Thompson. 2006. Counting the people in Hellenistic Egypt. 2 vols. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  366. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  367. Important study in two volumes; Vol. 1 publishes fifty-four papyri listing Ptolemaic taxpayers and their payments, and Vol. 2 contains historical studies analyzing the importance of those registers for an understanding of Ptolemaic social and economic history. The subject of policemen in the tax registers is discussed in Vol. 2 (pp. 165–177).
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Homoth-Kuhs, Clemens. 2005. Phylakes und Phylakon-Steuer im griechisch-römischen Ägypten: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des antiken Sicherheitswesens. Leipzig and Munich: K. G. Saur.
  370. DOI: 10.1515/9783110961348Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371. Draws on documentary papyri and ostraca to synthesize current knowledge on phylakes and the taxes associated with them. Demonstrates the changing role of the phylakes, who provided private security in the Ptolemaic period but took on public functions in the Roman period (although private phylakes continued to exist).
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Krause, Jens-Uwe. 1996. Gefängnisse im römischen Reich. Heidelberger Althistorische Beiträge und Epigraphische Studien 23. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
  374. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375. Sociohistorical study of prisons and imprisonment throughout the Roman Empire; draws on much papyrological evidence from Roman Egypt.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Taubenschlag, Rafał. 1959. L’emprisonnement dans le droit gréco-égyptien. In Opera minora. Vol. 2, Spezieller teil. By Rafał Taubenschlag, 713–719. Warsaw, Poland: Państwowe Wydawn Naukowe.
  378. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  379. An early, foundational study of prisons and imprisonment in Greco-Roman Egypt, now somewhat outdated.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Thompson, Dorothy J. 1997. Policing the Ptolemaic countryside. Paper presented at the 21st International Congress of Papyrologists, held 13–19 August 1985 in Berlin. In Akten des 21. internationalen Papyrologenkongresses Berlin, 13.–19.8 1985. Vol. 2. Edited by Bärbel Kramer, Wolfgang Luppe, Herwig Maehler, and Günther Poethke, 961–966. Archiv für Papyrusforschung und Verwandte Gebiete 3. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner.
  382. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. Uses salt-tax registers from the 3rd century BCE, mostly from the Arsinoite nome, as evidence on the composition and organization of the Ptolemaic police force. Shows that policemen held a somewhat privileged status and received tax benefits. Categories of police include phylakitai (the regular police force) and ephodoi (seemingly higher ranking, and specialized in protecting roads and trade).
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Revolts and Resistance
  386.  
  387. Both Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt witnessed numerous revolts and episodes of internal strife, whose causes often remain debated. For Ptolemaic-period revolts, much scholarly debate has centered on the question of rebels’ motivations: to what degree did revolts express anti-Greek nationalist feelings, as opposed to socioeconomic discontent? Préaux 1936 represents an early attempt to address such questions; more-recent surveys of these debates, and reassessments of the evidence, appear in McGing 1997 and Veïsse 2004. Pestman 1995 discusses the most substantial anti-Ptolemaic revolt, which briefly produced a separatist neo-Pharaonic state in Thebes. Studies of individual antigovernment revolts in the Roman period include Hoffmann, et al. 2009 on an Augustan-period revolt; Alston 1999 and Leadbetter 2000 on uprisings in, respectively, the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE; and chapters 8–10 in Mélèze Modrzejewski 1995, cited under Jews and Jewish Communities) on Jewish uprisings and anti-Jewish violence. On certain apocalyptic literary texts that may be associated with, or shed light on the motivations of, antigovernment sentiments or uprisings, see Blasius and Schipper 2002, and also see Lloyd 1982 (cited under Priests, Priestly Hierarchies, and the State) and Johnson 1983 (cited under Ruler Cult and Royal Ideology).
  388.  
  389. Alston, Richard. 1999. The revolt of the Boukoloi: Geography, history and myth. In Organised crime in Antiquity. Edited by Keith Hopwood, 129–153. London: Duckworth.
  390. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391. Reconsideration of the revolt of the so-called Boukoloi in the Egyptian Delta in 171–172 CE, analyzing the interplay of “myth and history” (p. 129) in the ancient accounts.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Blasius, Andreas, and Bernd Ulrich Schipper, eds. 2002. Apokalyptik und Ägypten: Eine kritische Analyse der relevanten Texte aus dem griechisch-römischen Ägypten. Papers presented at two symposia held in August 2000 and March 2001 at the Univ. of Bonn, Bonn, Germany. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 107. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
  394. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  395. Edited collection providing translations and discussions of apocalyptic texts from Greco-Roman Egypt. Many of the texts in question are often taken as expressions of antigovernment sentiment, an interpretation discussed and sometimes critiqued in the essays here.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Hoffmann, Friedhelm, Martina Minas-Nerpal, and Stefan Pfeiffer. 2009. Die dreisprachige Stele des C. Cornelius Gallus: Übersetzung und Kommentar. Archiv für Papyrusforschung und Verwandte Gebiete 9. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
  398. DOI: 10.1515/9783110216899Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  399. Edition and commentary on the trilingual text of the Roman prefect C. Cornelius Gallus’s victory stele, which celebrates his suppression of a revolt in Upper Egypt and conquest of Lower Nubia in 29 BCE. Provides evidence both on the nature of the early Roman imperial presence in Egypt and Egyptian responses (and resistance) to that presence.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Leadbetter, Bill. 2000. Galerius and the revolt of the Thebaid in 293/4. Antichthon 34:82–94.
  402. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  403. Even in the late 3rd century CE, the Thebaid seems to have been particularly prone to revolt. Leadbetter analyzes the scale, results, and significance of a rebellion crushed by Galerius.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. McGing, Brian C. 1997. Revolt Egyptian style: Internal opposition to Ptolemaic rule. Archiv für Papyrusforschung und Verwandte Gebiete 43.2: 273–314.
  406. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. Surveys the evidence for anti-Ptolemaic revolts, reexamines standard explanations for these revolts, and publishes a new papyrus on the revolt of Chaonnophris in Thebes. Concludes that both “nationalistic/religious and social/economic discontent” played a role in the rebellions, “and it does not seem possible to say whether one or the other was more important” (p. 298).
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Pestman, P. W. 1995. Haronnophris and Chaonnophris: Two indigenous pharaohs in Ptolemaic Egypt (205–186 B.C.). Paper presented at a colloquium held 9–11 September 1992 in Leiden, The Netherlands. In Hundred-gated Thebes: Acts of a colloquium on Thebes and the Theban area in the Graeco-Roman period. Edited by Sven P. Vleeming, 101–137. Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava 27. Leiden, The Netherlands, and New York: Brill.
  410. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  411. Collects evidence for the reigns of the two rulers of the breakaway Pharaonic state that briefly centered on Thebes during the reigns of Ptolemies IV and V; establishes, among other things, the chronology of the revolt and the correct readings of the rulers’ names (Horwennefer/Haronnophris, Ankhwennefer/Chaonnophris).
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Préaux, Claire. 1936. Esquisse d’une histoire des révolutions égyptiennes sous les Lagides. Chronique d’Égypte 11.22: 522–552.
  414. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415. Influential, early study of the anti-Ptolemaic revolts; argues for the greater explanatory force of social, rather than nationalist, explanations.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Veïsse, Anne-Emmanuelle. 2004. Les “révoltes égyptiennes”: Recherches sur les troubles intérieurs en Égypte du règne de Ptolémée III Evergète à la conquête romaine. Studia Hellenistica 41. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
  418. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  419. Overview of anti-Ptolemaic revolts and analysis of the motivation of the rebels. Ultimately argues that the idea of “nationalism” is anachronistic, and that socioeconomic motivations were particularly important to the rebels. Notes that rebels could direct their hostility toward Egyptians as well as Greeks, and that many priests supported the Ptolemies rather than the rebels.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Economy
  422.  
  423. Agriculture, made possible by the annually inundating Nile, was central to Egypt’s economy throughout the Greco-Roman period. The sources in this section deal with several topics: general overviews of the Ptolemaic- and Roman-period economy; Agricultural Practices and Irrigation; Landholding and Estates; Taxation, Corvée, and Liturgies; Manufacture and Trade: From Production to Consumption; and Money and Numismatics. Good general introductions include Kehoe 2010 (on the economy both of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt) and Rathbone 2007 (on the Roman period only). Préaux 1939 is a classic early study of the Ptolemaic economy, to which Bingen 2007 offers some influential corrections; Manning 2010 is one of the more recent reassessments of the evidence. Clarysse and Thompson 2006 contains a mine of important data. Monson 2012 addresses changes between the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Rathbone 2002 compares the economy of Greco-Roman Egypt to the rest of the ancient world.
  424.  
  425. Bingen, Jean. 2007. Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, society, economy, culture. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. Collection and translation into English of nineteen papers by a prominent scholar. Bingen’s conception of the relatively improvisatory nature of the Ptolemaic economy has proven particularly influential.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Clarysse, Willy, and Dorothy J. Thompson. 2006. Counting the people in Hellenistic Egypt. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  430. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  431. Vol. 1 publishes fifty-four papyri listing Ptolemaic taxpayers and their payments; Vol. 2 analyzes the importance of those registers for an understanding of Ptolemaic social and economic history. The registers provide an essential source for any study of economic developments in Hellenistic Egypt.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Kehoe, Dennis. 2010. The economy: Graeco-Roman. In A companion to ancient Egypt. Vol. 1. Edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 309–325. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World 36. Chichester, UK, and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
  434. DOI: 10.1002/9781444320053Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. Overview of the foundation, structure, and institutions of the economy of Greco-Roman Egypt; designed as a first introduction to the subject.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Manning, J. G. 2010. The last pharaohs: Egypt under the Ptolemies, 305–30 BC. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. Reassessment of Ptolemaic governance, especially regarding economic policy and the limits of state power; more heavily informed by Egyptian-language texts than many earlier accounts. Critiques earlier models of Ptolemaic governance as despotic, dirigiste, or colonialist. Sees Ptolemaic state power as limited by the agendas and actions of local elites, as well as indigenous institutions.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Monson, Andrew. 2012. From the Ptolemies to the Romans: Political and economic change in Egypt. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  442. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139028196Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. Addresses the transition from Ptolemaic to Roman rule in Egypt, analyzing elements of continuity and change in the government’s economic and administrative policies. Monson sees substantial economic growth, higher productivity, and a greater role for market forces in the Roman economy, as a result of a series of legal and fiscal reforms.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Préaux, Claire. 1939. L’économie royale des Lagides. Brussels: Édition de la Fondation Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth.
  446. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. Early, influential synthetic study of the Ptolemaic economy. Focuses on state-run aspects of that economy, glossing over locally specific variations; more-recent scholarship (e.g., Manning 2010) often emphasizes the limits of state control. Interprets Ptolemaic economic policy as nearly exclusively focused on the king’s enrichment, a situation that Préaux thinks discouraged any “esprit d’entreprise” (p. 569).
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Rathbone, Dominic. 2002. The ancient economy and Graeco-Roman Egypt. In The ancient economy. Edited by Walter Scheidel and Sitta von Reden, 155–169. New York: Routledge.
  450. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  451. Compares the Egyptian economy to the economic systems of the rest of the Greco-Roman world. Downplays Egypt’s exceptionality, emphasizing economic continuities with the rest of the classical world. Takes an anti-primitivist, rationalist approach. Originally published in 1989.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Rathbone, Dominic. 2007. Roman Egypt. In The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world. Edited by Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and Richard P. Saller, 698–719. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  454. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521780537Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  455. Historical overview of Egypt’s economy in the first three centuries CE. Mediating between tendencies to view the Egyptian economy as typical of Roman provinces versus entirely sui generis, Rathbone argues for Egypt as “our best documented case of the normal regional variation within the empire-wide framework” (p. 698) of the Roman economy.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Agricultural Practices and Irrigation
  458.  
  459. Bowman and Rogan 1999 collects many useful essays on agriculture in Egypt, during the Greco-Roman period as well as earlier. Blouin 2012 is a general introduction to agriculture and husbandry in Roman Egypt. The two studies by Danielle Bonneau (Bonneau 1971, Bonneau 1993) use papyrological evidence to examine changing patterns in human use of the Nile for irrigation during the Greco-Roman period. Manning 2002 looks at the intersection of hydrology and politics, emphasizing the local rather than national organization of irrigation works. Butzer 1976 is a classic study of human-environment interactions during the development of Egyptian civilization. Rathbone 1994 raises some provocative questions for future research, and Wuttmann 2001 provides an archaeological perspective on irrigation and agriculture on Egypt’s fringes.
  460.  
  461. Blouin, Katherine. 2012. Between water and sand: Agriculture and husbandry. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 22–37. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  462. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463. A general introduction to agricultural management and land use in Roman Egypt.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Bonneau, Danielle. 1971. Le fisc et le Nil: Incidences des irrégularités de la crue du Nil sur la fiscalité foncière dans l’Égypte grecque et romaine. Paris: Cujas.
  466. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. Uses papyrological sources to assemble a history of the annual inundations of the Nile in Greco-Roman Egypt. Discusses the impact of flood irregularities on the Egyptian economy, as well as the administrative strategies employed to manage such irregularities.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Bonneau, Danielle. 1993. Le régime administratif de l’eau du Nil dans l’Égypte grecque, romaine et byzantine. Probleme der Ägyptologie 8. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
  470. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  471. Papyrological study of the utilization and control of the waters of the Nile in the Ptolemaic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. Sheds light on the interaction of society and environment in Greco-Roman Egypt, as well as the roles of local and national power structures in maintaining irrigation regimes.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Bowman, Alan K., and Eugene Rogan, eds. 1999. Agriculture in Egypt from Pharaonic to modern times. Papers presented at a symposium titled “Land, Settlement and Agriculture in Egypt from Pharaonic to Modern Times,” held in March 1996 at Oxford. Proceedings of the British Academy 96. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  474. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  475. Proceedings of a conference on the organization and social context of Egyptian agricultural practices, covering an extremely broad time range. Includes essays by J. G. Manning, Dorothy Thompson, Jane Rowlandson, and Michael Sharp on the subjects of land tenure, land leasing, irrigation and drainage, and agricultural practices in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Butzer, Karl W. 1976. Early hydraulic civilization in Egypt: A study in cultural ecology. Prehistoric Archeology and Ecology. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
  478. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479. Classic study of the interaction of changing environmental conditions with the development of Egyptian society. Although he focuses on the rise and development of Pharaonic civilization, Butzer’s work has been influential to those who study later periods as well. Includes a discussion of the local management of irrigation works.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Manning, Joseph G. 2002. Irrigation et État en Égypte antique. Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 57.3: 611–623.
  482. DOI: 10.3406/ahess.2002.280067Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. Emphasizes the local organization of irrigation facilities in Egypt, contrary to the views of Karl Wittfogel and others. Argues that aside from the major land reclamation project in the Fayum, irrigation works in Ptolemaic Egypt remained fundamentally diffuse and under the control of local, not national, authorities.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Rathbone, Dominic W. 1994. Settlement and society in Greek and Roman Egypt. In Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Papyrologists, Copenhagen, 23–29 August 1992. Edited by Adam Bülow-Jacobsen, 136–145. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum.
  486. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. Raises several research questions concerning human-environment relations in Greco-Roman Egypt, focusing particularly on irrigation and agricultural intensification, increased cultivation of imported plant and animal species, demographic changes in response to environmental conditions, and changing settlement patterns. Calls for closer integration of archaeological and papyrological data.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Wuttmann, Michel. 2001. Les qanāts de ‘Ayn-Manâwîr (oasis de Kharga, Égypte). In Irrigation et drainage dans l’antiquité, qanāts et canalisations souterraines en Iran, en Égypte et en Grèce: Séminaire tenu au collège de France. Edited by Pierre Briant, 109–135. Persika 2. Paris: Thotm.
  490. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  491. Archaeological investigation of qanats (underground aqueducts) at Ain Manawir in the Kharga Oasis. Examines irrigation technologies in regions of Egypt that could not benefit from the Nile inundation. Qanat technology was introduced during Persian rule and continued to be used thereafter.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Landholding and Estates
  494.  
  495. Changing patterns of land tenure in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt have been the subject of much productive research. Manning 2003 is a reexamination of landholding and land tenure in the Ptolemaic period, while Monson 2007 investigates regional differences in Ptolemaic landholding patterns. Monson 2012 and Rathbone 1993 address the transition to Roman rule but take different positions on certain issues, such as the question of private land in Ptolemaic Egypt. Rathbone 1991, Kehoe 1992, and Parássoglou 1978 investigate the workings of certain types of large estate. Rowlandson 1996 examines the relationship between landholding and social hierarchies in one particular region of Egypt. On the Roman-period institution of the bibliotheke enkteseon, a central archive for the registration of property rights, see the recent work of Lerouxel 2012, cited under Law and Legal System. On lands owned by cleruchs, see also Army and Military.
  496.  
  497. Kehoe, Dennis P. 1992. Management and investment on estates in Roman Egypt during the early empire. Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen 40. Bonn, Germany: R. Habelt.
  498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499. Uses the evidence of papyrological archives to argue that Roman elite landowners strove for risk management rather than profit maximization. Tests the generalizability of hypotheses originally derived from Kehoe’s earlier work on the landowning and economic strategies of Pliny the Younger.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Manning, J. G. 2003. Land and power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The structure of land tenure. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  502. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511482847Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  503. Against the “strong state model” of the Ptolemaic economy, Manning argues for a less centrally controlled economy, emphasizing small-scale individual landholdings and the importance of local elites and local networks. Contends that the government’s major goal was “to maximize revenue while minimizing risk” rather than “to increase production by central planning” (p. 142).
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Monson, Andrew. 2007. Royal land in Ptolemaic Egypt: A demographic model. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 50.4: 363–397.
  506. DOI: 10.1163/156852007783245098Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  507. Analyzes regional differences in Ptolemaic landholding patterns between the Nile valley and Fayum. Argues that for demographic reasons, the early Ptolemaic Fayum saw greater emphasis on communal rather than private landholdings, but by the later Ptolemaic period, changing economic incentives led to the increasing privatization of Fayum land as well.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Monson, Andrew. 2012. From the Ptolemies to the Romans: Political and economic change in Egypt. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  510. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139028196Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  511. Addresses the transition from Ptolemaic to Roman rule in Egypt, analyzing elements of continuity and change in the government’s economic and administrative policies. Critiques the opinion that the Romans were the first to introduce the concept of privately held land.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Parássoglou, George M. 1978. Imperial estates in Roman Egypt. American Studies in Papyrology 18. Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert.
  514. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. Examines Julio-Claudian imperial ousiai (properties or estates) as evidence for administrative and economic changes between the Ptolemaic and Roman regimes. Argues that imperial ousiai not only are continuations of Ptolemaic doreai (gift estates) but could be purchased on the market. Contends that the Roman period saw the first introduction of true private landownership in Egypt.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Rathbone, Dominic. 1991. Economic rationalism and rural society in third-century A.D. Egypt: The Heroninos archive and the Appianus estate. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  518. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  519. A study of an archive relating to a large 3rd-century private estate in the Fayum. Reconstructs the workings of the estate and discusses the sophistication of the ancient account keeping, making a case for elite estate owners in Roman Egypt as economic rational actors.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Rathbone, Dominic. 1993. Egypt, Augustus and Roman taxation. Cahiers du Centre Gustave Glotz 4:81–112.
  522. DOI: 10.3406/ccgg.1993.1372Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  523. Besides taxation, also discusses several other Augustan-era fiscal and administrative reforms in Egypt. Sees private landholdings as a Roman-period innovation in the chora and interprets ousiai as patrimonial property granted to emperors’ relatives and close associates, modeled on the Hellenistic practice of revocable grants of doreai (gift estates).
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Rowlandson, Jane. 1996. Landowners and tenants in Roman Egypt: The social relations of agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite nome. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Clarendon.
  526. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  527. Important, papyrologically oriented economic history of the Oxyrhynchite nome. Demonstrates the existence of a substantial number of small landholders throughout the Roman period and argues for the privatization of much originally public land. Also demonstrates the existence of a large number of female landowners.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Taxation, Corvée, and Liturgies
  530.  
  531. The state required its people to provide not only taxes (in kind and in coin) but also corvée labor; in the Roman period, local elites could also be responsible for liturgical service. For papyri providing primary sources on taxation in Ptolemaic Egypt, see Clarysse and Thompson 2006. For tax receipts on ostraca, Wilcken 1899, a monumental edition, remains crucial. Among numerous more-recent editions of ostraca, one starting point might be Muhs 2005, which publishes an important collection of early Ptolemaic tax ostraca (including Demotic texts as well as Greek) and discusses their implications for the workings of the tax system in early Hellenistic Egypt. Monson 2012 compares Ptolemaic versus Roman policies on taxation (as well as other economic and administrative practices). Jördens 2012 provides an introduction to the tax system in Roman Egypt, while Rathbone 1993 focuses on the reign of Augustus. Wallace 1938 is old but still a useful resource. Lewis 1982 and Thomas 1983 survey compulsory public services in the Roman period. See also Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity for sources on the relationship between ethnic (or pseudo-ethnic) status and tax liability during Ptolemaic times.
  532.  
  533. Clarysse, Willy, and Dorothy J. Thompson. 2006. Counting the people in Hellenistic Egypt. 2 vols. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  534. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  535. Important study in two volumes; Vol. 1 publishes fifty-four papyri listing Ptolemaic taxpayers and their payments, and Vol. 2 contains historical studies analyzing the importance of those registers for an understanding of Ptolemaic social and economic history.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Jördens, Andrea. 2012. Government, taxation, and law. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 56–67. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  538. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  539. A general introduction to government, taxation, and the legal system in Roman Egypt.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Lewis, Naphtali. 1982. The compulsory public services of Roman Egypt. 2d ed. Papyrologica Florentina 11. Florence: Edizioni Gonnelli.
  542. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543. Provides an inventory of public services for which different parts of the population (e.g., Roman citizens, metropolites, and peasants) might be liable, with a discussion of the processes through which individuals would be appointed to these tasks. An appendix includes the (much-shorter) inventory of Ptolemaic-period compulsory public services.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Monson, Andrew. 2012. From the Ptolemies to the Romans: Political and economic change in Egypt. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  546. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139028196Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  547. Addresses the transition from Ptolemaic to Roman rule in Egypt, analyzing continuity and change in economic and administrative policies. Chapter 5 addresses land taxation and investment, characterizing the Ptolemaic/Roman transition as a “transition from a fiscal regime based on high variable harvest taxes to one based on low fixed taxes” (p. 287).
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Muhs, Brian P. 2005. Tax receipts, taxpayers and taxes in early Ptolemaic Thebes. Oriental Institute Publications 126. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago.
  550. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551. Muhs’s book provides three major contributions: a detailed study (Sections 1–5) of tax and tax policies in the early Ptolemaic period, a prosopographic study of taxpayers (Section 6), and a catalogue of tax receipts (Section 7). Section 1 treats the monetization of the Ptolemaic economy not solely as a Hellenizing innovation, but a continuation of trends toward increasing monetization that originate as early as New Kingdom Egypt.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Rathbone, Dominic. 1993. Egypt, Augustus and Roman taxation. Cahiers du Centre Gustave Glotz 4:81–112.
  554. DOI: 10.3406/ccgg.1993.1372Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  555. A good introduction to the forms of taxation that Octavian introduced in Egypt. Concludes that instead of being an exceptional province, “Egypt was the laboratory” (p. 111) where Octavian tested fiscal policies that he would later apply throughout the empire.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Thomas, J. David. 1983. Compulsory public service in Roman Egypt. In Das römisch-byzantinische Ägypten: Akten des internationalen Symposions 26.–30. September 1978 in Trier. Edited by Günther Grimm, Heinz Heinen, and Erich Winter, 35–39. Aegyptiaca Treverensia 2. Mainz am Rhein, Germany: Philipp von Zabern.
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. A brief but useful survey of the types of compulsory service that existed in the Roman period, including corvée, compulsory farming, and liturgies. More accessible to nonspecialists than Lewis 1982.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Wallace, Sherman LeRoy. 1938. Taxation in Egypt from Augustus to Diocletian. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  562. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  563. Influential, early papyrological study of taxes and taxation policies in Roman Egypt; still widely cited. Reprinted as recently as 1983 (New York: Greenwood).
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Wilcken, Ulrich. 1899. Griechische Ostraka aus Ägypten und Nubien: Ein Beitrag zur antiken Wirtschaftsgeschichte. 2 vols. Leipzig: Giesecke & Devrient.
  566. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  567. First systematic study of Greek ostraca from Egypt. Vol. 2 contains text editions, while Vol. 1 represents a seminal attempt to use these texts to reconstruct Ptolemaic and Roman taxation policies. Reprinted as recently as 1979 (Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert).
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Manufacture and Trade: From Production to Consumption
  570.  
  571. Gibbs 2012 provides a brief overview of production, distribution, and consumption in Roman Egypt. Venticinque 2010 discusses the organization of craftsmen into guilds, and Westermann 1914 is an early but still-useful study of apprenticeship. Van Minnen 1987 studies the organization and specialization of craft producers, while Dross-Krüpe 2011 focuses on one specific type of production: textile manufacture in the Roman period. Cannata 2012 similarly deals with the production of one particular class of objects—funerary equipment—and also includes some broader discussion of the socioeconomic context of craft production. Regarding the distribution of goods, Adams 2007 examines overland transport, while Sidebotham 1986 looks at overseas trade. Empereur 1998 collects a range of essays on production and trade in and around Hellenistic and Roman Alexandria. For more sources on the production and consumption of specific types of goods, see a number of entries under Archaeology and Material Culture.
  572.  
  573. Adams, Colin. 2007. Land transport in Roman Egypt: A study of economics and administration in a Roman province. Oxford Classical Manuscripts. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
  574. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203970.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  575. Focuses on the power structures, networks of connectivity, and practical considerations involved in the land transport of goods within Roman Egypt. While the Nile provided one of the most important means of mobility, Adams’s study provides a useful contribution on another, relatively neglected aspect of mobility and connectivity in Roman Egypt.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Cannata, Maria. 2012. Funerary artists: The textual evidence. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 597–612. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  578. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  579. Survey of textual evidence on the organization, training, and social and economic status of the producers of funerary art in Roman Egypt. Also contains a brief general discussion of the socioeconomic context of craft production.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Dross-Krüpe, Kerstin. 2011. Wolle—Weber—Wirtschaft: Die Textilproduktion der römischen Kaiserzeit im Spiegel der papyrologischen Überlieferung. Philippika 46. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag.
  582. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  583. Analysis of papyrological evidence for textile production in Roman Egypt. Discusses the acquisition of raw materials, the manufacturing process, the organization of workshops, and the broader economic context of production. Aims to go beyond “positivistische Detailforschung” (p. 10) to create a comprehensive model of the textile industry.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Empereur, Jean-Yves, ed. 1998. Commerce et artisanat dans l’Alexandrie hellénistique et romaine: Actes du Colloque d’Athènes organisé par le CNRS, le laboratoire de céramologie de Lyon et l’École française de’Athènes, 11–12 décembre 1988. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique S33. Athens, Greece: École Française d’Athènes.
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  587. Collection of essays, mostly in French, on production, trade, and economic activity in Greco-Roman Alexandria. Section I focuses on rural economic activity in the countryside around Alexandria, Section II contains a number of essays on different types of craft production, and Section III focuses on money and numismatics.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Gibbs, Matt. 2012. Manufacture, trade, and the economy. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 38–55. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  590. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  591. An overview of the organization of production and exchange in Roman Egypt, with discussions of manufacture, markets, and the mobility of craftsmen and traders.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Sidebotham, Steven E. 1986. Roman economic policy in the Erythra Thalassa, 30 B.C.–A.D. 217. Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava S91. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
  594. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  595. Monograph on the Imperial “regulation, taxation and facilitation” (p. 1) of trade in the Erythra Thalassa and beyond. The term “Erythra Thalassa” could refer not only to the Red Sea but also to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean (pp. 182–186); most of the Roman trade in these regions dealt with high-value luxury goods.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. van Minnen, Peter. 1987. Urban craftsmen in Roman Egypt. Münsterische Beiträge zur Antiken Handelsgeschichte 6.1: 31–88.
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  599. Compares the organization of craft production in cities and the countryside of Roman Egypt and relates this topic to broader primitivist/modernist debates about the nature of the ancient economy. Argues for substantial differences in the modes of production associated with different settlement types.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. Venticinque, Philip F. 2010. Family affairs: Guild regulations and family relationships in Roman Egypt. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 50.2: 273–294.
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  603. Reconsideration of the organization and socioeconomic context of craftsmen’s guilds in Roman Egypt. Examines the utility of guild membership as a risk management strategy, the relationships between guilds and family structures, and the role of communal feasting and behavior regulations in creating group identity for guild members.
  604. Find this resource:
  605. Westermann, W. L. 1914. Apprentice contracts and the apprentice system in Roman Egypt. Classical Philology 9.3: 295–315.
  606. DOI: 10.1086/359890Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  607. Foundational study of apprenticeship in Roman Egypt. Discusses papyri providing evidence for apprentice contracts, or formal agreements between a master craftsman and the parents or caretaker of a young boy bound to become his apprentice.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Money and Numismatics
  610.  
  611. Although coins were used in Egypt as early as the Persian period, it was only in the Hellenistic period that the economy experienced large-scale monetization, as von Reden 2007 discusses. Lorber and Meadows 2012 provides an extensive bibliography on Ptolemaic numismatics. Faucher 2013 analyzes the metallic composition of Ptolemaic bronze coins to explore changing monetary policies. Coins provide valuable data not only on the economy but also on official ideology, because the designs on their surface project images of state power (Manning 2008). Van Minnen 2008 is a good introduction to the role of coins in the economy of Roman Egypt, while Christiansen 2004 surveys the archaeological evidence of coin hoards. West and Johnson 1967 is still a useful reference book.
  612.  
  613. Christiansen, Erik. 2004. Coinage in Roman Egypt: The hoard evidence. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus Univ. Press.
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  615. Analyzes the archaeological evidence of coin hoards to assess the history of coinage in Roman Egypt. Argues for a high degree of monetization in the Roman Egyptian economy and confirms that the closed coinage system of the Ptolemaic period likely persisted into (pre-Diocletianic) Roman times.
  616. Find this resource:
  617. Faucher, Thomas. 2013. Frapper monnaie: La fabrication des monnaies de bronze à Alexandrie sous les Ptolémées. Études Alexandrines 27. Alexandria, Egypt: Centre d’Études Alexandrines.
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  619. Archaeometallurgical and numismatic study of the production and evolution of Ptolemaic bronze coinage. Analyzes the changing metallic composition of the coins, relating it to changing monetary policies.
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Lorber, Catharine, and Andrew Meadows. 2012. Review of Ptolemaic numismatics, 1996 to 2007. ISAW Papers 2.
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  623. Review of scholarship on Ptolemaic numismatics from 1996 to 2007. A valuable source for early-21st-century bibliography on the field, providing a good sense of areas of currently active research.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. Manning, J. G. 2008. Coinage as “code” in Ptolemaic Egypt. In The monetary systems of the Greeks and Romans. Edited by William V. Harris, 84–111. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  626. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199233359.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  627. Discusses Ptolemaic coinage as a tool, and also a physical embodiment, of sovereignty and central government. Situates the monetization of the Egyptian economy in the broader context of Ptolemaic economic reforms. Notes varying degrees of monetization in different areas of the Ptolemaic economy.
  628. Find this resource:
  629. van Minnen, Peter. 2008. Money and credit in Roman Egypt. In The monetary systems of the Greeks and Romans. Edited by William V. Harris, 226–241. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  630. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199233359.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  631. Drawing largely on papyrological evidence, discusses the extent and impact of monetization on the economy of Roman Egypt from the 1st through 6th centuries CE. In the process, van Minnen also considers inflation, taxation rates, price changes, investment, and the flow of coinage throughout Egypt and the larger empire.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. von Reden, Sitta. 2007. Money in Ptolemaic Egypt: From the Macedonian Conquest to the end of the third century BC. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  635. Takes a historical perspective on the monetization of the early Ptolemaic economy; analyzes monetization as a state-driven process whose goals were both fiscal and propagandistic, and whose success was closely intertwined with the development of the Ptolemaic credit and banking system.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. West, Louis C., and Allan Chester Johnson. 1967. Currency in Roman and Byzantine Egypt. Amsterdam: Hakkert.
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  639. Reference book on coinage and monetary policy in Egypt from Augustus’s conquest through the Byzantine period. The authors’ aim is descriptive, rather than interpretive or thesis driven, but the text contains much useful information.
  640. Find this resource:
  641. Society and People
  642.  
  643. The rich textual and material evidence from Greco-Roman Egypt includes far more documentation on society, social structure, and daily life than is available for many other ancient societies. The study of ethnicity and identity, and of specific ethnic groups within Greco-Roman Egypt, remains a perennial fascination for scholars of this culturally and linguistically diverse society. Other particularly active areas of research include demography, social stratification, cities and urbanism, households and families, and women and gender.
  644.  
  645. Demography
  646.  
  647. Census records and tax registers, among other things, provide substantial evidence for demographic trends in Greco-Roman Egypt. The examination of patterns in age and sex distribution, life span, marriage practices, fertility and childbirth practices, family composition, migration habits, and other demographic phenomena can, in turn, provide a better sense of lived experience. Bagnall and Frier 2006 is the foundational text for the demography of Roman Egypt. Rathbone 1990 and Tacoma 2012 focus on population size and settlement patterns, while Scheidel 2001 and Scheidel 2012 examine mortality and disease. Useful primary sources include, among many others, Clarysse and Thompson 2006 and Bagnall, et al. 1997.
  648.  
  649. Bagnall, Roger S., and Bruce W. Frier. 2006. The demography of Roman Egypt. 2d ed. Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy, and Society in Past Time 23. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  651. Foundational study applying modern demographic techniques to about three hundred census returns on papyri from Roman Egypt (primarily the region of Middle Egypt) in the 1st and 3rd centuries CE. Despite some local idiosyncrasies (e.g., brother-sister marriage; see Households and Families), the demography of Roman Egypt appears broadly compatible with that of many other premodern Mediterranean populations.
  652. Find this resource:
  653. Bagnall, Roger S., Bruce W. Frier, and Ian C. Rutherford. 1997. The census register P.Oxy. 984: The reverse of Pindar’s Paeans. Papyrologica Bruxellensia 29. Brussels: Fondation Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth.
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  655. Edition of, and commentary on, a 1st-century CE census register from an Upper Egyptian site, probably Ptolemais (or possibly Lykopolis: see p. 56). The authors’ analysis of the census data enables them to update and supplement some conclusions from Bagnall and Frier 2006, which drew largely on Middle Egyptian sources.
  656. Find this resource:
  657. Clarysse, Willy, and Dorothy J. Thompson. 2006. Counting the people in Hellenistic Egypt. 2 vols. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  659. Vol. 1 publishes fifty-four papyri listing Ptolemaic taxpayers and their payments, and Vol. 2 contains historical studies analyzing the importance of those registers for an understanding of Ptolemaic social and economic history. The registers provide a crucial primary source for any study of demography in Hellenistic Egypt.
  660. Find this resource:
  661. Rathbone, Dominic W. 1990. Villages, land and population in Graeco-Roman Egypt. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 36:103–142.
  662. DOI: 10.1017/S0068673500005253Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  663. Collects available data on the size both of the total population of and settlements within Greco-Roman Egypt, investigates questions of demographic change during periods of particular historical interest, and considers the extent of urbanization.
  664. Find this resource:
  665. Scheidel, Walter. 2001. Death on the Nile: Disease and the demography of Roman Egypt. Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava Supplementum 228. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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  667. Demographic study focusing on mortality patterns in Roman Egypt, and emphasizing the effects of infectious disease and seasonal mortality. Critiques many of the approaches and conclusions of Bagnall and Frier 2006.
  668. Find this resource:
  669. Scheidel, Walter. 2012. Age and health. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 305–316. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  670. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  671. An introductory overview of the study of life expectancy, mortality, and disease in Roman Egypt.
  672. Find this resource:
  673. Tacoma, Laurens E. 2012. Settlement and population. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 122–135. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  674. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  675. An introductory survey of the subject of population size and settlement patterns in Roman Egypt. Includes a helpful overview of the definitional problems involved in the study of ancient urbanism: What defines an “urban” site in Roman Egypt?
  676. Find this resource:
  677. Social Stratification
  678.  
  679. Chauveau 2000, an introductory textbook on Ptolemaic social history, summarizes much useful information on social status and divisions. Lloyd 2002 discusses indigenous Ptolemaic elites, and Baines 2004 analyzes the material culture those elites produced. Bingen 2007 delineates some structural tensions within Ptolemaic society. Bowman and Rathbone 1992 describes the creation and status of civic elites in the Roman metropoleis (capitals of Egypt’s provinces). Rowlandson 1996 characterizes social hierarchies within a nome of the Roman Fayum, and Tacoma 2006 makes a provocative argument about the fragility of local hierarchies. Bieżuńska-Małowist 1974–1977 describes the lives of slaves, who were at the bottom of the social hierarchy in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt.
  680.  
  681. Baines, John. 2004. Egyptian elite self-presentation in the context of Ptolemaic rule. Paper presented at a conference titled “Alexandria between Egypt and Greece,” held 11–12 October 2002 at Columbia Univ., New York. In Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece. Edited by William V. Harris and Giovanni Ruffini, 33–61. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 26. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.
  682. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  683. Analysis of the strategies of self-representation employed in various elite monuments from Ptolemaic Egypt, especially stone statuary and biographical stelae. Pays particular attention to the negotiation of indigenous and Greek identities, and the constraints produced by Egyptian conventions of decorum.
  684. Find this resource:
  685. Bieżuńska-Małowist, Iza. 1974–1977. L’esclavage dans l’Égypte gréco-romaine. 2 vols. Wrocław, Poland: Zakład Narodowy Imienia Ossolińskich.
  686. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  687. Examines the structure, functions, and socioeconomic importance of the institution of slavery in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, as well as the origins, social condition, and activities of the slaves themselves. Emphasizes slavery’s limited role in the economy; slaves were a relatively small percentage of the population, largely concentrated in Greek cities, and worked most commonly as domestic staff.
  688. Find this resource:
  689. Bingen, Jean. 2007. Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, society, economy, culture. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
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  691. Collection and translation into English of nineteen influential papers by a prominent scholar of Ptolemaic Egyptian history, papyrology, and epigraphy. Chapter 14, “The Structural Tensions of Ptolemaic Society” (pp. 189–205), discusses some competing economic and social interests that led to tensions between different stakeholders in Hellenistic Egypt.
  692. Find this resource:
  693. Bowman, Alan K., and Dominic Rathbone. 1992. Cities and administration in Roman Egypt. Journal of Roman Studies 82:107–127.
  694. DOI: 10.2307/301287Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  695. Influential article on civic administration and civic elites in the Roman period. Argues that well before the metropoles received the right to have boulai, the Roman administration already employed a strategy of gradual municipalization throughout Egypt. This strategy involved privileging urban, culturally Hellenic elites, who were given various powers of self-administration.
  696. Find this resource:
  697. Chauveau, Michel. 2000. Egypt in the age of Cleopatra: History and society under the Ptolemies. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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  699. Useful, accessible introductory text on Hellenistic Egypt, emphasizing social history. Translation of L’Égypte au temps de Cléopâtre (Paris: Hachette Littératures, 1997). Chapter 4, “Economy and Society” (pp. 72–99), provides an overview of social organization and stratification.
  700. Find this resource:
  701. Lloyd, Alan B. 2002. The Egyptian elite in the early Ptolemaic period: Some hieroglyphic evidence. In The Hellenistic world: New perspectives. Edited by Daniel Ogden, 117–136. New Perspectives. London: Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth.
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  703. Arguing that standard accounts of the Ptolemaic period overemphasize the “Hellenic” identity of the elite class and downplay the number and significance of wealthy, high-ranking Egyptians, Lloyd draws on early Ptolemaic hieroglyphic texts to analyze the background, activities, and self-presentation of indigenous elites.
  704. Find this resource:
  705. Rowlandson, Jane. 1996. Landowners and tenants in Roman Egypt: The social relations of agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite nome. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Clarendon.
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  707. Economic history of Roman Oxyrhynchus. Demonstrates the existence of a substantial number of small landholders throughout the Roman period and argues for the privatization of much originally public land. Chapter 4 characterizes the social hierarchy of several different classes of landowners: metropolitan elites with large landholdings, wealthy villagers, small landowners, and the landless.
  708. Find this resource:
  709. Tacoma, Laurens E. 2006. Fragile hierarchies: The urban elites of third-century Roman Egypt. Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava Supplementum 271. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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  711. Argues that elite status in Roman Egypt was highly changeable and “fragile”; as a result of partible inheritance and high child mortality, elite families could rapidly fall from prominence and be replaced by new elite families. Although one might question some assumptions (e.g., see Dominic Rathbone’s review in Classical Review, n.s. 59 [2009]: 224–225), the basic argument is thought-provoking.
  712. Find this resource:
  713. Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity
  714.  
  715. Constructions of ethnicity and relations between different ethnic groups in Greco-Roman Egypt have long formed a hotly disputed topic, especially for the Ptolemaic period. In place of older interpretations of Ptolemaic culture as thoroughly blended, many later-20th-century historians argued that Greeks and Egyptians lived largely separate lives, with relatively little interaction or mutual interest. More recently, the pendulum has been swinging toward an increased emphasis on “frame switching” and the ability of certain individuals to identify both as Egyptian and Greek, depending on criteria such as tax and occupational status, linguistic ability, and military service. Bagnall 1988 provides a good introduction to the subject, and a later article by the same author (Bagnall 1997) critiques inappropriate comparisons of modern colonial states to Ptolemaic Egypt. Many ethnic labels appear to have connoted tax status rather than ancestry in the Ptolemaic period (La’da 1994), and Thompson 1992 (cited under Ptolemaic Administration) and Goudriaan 1988 contend that individuals could obtain “Hellenic” status through linguistic competence (on which, see also Bilingualism). Many scholars (e.g., in Lewis 1986) argue that such Hellenization would have been accessible only to a limited number of indigenous elites, although others (e.g., in Vandorpe 2008, cited under “Persians of the Epigone”) suggest that military service could have been a path to certain types of quasi-Hellenic status for a larger swath of the population. Clarysse and Thompson 2006 (cited under Economy) provides some of the basic evidence on ethnic labels in Ptolemaic tax documents. Clarysse 1985 discusses the phenomenon of double names, whereby the same person might have both a Greek and an Egyptian name. La’da 2002 (cited under “Persians of the Epigone”) is a prosopographical study of foreign ethnic designations. Bilde, et al., 1992 collects several important essays on constructions of ethnicity. Jean Bingen has written influential studies of the Greek population of Ptolemaic Egypt, including essays on the Greek presence both in cities and the countryside: see, e.g., Bingen 2007 (cited under Social Stratification). Lewis 1986 provides case studies of Greek individuals in Egypt, condensing and communicating the results of much papyrological research. Vandorpe 2012 describes the dramatic changes to ethnic (or pseudo-ethnic) classification and legal categories in the Roman period. See also Jews and Jewish Communities and “Persians of the Epigone”.
  716.  
  717. Bagnall, Roger S. 1988. Greeks and Egyptians: Ethnicity, status, and culture. In Cleopatra’s Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies. Edited by Robert Steven Bianchi, 21–27. New York: Brooklyn Museum.
  718. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  719. Essay accompanying a museum catalogue of Ptolemaic art; provides a useful discussion of the construction of ethnic identities in Ptolemaic Egypt. Notes that the negotiation of Greek versus Egyptian identity would have been relevant only for a minority of the population. Brief but highly learned; a good introduction to the subject.
  720. Find this resource:
  721. Bagnall, Roger S. 1997. Decolonizing Ptolemaic Egypt. In Hellenistic constructs: Essays in culture, history, and historiography. Edited by Paul Cartledge, Peter Garnsey, and Erich Gruen, 225–241. Hellenistic Culture and Society 26. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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  723. Offers a critical analysis of selected late-20th-century attempts to understand Hellenistic Egypt through paradigms derived from the study of modern colonial and postcolonial states. Proposes some alternative methods for cross-cultural comparisons between Ptolemaic Egypt and more-recent societies.
  724. Find this resource:
  725. Bilde, Per, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Lise Hannestad, and Jan Zahle, eds. 1992. Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt. Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 3. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus Univ. Press.
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  727. Edited volume with eight essays (all in English) on different aspects of the construction of ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt, and the strategies of self-identification adopted by different cultural and ethnic groups. Contributors include a number of prominent scholars.
  728. Find this resource:
  729. Clarysse, Willy. 1985. Greeks and Egyptians in the Ptolemaic army and administration. Aegyptus 65.1–2: 57–66.
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  731. Discusses double names; demonstrates that the choice of one name over another depended on cultural context and circumstances. Suggests that when individuals in the Ptolemaic army or administration hold Greek names, this does not necessarily indicate Greek rather than Egyptian ancestry.
  732. Find this resource:
  733. Goudriaan, Koen. 1988. Ethnicity in Ptolemaic Egypt. Dutch Monographs on Ancient History and Archaeology 5. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben.
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  735. Concludes that the primary determining factor in ethnic identification was linguistic ability, and that the Ptolemaic government did not engage in official discrimination between Greeks and Egyptians. Readers should also see Clarysse and Thompson 2006, cited under Economy, for a more recent perspective on tax status.
  736. Find this resource:
  737. La’da, Csaba A. 1994. Ethnicity, occupation and tax-status in Ptolemaic Egypt. Egitto e Vicino Oriente 17:183–189.
  738. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  739. Demonstrates that many official ethnic titles in Ptolemaic Egypt appear to be (1) largely fictive, (2) flexible (because some people changed their ethnic designations, and family members may have different ethnic designations), and (3) linked to specific occupations and tax statuses. Proposes the term “occupational-status designation” in place of “ethnic designation” for these titles.
  740. Find this resource:
  741. Lewis, Naphtali. 1986. Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt: Case studies in the social history of the Hellenistic world. Oxford: Clarendon.
  742. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  743. Each chapter focuses on a different Greek individual or family known from papyrus archives. Case studies include people capable of great feats of code switching, but the epilogue emphasizes the limits of Hellenization, arguing that it was available only to “a privileged minority” of Egyptians (p. 154).
  744. Find this resource:
  745. Vandorpe, Katelijn. 2012. Identity. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 260–276. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  746. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  747. Surveys the construction of identity (ethnic and otherwise) in the Roman period. The legal categorization of citizens changed dramatically from Ptolemaic practice, because all inhabitants of the chora were now classified as “Egyptians” regardless of previous claims to Hellenic status; the new privileged elites were Roman citizens and inhabitants of the Greek poleis.
  748. Find this resource:
  749. “Persians of the Epigone”
  750.  
  751. One of the most heavily debated ethnic or pseudo-ethnic categories in Ptolemaic Egypt is that of “Persians of the epigone” (i.e., “Persians by descent”). This term does not actually appear to describe people with Persian ancestry, and scholars sometimes associate it with Hellenized Egyptians (Oates 1963) or with some type of military status (La’da 1997, Vandorpe 2008, Fischer-Bovet 2014). Clarysse and Thompson 2006 provides examples of this category’s appearance in tax registers. La’da 2002 is a useful prosopographical resource on this and other ethnic designations in Ptolemaic Egypt. See also Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity.
  752.  
  753. Clarysse, Willy, and Dorothy J. Thompson. 2006. Counting the people in Hellenistic Egypt. 2 vols. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  755. Publication and analysis of an important corpus of Ptolemaic tax registers, which include references to the taxpayers’ ethnic category and occupation. A discussion of the tax category of “Persians” can be found in Vol. 2, pp. 157–159.
  756. Find this resource:
  757. Fischer-Bovet, Christelle. 2014. Army and society in Ptolemaic Egypt. Armies of the Ancient World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  758. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139035231Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  759. The most recent comprehensive study of the army in Hellenistic Egypt. Includes a discussion of “pseudo-ethnic” designations used in military contexts; discusses the term “Persian of the epigone” on pp. 178–191. Concludes, following Vandorpe 2008, that “Persian” denoted a misthophoros, and “Persian by descent” denoted an off-duty misthophoros or a misthophoros’ son.
  760. Find this resource:
  761. La’da, Csaba A. 1997. Who were those “of the Epigone”? Paper presented at the 21st International Congress of Papyrologists, held 13–19 August 1985 in Berlin. In Akten des 21. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses Berlin, 13.–19.8.1995. Edited by Bärbel Kramer, Wolfgang Luppe, Herwig Maehler, and Günther Poethke, 563–569. Archiv für Papyrusforschung und Verwandte Gebiete 3. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner.
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  763. Compares the Greek phrase tês epigonês to the Demotic ms n Kmy (“born in Egypt”), arguing that the two phrases appear to be treated as equivalent. Concludes that both phrases describe people who “were descendants of foreign soldiers and had some connection with the military” (p. 569).
  764. Find this resource:
  765. La’da, Csaba A. 2002. Foreign ethnics in Hellenistic Egypt. Prosopographia Ptolemaica 10. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
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  767. Collects all known ethnic designations attested in Greek or Demotic sources from (or referring to) Egypt, and provides a database of individuals so designated. For “Persians” and related terms, see pp. 229–270. See also the entries on pp. 67–69 and 316 for the related Demotic phrase “Wynn ms n Kmy,” or “Greek born in Egypt.”
  768. Find this resource:
  769. Oates, John F. 1963. The Status Designation: Πέρσης, τῆς Ἐπιγονῆς. Yale Classical Studies 18:1–129.
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  771. Argues that in the early Ptolemaic period, “Persians” were “persons who have some claim to ‘Hellenic’ status but no claim to specific Greek ethnics” (p. 60). By the late Ptolemaic period, Oates argues that the term “Persian of the epigone” “signifies a Hellenizing Egyptian and is true in some sense of all or most Egyptians” (p. 116).
  772. Find this resource:
  773. Vandorpe, Katelijn. 2008. Persian soldiers and Persians of the Epigone: Social mobility of soldiers-herdsmen in Upper Egypt. Archiv für Papyrusforschung und Verwandte Gebiete 54.1: 87–108.
  774. DOI: 10.1515/APF.2008.87Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  775. Argues that misthophoroi—soldiers serving for pay—were enrolled in the fiscally and legally privileged class of “Persians.” “Persians by descent” were those soldiers’ children or misthophoroi not currently on active duty. Accordingly, military service could be a path to social mobility for non-elites.
  776. Find this resource:
  777. Jews and Jewish Communities
  778.  
  779. The political status of Jews in Egypt, especially in Alexandria, has long been contentious. Tcherikover 1959 argues that Alexandrian Jews strove for full citizenship, while Kasher 1985 proposes that they wanted not citizenship but self-determination for their politeuma, or internally organized self-governing body. Cowey and Maresch 2001 demonstrates that at Herakleopolis at least, the Jewish community was indeed organized as a politeuma in the Hellenistic period. Collins 2005 and Schäfer 1997 take different positions on the existence of “anti-Semitism” in Egypt. (Concerning negative representations of Jews in the early Roman period, see also Musurillo 1954 and Harker 2008—both cited under Political History—on the so-called Acts of the Pagan Martyrs, which often portray Alexandrian Jews as adversaries of the Greek protagonists.) Birnbaum 2004 examines Jewish literature from Alexandria as evidence for emic perceptions of identity. Gruen 2002, a reconsideration of the Jewish diaspora experience in Antiquity, provides a broader interregional context for the situation of Jews in Greco-Roman Egypt. Mélèze Modrzejewski 1995 also helps contextualize the Jewish communities of Greco-Roman Egypt, in this case by taking a broader temporal perspective; the author surveys the history of Jews in Egypt from the New Kingdom through the Roman period. Grabbe 2012 provides references to many of the primary literary sources from Jewish Alexandria. See also Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity.
  780.  
  781. Birnbaum, Ellen. 2004. Portrayals of the wise and virtuous in Alexandrian Jewish works: Jews’ perceptions of themselves and others. Paper presented at a conference titled “Alexandria between Egypt and Greece,” held 11–12 October 2002 at Columbia Univ., New York. In Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece. Edited by William V. Harris and Giovanni Ruffini, 125–160. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 26. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.
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  783. Discusses Alexandrian Jews’ own constructions of Jewish and non-Jewish identities, on the basis of an analysis of the “Letter of Aristeas,” “The Wisdom of Solomon,” and the works of Philo. Argues that the texts show a range of attitudes on the question of whether non-Jews can be as wise or virtuous as Jews.
  784. Find this resource:
  785. Collins, John J. 2005. Anti-Semitism in Antiquity? The case of Alexandria. Paper presented at a conference titled “Jewish Civilization between Athens and Jerusalem,” held in June 2003 at the Univ. of California, Los Angeles. In Ancient Judaism in its Hellenistic context. Edited by Carol Bakhos, 9–29. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 95. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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  787. Provides a critical analysis of the labeling of anti-Jewish violence in early Roman Alexandria as “anti-Semitism.” Argues that the violence of 38 CE was motivated not by Greeks’ “innate hatred” (p. 18) of Jews, but by more historically contingent social and political tensions. Considers the term “anti-Semitism” to evoke anachronistic ideas of race.
  788. Find this resource:
  789. Cowey, James M. S., and Klaus Maresch. 2001. Urkunden des Politeuma der Juden von Herakleopolis (144/3–133/2 v. Chr.) (P. Polit. Iud.): Papyri aus den Sammlungen von Heidelberg, Köln, München und Wien. Papyrologica Coloniensia 29. Wiesbaden, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag.
  790. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-663-14281-2Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  791. Publication of twenty papyri from the reign of Ptolemy VIII. The papyri provide evidence on the organization of a Jewish military colony in Ptolemaic Herakleopolis and demonstrate that the community was organized as a politeuma.
  792. Find this resource:
  793. Grabbe, Lester L. 2012. Hellenistic Jewish literature. In Oxford Bibliographies in Jewish Studies. Edited by David Biale. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  795. Provides a bibliography on Jewish literature of the Hellenistic period, including many sources originating from Alexandria (e.g., the works of Philo, or the Greek translation of the Pentateuch as the Septuagint). Available by subscription.
  796. Find this resource:
  797. Gruen, Erich S. 2002. Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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  799. Gruen examines the diaspora experience of Jews outside Syro-Palestine in Antiquity, showing that many Jews walked a middle ground between separation and assimilation. Chapter 2, on Jews in Alexandria, discusses the political organization of the Jews and questions the widespread opinion that Augustus subjected them to the poll tax.
  800. Find this resource:
  801. Kasher, Aryeh. 1985. The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt: The struggle for equal rights. Rev. ed. Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 7. Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
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  803. Surveys the history of Jewish communities in Greco-Roman Egypt. Argues that Alexandrian Jews sought not citizenship but the continued existence of their self-governing politeuma. Also includes a chapter on Jewish communities in the chora. English translation of an originally Hebrew volume.
  804. Find this resource:
  805. Mélèze Modrzejewski, Joseph. 1995. The Jews of Egypt: From Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian. Translated by Robert Cornman. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.
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  807. A history of Jewish communities in Egypt from the New Kingdom through the Greco-Roman period. Readers should be cautious of some of the arguments for a historical “Exodus” in the first chapter. Accessible and readable for undergraduates.
  808. Find this resource:
  809. Schäfer, Peter. 1997. Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the ancient world. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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  811. Assesses functionalist versus substantialist positions on the reasons for anti-Semitism in Antiquity. Argues that anti-Jewish feeling originated in Egypt. Contains chapters on the destruction of the Jewish temple at Persian-period Elephantine, the anti-Jewish violence in Alexandria in 38 CE, and the background of anti-Semitism in Egypt.
  812. Find this resource:
  813. Tcherikover, Victor. 1959. Hellenistic civilization and the Jews. Translated by Shimon Applebaum. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.
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  815. Landmark work, highly influential to subsequent scholarship. Some of Tcherikover’s interpretations have been challenged more recently. Republished as recently as 2011 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic).
  816. Find this resource:
  817. Cities and Settlements
  818.  
  819. It was once common for scholars to follow Tacitus (Histories 1.11) in characterizing Greco-Roman Egypt as largely nonurban. However, much new research on urbanism and settlement patterning in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt has appeared since the 1990s, and many modern scholars would see Egypt (at least by the Roman period) as heavily urbanized (Bowman 2000, pp. 173–174). However, some controversy still remains concerning the appropriate definition of “urbanism” or “city” for Greco-Roman Egypt: for example, for the Roman period, Davoli 1998 criticizes the tendency to consider only the metropoleis and Greek poleis truly “urban,” calling for a more nuanced conceptual approach to “urbanism.” Davoli 2010 provides an introduction to settlements and settlement archaeology in Greco-Roman Egypt, while Davoli 1998 focuses specifically on urbanism in the Fayum region. Another regional study is Leclère 2008, on settlements and urbanism in Lower Egypt. Mueller 2006 focuses on the role of government policy in shaping Ptolemaic settlement patterns. Alan Bowman examines the processes of urbanization in Roman Egypt (Bowman 2000) and the internal administration of cities (Bowman 1971), while Alston 2002 attempts to synthesize archaeological and papyrological evidence on cities in Roman and Byzantine Egypt. Bowman and Rathbone 1992 investigates the social aspects of urbanism and the formation of civic elites. Marouard 2008 looks at spatial relationships and circulation patterns in Fayum settlements as evidence for social attitudes about domestic and public space. See also Selected Sites and Regions for more sources on settlements and urbanism in different areas of Egypt. On the legal frameworks for citizenship in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, see Law and Legal System.
  820.  
  821. Alston, Richard. 2002. The city in Roman and Byzantine Egypt. London: Routledge.
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  823. Collects much archaeological and papyrological evidence on Roman-period nucleated settlements, though without extensive attention to definitional issues (e.g., how precisely are we to define a “city,” as opposed to a village?). Note the cautions of Roger S. Bagnall (review in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 89 [2003]: 297–300) and Neville Morley (review in Journal of Roman Studies 93 [2003]: 311).
  824. Find this resource:
  825. Bowman, Alan K. 1971. The town councils of Roman Egypt. American Studies in Papyrology 11. Toronto: A. M. Hakkert.
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  827. Monograph on the institution of the boule, or city council, in Roman Egypt; serves as a valuable source on the cities’ internal administration. The Egyptian metropoleis did not have councils until the reign of Septimius Severus, and in the Hellenistic period, boulai were limited to Ptolemais and (possibly, for at least part of the Ptolemaic period) Alexandria.
  828. Find this resource:
  829. Bowman, Alan K. 2000. Urbanization in Roman Egypt. In Romanization and the city: Creation, transformations, and failure; Proceedings of a conference held at the American Academy in Rome to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the excavations at Cosa, 14–16 May, 1998. Edited by Elizabeth Fentress, 173–187. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology.
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  831. Surveys the development of urbanization in Roman Egypt, comparing and contrasting Ptolemaic data wherever possible. Also makes some useful historiographical points (e.g., on disciplinary divides between Egyptologists’ and classicists’ approaches to urbanism in Egypt).
  832. Find this resource:
  833. Bowman, Alan K., and Dominic Rathbone. 1992. Cities and administration in Roman Egypt. Journal of Roman Studies 82:107–127.
  834. DOI: 10.2307/301287Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  835. Influential article on civic administration and civic elites in the Roman period. The authors argue that well before the metropoleis received the right to have boulai, the Roman administration was already initiating a strategy of gradual municipalization throughout Egypt. This strategy involved the privileging of urban, culturally Hellenic elites, who were given various powers of self-administration.
  836. Find this resource:
  837. Davoli, Paola. 1998. L’archeologia urbana nel Fayyum di età ellenistica e romana. Naples, Italy: Generoso Procaccini Editore.
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  839. Provides an important synthesis of archaeological work at Hellenistic and Roman settlements in the Fayum; makes an argument for the urban character of many settlements.
  840. Find this resource:
  841. Davoli, Paola. 2010. Settlements—distribution, structure, architecture: Graeco-Roman. In A companion to ancient Egypt. Vol. 1. Edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 350–369. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World 36. Chichester, UK, and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
  842. DOI: 10.1002/9781444320053Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  843. Provides an overview of settlement planning and distribution in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Emphasizes local variation in settlement layouts and notes the coexistence (and, sometimes, fusion) both of Hellenizing and indigenous architectural styles at many sites. Includes a useful discussion of domestic architecture.
  844. Find this resource:
  845. Leclère, François. 2008. Les villes de Basse Égypte au 1er millenaire av. J.-C.: Analyse archéologique et historique de la topographie urbaine. 2 vols. Bibliothèque d’Étude 144.1–2. Cairo, Egypt: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale.
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  847. Survey of settlements in Lower Egypt from the Third Intermediate Period to the Roman period, with settlement history, description, series of plans and aerial photos, and bibliography for each site. Asserts the urban character of many settlements. The final, synthetic chapters discuss settlements’ spatial organization, emphasizing the centrality of temples.
  848. Find this resource:
  849. Marouard, Gregory. 2008. Rues et habitats dans les villages de la chora égyptienne à la période gréco-romaine (IIIe s. av.–IVe s. apr. J.-C.): Quelques exemples du Fayoum (nome arsinoïte). In La rue dans l’Antiquité: Définition, aménagement et devenir de l’Orient méditerranéen à la Gaule; Actes du colloque de Poiters, 7–9 septembre 2006. Edited by Pascale Ballet, Nadine Dieudonné-Glad, and Catherine Saliou, 117–128. Archéologie & Culture. Rennes, France: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
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  851. Uses the location and layout of streets, and spatial relations between domestic architecture and public streets, as evidence for circulation patterns in Fayum settlements. Examines the accessibility of houses from the street. Offers some interesting hypotheses about the conceptualization of “public” and “private” space in Greco-Roman Egypt.
  852. Find this resource:
  853. Mueller, Katja. 2006. Settlements of the Ptolemies: City foundations and new settlement in the Hellenistic world. Studia Hellenistica 43. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
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  855. Analyzes Ptolemaic administrative and imperial strategies through a study of settlement foundations throughout the empire. Although the Ptolemies seldom founded new poleis, they did encourage other forms of Greco-Macedonian settlement throughout Egypt, and they founded settlements in many foreign territories. Reconsiders the nature and definition of Ptolemaic “urbanism.”
  856. Find this resource:
  857. Households and Families
  858.  
  859. For overviews of family structure in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, see, respectively, Thompson 2002 and Malouta 2012. Huebner 2013 examines the relationships, obligations, and tensions that accompanied family life in Roman Egypt. A perennially controversial topic is the nature and explanation of brother-sister marriage in Roman Egypt; Huebner 2007 argues that many of the “siblings” in question were not genetically related, whereas Remijsen and Clarysse 2008 contends that many such couples can indeed be shown to be full siblings. Vandorpe and Waebens 2010, cited under Women and Gender, considers brother-sister marriages to result from a shortage of “Greek” females, combined with a desire to keep property within the family. Alston 1997 looks at the relationships between household structure and domestic architecture. Montserrat 1996 surveys sexual behavior and attitudes toward sex and the body, comparing and contrasting Greek and Egyptian traditions. Yiftach-Firanko 2003, cited under Women and Gender, discusses developments in Greek marriage law in Egypt during Hellenistic and Roman times. See also Demography, Architecture: Domestic and Civic (for examples of domestic architecture), and Women and Gender.
  860.  
  861. Alston, Richard. 1997. Houses and households in Roman Egypt. In Domestic space in the Roman world: Pompeii and beyond. Edited by Ray Laurence and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, 25–40. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology.
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  863. Reconstructs several aspects of houses and households in Roman Egypt: architectural form, patterns of occupancy, expression of social status, family structure, and cultural affiliation. Results suggest that many houses might have been multihousehold. Argues that Egyptians placed a greater premium on privacy than Romans, and that houses in Roman Egypt often did not share many of the semipublic aspects of houses in Roman Italy.
  864. Find this resource:
  865. Huebner, Sabine R. 2007. “Brother-sister” marriage in Roman Egypt: A curiosity of humankind or a widespread family strategy? Journal of Roman Studies 97.1: 21–49.
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  867. Contends that many brother-sister marriages are actually between adoptive siblings. Argues for a widespread practice whereby couples with daughters, but without biological sons, would adopt male heirs and marry them to their daughters.
  868. Find this resource:
  869. Huebner, Sabine R. 2013. The family in Roman Egypt: A comparative approach to intergenerational solidarity and conflict. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  870. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511894558Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  871. Study of family dynamics in the Roman period, largely on the basis of textual sources (especially private letters, documentary papyri, and census records). Topics include household structure, marriage, and inheritance; relationships and obligations between family members; and the status of the elderly.
  872. Find this resource:
  873. Malouta, Myrto. 2012. Families, households, and children. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 288–304. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  874. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  875. Overview of household structure and cultural constructions of the family in Roman Egypt.
  876. Find this resource:
  877. Montserrat, Dominic. 1996. Sex and society in Graeco-Roman Egypt. London and New York: Kegan Paul International.
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  879. Readable, accessible comparison of Greek and Egyptian attitudes toward sexual behavior, the body, and sexual and marital relationships in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Includes discussions of sexuality in religious and magical practices.
  880. Find this resource:
  881. Remijsen, Sofie, and Willy Clarysse. 2008. Incest or adoption? Brother-sister marriage in Roman Egypt revisited. Journal of Roman Studies 98:53–61.
  882. DOI: 10.3815/007543508786239355Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  883. In this response to Huebner’s article (Huebner 2007), the authors argue that many of the brother-sister marriages documented for Roman Egypt were in fact between full, genetically related siblings.
  884. Find this resource:
  885. Thompson, Dorothy. 2002. Families in early Ptolemaic Egypt. In The Hellenistic world: New perspectives. Edited by Daniel Ogden, 137–156. London: Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth.
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  887. Drawing primarily on tax registers, Thompson compares and contrasts household structures among Greeks and Egyptians in early Ptolemaic Egypt. She then relates differences in household structure (e.g., size of household, sex ratio) to cultural and socioeconomic differences between these groups.
  888. Find this resource:
  889. Women and Gender
  890.  
  891. As is often noted, women enjoyed substantially more rights in Egyptian society than in many other parts of the eastern Mediterranean. Pomeroy 1984 and Rowlandson 1995 focus on the role of women in Hellenistic Egypt, while Vandorpe and Waebens 2010 examines Roman-period developments. Bagnall and Cribiore 2006 and Rowlandson 1998 are important sourcebooks collecting and translating many primary sources on the lives of women in Greco-Roman Egypt. Cribiore 2001 includes a discussion of female literacy and education. Yiftach-Firanko 2003 discusses marriage documents providing financial security for wives—an area in which Egyptian law is sometimes thought to have influenced Greek law in Egypt, although Uri Yiftach-Firanko is more skeptical of this position (see also Wolff 1978–2002, cited under Law and Legal System, for the more typical view). Melaerts and Mooren 2002 includes essays on many aspects of women’s lives and status in Greco-Roman Egypt. See also Ruler Cult and Royal Ideology (entries on queenly cult) and Law and Legal System (for further sources relevant to marriage laws).
  892.  
  893. Bagnall, Roger S., and Raffaella Cribiore. 2006. Women’s letters from ancient Egypt: 300 BC–AD 800. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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  895. Important sourcebook of women’s letters in English translation, with commentaries; most of the letters were written in Greek, but there are also some Coptic and Demotic examples. Provides a valuable primary resource on social history, daily life, and the experiences of (mostly elite or sub-elite) women in Greco-Roman Egypt.
  896. Find this resource:
  897. Cribiore, Raffaella. 2001. Gymnastics of the mind: Greek education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  898. DOI: 10.1515/9781400844418Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  899. In chapter 3, Cribiore discusses women’s education. She demonstrates that women could be “providers of education at various levels and . . . recipients of primary and grammatical instruction” (p. 74), though female literacy appears to have been primarily associated with urban and elite contexts.
  900. Find this resource:
  901. Melaerts, Henri, and Leon Mooren, eds. 2002. Le rôle et le statut de la femme en Égypte hellénistique, romaine et byzantine: Actes du colloque international, Bruxelles-Leuven, 27–29 novembre 1997. Papers presented at an international conference held 27–29 November 1997 in Brussels and Leuven, Belgium. Studia Hellenistica 37. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
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  903. Wide-ranging collection of essays on the position of women in the society of Greco-Roman Egypt. Essays cover women’s legal, economic, and social status; ethnic designations; literacy; religious roles; and portraiture, among other topics. Chapters in French, English, and German.
  904. Find this resource:
  905. Pomeroy, Sarah B. 1984. Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to Cleopatra. New York: Schocken.
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  907. Well-documented survey of the social and economic roles of Greek-speaking women from various levels of society in Ptolemaic Egypt, from queens to slaves. Scholarly but also accessible to beginners.
  908. Find this resource:
  909. Rowlandson, Jane. 1995. Beyond the polis: Women and economic opportunity in early Ptolemaic Egypt. In The Greek world. Edited by Anton Powell, 301–322. London and New York: Routledge.
  910. DOI: 10.4324/9780203269206Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  911. Analyzes evidence for the economic activities of Greek women in Egypt during the 3rd century BCE. Concludes that “there was much common ground between the immigrants and Egyptians in attitudes to female property-ownership and economic activity,” and that economic opportunities for women of all backgrounds increased over the Ptolemaic period (p. 315).
  912. Find this resource:
  913. Rowlandson, Jane, ed. 1998. Women and society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A sourcebook. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  915. Sourcebook of documents, mostly papyrological, illuminating the lives and experience of females in Greco-Roman Egypt. The wealth of documentation, including selections from family archives and private letters, provides data not only on questions of gender but also a wide range of topics related to social history and individual experience.
  916. Find this resource:
  917. Vandorpe, Katelijn, and Sofie Waebens. 2010. Women and gender in Roman Egypt: The impact of Roman rule. In Tradition and transformation: Egypt under Roman rule; Proceedings of the international conference, Hildesheim, Roemer- and Pelizaeus-Museum, 3–6 July 2008. Edited by Katja Lembke, Martina Minas-Nerpel, and Stefan Pfeiffer, 415–435. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 41. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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  919. Discusses the Roman conquest’s effects on the legal and social position of women in Egypt; the authors argue that most of those effects were deleterious.
  920. Find this resource:
  921. Yiftach-Firanko, Uri. 2003. Marriage and marital arrangements: A history of the Greek marriage document in Egypt, 4th century BCE–4th century CE. Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und Antiken Rechtsgeschichte 93. Munich: C. H. Beck.
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  923. A study of changes in Greek marriage law in Egypt during the Greco-Roman period. Marriage documents were not necessary for the act of marriage, but they provided financial security for the wife and protected her interests.
  924. Find this resource:
  925. Religion and Ideology
  926.  
  927. The Hellenistic and Roman periods provide a vast wealth of evidence on religious rituals and beliefs, from the monumental (e.g., temples or tombs of wealthy elites) to the popular and widely accessible (e.g., terracotta figurines from settlement contexts). Indigenous Egyptian religious traditions remained active and creative into the Roman period. Besides the ongoing publication of new primary sources both textual and material, areas of particular scholarly activity have included the relationship between popular and “official” cults, the role of “magic” in personal ritual, the interaction of Greek and Egyptian religious traditions, and the complex question of “syncretism.” Dunand and Zivie-Coche 2004 is a readable and well-researched introduction to Egyptian religion, covering both Pharaonic and Greco-Roman developments. Hornung 1982 is an essential study of Egyptian conceptions of divinity and cosmology. Bricault and Versluys 2010; Clarysse, et al. 1998; and Derchain 1969 are collections of essays on religious developments in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Haase and Temporini 1995 focuses on Roman Egypt. Frankfurter 1998 studies religious change in Roman and Late Antique Egypt, with particular attention to the interactions of Christianity and traditional cults. For good introductions to some of the most important Egyptian-language primary sources on religious developments during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, see Leitz 2004 (cited under Anthologies and Sourcebooks) and Stadler 2012. Leopold and Jensen 2005 provides a theoretical perspective on the concept of “syncretism,” a term often used to describe the hybridization of Greek and Egyptian religious traditions. On the international popularity of Egyptian deities during Hellenistic and Roman times, see Egyptianizing Cults in the Greco-Roman World. Not covered here are sources on Jewish theology and ritual in Egypt, because Hellenistic Judaism forms the subject of a separate article in Oxford Bibliographies; see Grabbe 2012 (cited under Jews and Jewish Communities). On the social status of Jews in Greco-Roman Egypt, see Jews and Jewish Communities.
  928.  
  929. Bricault, Laurent, and Miguel John Versluys, eds. 2010. Isis on the Nile: Egyptian gods in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt; Proceedings of the IVth International Conference of Isis Studies, Liège, November 27–29, 2008; Michael Malaise in honorem. Papers presented at the Fourth International Conference of Isis Studies, held 27–29 November 2008 in Liège, Belgium. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 171. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.
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  931. Conference proceedings on Egyptian religion in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Part of an influential series of international conferences on Isis studies. Articles mostly in English and French.
  932. Find this resource:
  933. Clarysse, Willy, Antoon Schoors, and Harco Willems, eds. 1998. Egyptian religion: The last thousand years; Studies dedicated to the memory of Jan Quaegebeur. 2 vols. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 84. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
  934. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  935. Part I publishes new archaeological and textual evidence on Egyptian religion in the Greco-Roman period; Part II contains interpretive studies organized by topic, with sections on gods, temples, religious life, prosopography and onomastics, and history and art history. Articles mostly in English, French, and German (with one in Italian).
  936. Find this resource:
  937. Derchain, Philippe, ed. 1969. Religions en Égypte hellénistique et romaine: Colloque de Strasbourg, 16–18 mai, 1967. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
  938. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  939. Proceedings of a 1967 colloquium in Strasbourg. Not intended as a general overview of the subject, but rather, a series of specialized essays on selected aspects of cult in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Mostly in French and German.
  940. Find this resource:
  941. Dunand, Françoise, and Christiane Zivie-Coche. 2004. Gods and men in Egypt: 3000 BCE to 395 CE. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
  942. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  943. A well-informed and accessible introduction to Egyptian beliefs and rituals, covering both temple and popular cult. Religion in Greco-Roman Egypt and religion in Pharaonic Egypt are often studied separately; devoting equal space to both, this book provides a welcome corrective. English translation of Dieux et hommes en Égypte (Paris: Armand Colin, 1991).
  944. Find this resource:
  945. Frankfurter, David. 1998. Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and resistance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  946. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  947. Influential study of the interplay between tradition and transformation in the religious practices of Roman through Late Antique Egypt. Argues that long after the introduction of Christianity, Egyptian pagan cults survived in the form of what Robert Redfield calls “little traditions” (i.e., local folkways, as opposed to transregional “great traditions”).
  948. Find this resource:
  949. Haase, Wolfgang, and Hildegard Temporini, eds. 1995. Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Vol. II.18.5, Principat: Religion; Heidentum, die religiösen Verhältnisse in den Provinzen. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
  950. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  951. Contains informative essays on a range of religious practices in Roman Egypt, from ruler cult to personal cult. In English, German, French, and Italian.
  952. Find this resource:
  953. Hornung, Erik. 1982. Conceptions of God in ancient Egypt: The one and the many. Translated by John Baines. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
  954. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  955. Classic study of the structure and theology of Pharaonic Egyptian religion; provides a fundamental background for the study of Egyptian religion in the Greco-Roman period as well. English translation of Hornung’s Der Eine und die Vielen (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1971).
  956. Find this resource:
  957. Leopold, Anita Maria, and Jeppe Sinding Jensen, eds. 2005. Syncretism in religion: A reader. Critical Categories in the Study of Religion. New York: Routledge.
  958. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  959. Selection of essays providing a theoretical, and sometimes critical, perspective on the concept of “syncretism.” Includes many classic studies, as well as some new chapters commissioned particularly for this volume.
  960. Find this resource:
  961. Stadler, Martin Andreas. 2012. Einführung in die ägyptische Religion ptolemäisch-römischer Zeit nach den demotischen religiösen Texten. Einführungen und Quellentexte zur Ägyptologie 7. Berlin: Lit Verlag.
  962. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  963. Surveys and summarizes a wide variety of Ptolemaic- and Roman-period religious texts in Demotic, divided into the following categories: myths, hymns and prayers, ritual texts, funerary literature, and divine dialogues. The introduction includes a provocative discussion of “religion” as a category (pp. 3–12) and addresses the choice to categorize certain texts as “religious” while excluding others.
  964. Find this resource:
  965. Ruler Cult and Royal Ideology
  966.  
  967. Koenen 1993 and Pfeiffer 2008 are important studies of Ptolemaic ruler and dynastic cult. A later publication, Pfeiffer 2010, focuses on the Egyptian cult of the Roman emperors, while Herklotz 2007 focuses specifically on the reign of Augustus. Heinen 2009 (pp. 191–230) considers the emergence of imperial cult and its relationship to earlier forms of royal cult in Egypt. Quaegebeur 1978 and Quaegebeur 1988 discuss queenly cult in the Ptolemaic period. Stephens 2003 makes some provocative arguments about the ideology of kingship in Ptolemaic Alexandrian literature; for further references on Alexandrian literature, see also Greek Literature. Johnson 1983 analyzes the “Demotic Chronicle” as evidence for indigenous theories of kingship in the early Ptolemaic period. For royal iconography, see also Stone Statuary and Other Material Culture.
  968.  
  969. Heinen, Heinz. 2009. Kleopatra-Studien: Gesammelte Schriften zur ausgehenden Ptolemäerzeit. Xenia 49. Konstanz, Germany: UVK Universitätsverlag Konstanz.
  970. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  971. Collection of selected papers by a prominent Hellenistic historian, dealing with the waning days of the Ptolemaic kingdom. In “Vorstufen und Anfänge des Herrscherkultes im römischen Ägypten” (pp. 191–230), Heinen addresses the origins of imperial cult in Egypt and compares it to various predecessors, including Ptolemaic royal cult as well as the religious status of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony in the reign of Cleopatra VII.
  972. Find this resource:
  973. Herklotz, Friederike. 2007. Prinzeps und Pharao: Der Kult des Augustus in Ägypten. Oikumene 4. Frankfurt: Verlag Antike.
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  975. Monograph on the Egyptian ruler cult of Augustus, who was presented as a traditional pharaoh in Egypt despite his seemingly anti-Egyptian persona in Rome. Collects and synthesizes numerous sources.
  976. Find this resource:
  977. Johnson, Janet H. 1983. The Demotic Chronicle as a statement of a theory of kingship. Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 13.2: 61–72.
  978. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  979. Argues that the Demotic Chronicle propounds a “theory of kingship” based on the principle of maat, or cosmic order: kings who uphold maat are rewarded with long, successful reigns and successors, whereas bad kings meet with misfortune. Challenges Alan Lloyd’s interpretation of the text (Lloyd 1982, cited under Priests, Priestly Hierarchies, and the State).
  980. Find this resource:
  981. Koenen, Ludwig. 1993. The Ptolemaic king as a religious figure. Paper presented at a conference held 7–9 April 1988 at the Univ. of California, Berkeley. In Images and ideologies: Self-definition in the Hellenistic world. Edited by Anthony W. Bulloch, Erich S. Gruen, A. A. Long, and Andrew Stewart, 25–115. Hellenistic Culture and Society 12. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  982. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  983. Discusses the ideological roots of Ptolemaic ruler cult both in Egyptian and Greek traditions and characterizes ruler cult as a vehicle for reconciling Egyptian and Greek cultural and religious traditions. Includes an analysis of some poems of Callimachus.
  984. Find this resource:
  985. Pfeiffer, Stefan. 2008. Herrscher- und Dynastiekulte im Ptolemäerreich: Systematik und Einordnung der Kultformen. Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und Antiken Rechtsgeschichte 98. Munich: C. H. Beck.
  986. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  987. Analyzes both the Pharaonic and the Greek cultural and religious backgrounds of Ptolemaic ruler and dynastic cults. Discusses the cooperation of Egyptian priestly elites with the Ptolemies.
  988. Find this resource:
  989. Pfeiffer, Stefan. 2010. Der römische Kaiser und das Land am Nil: Kaiserverehrung und Kaiserkult in Alexandria und Ägypten von Augustus bis Caracalla (30 v. Chr.–217 n. Chr.). Historia, Einzelschriften 212. Stuttgart: Steiner.
  990. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  991. Monograph on ruler cult in Roman Egypt; takes a more diachronic perspective than Herklotz 2007, which focuses on the Augustan period.
  992. Find this resource:
  993. Quaegebeur, Jan. 1978. Reines ptolémaïques et traditions égyptiennes. In Das ptolemäische Ägypten: Akten des Internationalen Symposions, 27.–29. September 1976 in Berlin. Edited by Herwig Maehler and Volker Michael Strocka, 245–262. Mainz am Rhein, Germany: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
  994. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  995. Important, Egyptologically oriented study of the iconography of Ptolemaic queens, demonstrating Pharaonic parallels for many aspects of queenly cult.
  996. Find this resource:
  997. Quaegebeur, Jan. 1988. Cleopatra VII and the cults of the Ptolemaic queens. In Cleopatra’s Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies. Edited by Robert Steven Bianchi, 41–54. New York: Brooklyn Museum.
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  999. Contextualizes the worship of Cleopatra VII within the broader framework of Ptolemaic royal cult, especially queenly cult.
  1000. Find this resource:
  1001. Stephens, Susan A. 2003. Seeing double: Intercultural poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Hellenistic Culture and Society 37. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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  1003. Provocative study arguing that Alexandrian poets engaged extensively with Egyptian as well as Greek themes and concepts, contributing to an evolving Ptolemaic discourse on kingship.
  1004. Find this resource:
  1005. Temples and Temple Cults
  1006.  
  1007. Clarysse 2010 provides an overview of temples as social, ritual, economic, and political centers in Greco-Roman Egypt; Riggs 2012 includes two chapters on temple activities in the Roman period. Arnold 1999 is a good introduction to temple architecture, while Finnestad 1997 discusses temples as sites of ritual activity and symbolic models of the universe. Hölbl 2000–2005 is a thorough survey and analysis of Roman temple building in Egypt. Perpillou-Thomas 1993 discusses Ptolemaic- and Roman-period festivals. As political and economic centers, Egyptian temples are often thought to have entered a decline under Roman rule, although Klotz 2012 argues for the continued vitality of Egyptian temples in Thebes during this time. Quack 2004 describes the contents of an important text providing an Egyptian perspective on the activities and personnel of temples; when it is fully published, this text will be an invaluable source of data on numerous aspects of the ritual, social, and economic functions of Egyptian temples, as well as the social hierarchies and duties of individuals in different priestly ranks. For reasons of space, the following sources do not include specialist studies of cult at individual temples (e.g., Dendara, Edfu, Philae), but references to such literature can be found in the sources below. On the political and economic roles of temples, see Priests, Priestly Hierarchies, and the State. On temple texts, see Leitz 2004, cited under Anthologies and Sourcebooks.
  1008.  
  1009. Arnold, Dieter. 1999. Temples of the last pharaohs. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  1011. Study of temple architecture in the Late through Roman periods. Provides an excellent survey of historical developments, placing changing patterns of temple building in their historical context. Discusses the connections of specific architectural forms to ritual practice.
  1012. Find this resource:
  1013. Clarysse, Willy. 2010. Egyptian temples and priests: Graeco-Roman. In A companion to ancient Egypt. Vol. 1. Edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 274–290. Blackwell Handbooks to the Ancient World 36. Chichester, UK, and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
  1014. DOI: 10.1002/9781444320053Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1015. Provides a useful overview of the ritual, economic, political, and social activities of Egyptian priests and temples in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
  1016. Find this resource:
  1017. Finnestad, Ragnhild Bjerre. 1997. Temples of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods: Ancient traditions in new contexts. In Temples of ancient Egypt. Edited by Byron E. Shafer, 185–237. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
  1018. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1019. Demonstrates that Egyptian temples were understood both as models of the universe and as sites of the creator god’s daily birth, destruction, and resurrection. Also discusses temple festivals, as well as temples’ embeddedness within broad social networks.
  1020. Find this resource:
  1021. Hölbl, Günther. 2000–2005. Altägypten im römischen Reich: Der römische Pharao und seine Tempel. 3 vols. Sonderbände der Antiken Welt. Mainz, Germany: Philipp von Zabern.
  1022. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1023. Survey and analysis of Roman temple building in Egypt, examining the relationships among temple construction, imperial political goals, and Egyptian theologies of government. Vol. 1 focuses on temples in Upper Egypt, Vol. 2 deals with Roman Nubia, and Vol. 3 is on the Western Desert and oases.
  1024. Find this resource:
  1025. Klotz, David. 2012. Caesar in the city of Amun: Egyptian temple construction and theology in Roman Thebes. Monographies Reine Elisabeth 15. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols.
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  1027. Draws on epigraphic and archaeological evidence (much previously unpublished) to assemble a comprehensive overview of Theban temple building and theology under Roman occupation. Demonstrates the continued vibrancy and innovation of indigenous theological activity, in contrast to older narratives about the decline of Egyptian temples during the Roman period.
  1028. Find this resource:
  1029. Perpillou-Thomas, Françoise. 1993. Fêtes d’Égypte ptolémaïque et romaine d’après la documentation papyrologique grecque. Studia Hellenistica 31. Leuven, Belgium: Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis.
  1030. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1031. Surveys and collects available information on all festivals attested in Greek papyri from the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
  1032. Find this resource:
  1033. Quack, Joachim Friedrich. 2004. Organiser le culte idéal: Le Manuel du temple. Bulletin de la Société Française d’Égyptologie 160:9–25.
  1034. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1035. Overview of the contents of the “Book of the Temple”: a text known from numerous fragmentary Roman-period copies in hieratic and Demotic Egyptian (and one Greek translation), describing the construction, layout, production facilities, access restrictions, ritual requirements, and priestly personnel of an ideal temple. Quack is working on a complete edition and translation of the fragments.
  1036. Find this resource:
  1037. Riggs, Christina, ed. 2012. The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1038. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1039. Includes two introductory chapters on Egyptian temples and temple cult in the Roman period: Martina Minas-Nerpal’s “Egyptian Temples” (pp. 362–382) and Martin Andreas Stadler’s “Egyptian Cult: Evidence from Temple Scriptoria and Christian Hagiographies” (pp. 457–473).
  1040. Find this resource:
  1041. Priests, Priestly Hierarchies, and the State
  1042.  
  1043. Much debate has focused on the relationships between Egyptian priests and the central government. In contrast to Lloyd 1982, a presentation of priests as a potential source of resistance to occupation, many scholars now emphasize the close relationship between priestly hierarchies and rulers, with both bound together by many ties of financial and ideological dependence. For more sources on the collaboration between priests and rulers in the field of ruler cult, see Ruler Cult and Royal Ideology. Important primary sources on this collaboration are the so-called trilingual decrees produced by synods of high-ranking priests and written in two languages (Greek and Egyptian) and three scripts (Greek, hieroglyphic, and Demotic); Simpson 1996 provides one starting point for investigations into this important corpus of Ptolemaic texts. Clarysse 2010 surveys the activities of temple priests and places them in their ritual, political, economic, and social context. Otto 1905–1908 remains a useful resource, though one that should be supplemented with more recent sources. Quaegebeur 1989, Huss 1994, and Gorre 2009 discuss relationships between priests and Ptolemies. Demougin 2006 discusses changes in the administration of the priesthood in the Roman period. Kruse 2002 (cited under Roman Administration), a study of the office of basilikos grammateus, or “royal scribe,” also contains a useful discussion of the administrative and financial relationships between temples and government in the Roman period (pp. 709–771). Quack 2004 presents a preliminary description of a Roman-period text that, when fully published, will shed much light on the internal organization of priestly hierarchies within temples.
  1044.  
  1045. Clarysse, Willy. 2010. Egyptian temples and priests: Graeco-Roman. In A companion to ancient Egypt. Vol. 1. Edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 274–290. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World 36. Chichester, UK, and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
  1046. DOI: 10.1002/9781444320053Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1047. Provides a useful overview of the roles and activities of priests in Egyptian temples, together with bibliography. Here and elsewhere, Clarysse presents the relationship between priests and civil administration in a somewhat different light than in Werner Huss’s monograph (Huss 1994).
  1048. Find this resource:
  1049. Demougin, Ségolène. 2006. Archiereus Alexandreae et totius Aegypti: Un office profane. In Pouvoir et réligion dans le monde romain: En homage à Jean-Pierre Martin. Edited by Annie Vigourt, Xavier Loriot, Agnès Bérenger-Badel, and Bernard Klein, 513–519. Passé-Présent. Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne.
  1050. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1051. Discusses the Roman institution of the archiereus, an official who was in charge of all the temples in Egypt, and the implications of this institution for the shifting power relations between temples and central government in the Roman period.
  1052. Find this resource:
  1053. Gorre, Gilles. 2009. Les relations du clergé égyptien et des Lagides d’après des sources privées. Studia Hellenistica 45. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
  1054. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1055. Analysis of the complicated ties between the Ptolemaic kings and the priests of the Egyptian temples, on the basis of a prosopographical study of individual Ptolemaic priests’ careers. Complementary to, rather than replacing, Huss’s earlier volume (Huss 1994).
  1056. Find this resource:
  1057. Huss, Werner. 1994. Der makedonische König und die ägyptischen Priester: Studien zur Geschichte des ptolemaiischen Ägypten. Historia, Einzelschriften 85. Stuttgart: F. Steiner.
  1058. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1059. Learned and very well-documented study of the relationship between the Egyptian priesthood and the Ptolemaic kings. Some have raised cautions regarding the theoretical underpinnings of the proposed dichotomy of “Staat” and “Kirche”: see, for example, the review by Richard A. Billows in American Journal of Philology 118.2 (1997): 343–345.
  1060. Find this resource:
  1061. Lloyd, Alan B. 1982. Nationalist propaganda in Ptolemaic Egypt. Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 31.1: 33–55.
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  1063. Surveys the evidence for “nationalist propaganda” in the Ptolemaic period; includes the Demotic Chronicle and Potter’s Oracle in this category, as well as certain other texts and traditions (the Alexander Romance and the Sesostris Romance). Argues that the authors of anti-Ptolemaic literature were nationalist Egyptian priests.
  1064. Find this resource:
  1065. Otto, Walter. 1905–1908. Priester und Tempel im hellenistischen Ägypten: Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte des Hellenismus. 2 vols. Leipzig and Berlin: B. G. Teubner.
  1066. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1067. Foundational study of the organization of the Egyptian priesthood and the temple system in the Ptolemaic period. Still a useful source, collecting much valuable information on the different offices, classes, and hierarchies that composed the Egyptian priesthood.
  1068. Find this resource:
  1069. Quack, Joachim Friedrich. 2004. Organiser le culte idéal: Le Manuel du temple. Bulletin de la Société Française d’Égyptologie 160:9–25.
  1070. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1071. Overview of the contents of the “Book of the Temple”: a still-unpublished text, known from numerous fragmentary Roman-period copies in hieratic and Demotic Egyptian (and one Greek translation), describing an ideal temple. Among other things, the text describes the different types and levels of priestly personnel.
  1072. Find this resource:
  1073. Quaegebeur, Jan. 1989. The Egyptian clergy and the cult of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Ancient Society 20:93–116.
  1074. DOI: 10.2143/AS.20.0.2011328Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1075. Revises earlier work on Ptolemaic dynastic cult, incorporating new evidence to illustrate the extent of Egyptian engagement with the worship of the ruling family. Demonstrates the incorporation of living Ptolemies into dynastic cult from the reign of Ptolemy III onward.
  1076. Find this resource:
  1077. Simpson, R. S. 1996. Demotic grammar in the Ptolemaic sacerdotal decrees. Griffith Institute Monographs. Oxford: Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum.
  1078. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1079. Going beyond the discussion of grammar (pp. 27–222) promised in the title, Simpson provides transliterations and translations of the Demotic versions of three priestly decrees (pp. 223–272), as well as an introduction to the corpus (pp. 1–6), a useful survey of previous scholarship on priestly decrees (pp. 7–18), and some discussion of the relationship between the decrees’ Egyptian and Greek texts (pp. 22–24).
  1080. Find this resource:
  1081. Household and Popular Cult
  1082.  
  1083. The evidence for private or popular religious practices in Greco-Roman Egypt is both material (e.g., Dunand 1979, Dunand 1984) and epigraphic (e.g., Kockelmann 2008). Frankfurter 2010 surveys the range of religious behavior in Greco-Roman Egypt, especially stressing private practices such as domestic cult and magical rituals. David Frankfurter’s earlier book (Frankfurter 1998) focuses on the Roman and Late Antique periods. Luiselli 2008 provides an introduction to the extensive scholarly discourse on “personal piety” and private cult in earlier periods of Egyptian history. Outside the household but also outside formal temple hierarchies, religious associations formed yet another locus of cult activity (Monson 2007). An essential resource for any study of popular religion in Antiquity is Bodel and Olyan 2008, an edited collection providing background on household cult in various parts of the ancient Mediterranean. See also Magic and Terracotta Figurines.
  1084.  
  1085. Bodel, John, and Saul M. Olyan, eds. 2008. Household and family religion in Antiquity. Ancient World—Comparative Histories. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  1086. DOI: 10.1002/9781444302974Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1087. Important collection of essays on household cult in the ancient Mediterranean world. Includes overviews of domestic cult in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, among other regions.
  1088. Find this resource:
  1089. Dunand, Françoise. 1979. Religion populaire en Égypte romaine: Les terres cuites isiaques du Musée du Caire. Études Préliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l’Empire Romain 76. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
  1090. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1091. Publication of a large corpus of Greco-Roman-period terracotta figurines from the Cairo Museum. The figurines provide important primary sources for popular cult. Dunand’s study does not include the museum’s full collection of terracottas; rather, it presents a selection of figurines that the author considered to be linked to Isis cults.
  1092. Find this resource:
  1093. Dunand, Françoise. 1984. Religion populaire et iconographie en Égypte hellénistique et romaine. Visible Religion 3:18–42.
  1094. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1095. Article examining the evidence for “popular religion” in Greco-Roman Egypt, with particular attention to coroplastic evidence. Draws a sharp distinction between temple and popular cult, seeing the majority of the Egyptian populace as “Exclue de l’exercice du culte et du savoir sacerdotal” (p. 18); that is, excluded from cult practice and priestly knowledge.
  1096. Find this resource:
  1097. Frankfurter, David. 1998. Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and resistance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  1098. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1099. Influential study of tradition and transformation in Roman through Late Antique Egyptian religion. Argues that after the introduction of Christianity, Egyptian traditional cult survived in the form of what Robert Redfield calls “little traditions” (i.e., local folkways, as opposed to transregional “great traditions”). Synthesizes much archaeological and textual information on popular cult.
  1100. Find this resource:
  1101. Frankfurter, David. 2010. Religion in society: Graeco-Roman. In A companion to ancient Egypt. Vol. 1. Edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 526–546. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World 36. Chichester, UK, and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
  1102. DOI: 10.1002/9781444320053Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1103. Provides an overview of the forms and practices of popular cult in Greco-Roman Egypt. Emphasizes the interaction of Hellenic and Egyptian traditions and iconographies.
  1104. Find this resource:
  1105. Kockelmann, Holger. 2008. Praising the goddess: A comparative and annotated re-edition of six Demotic hymns and praises addressed to Isis. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.
  1106. DOI: 10.1515/9783110212259Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1107. Edition of six Demotic ostraca, papyri, and graffiti preserving hymns to Isis. Many such texts attest to personal devotion to a deity. As Egyptian praises to Isis, these texts also relate to the internationally widespread genre of Greek and Latin aretalogies of Isis.
  1108. Find this resource:
  1109. Luiselli, Michela. 2008. Personal piety (modern theories related to). In UCLA encyclopedia of Egyptology. Edited by Jacco Dieleman and Willeke Wendrich. Los Angeles: Univ. of California.
  1110. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1111. Surveys the range of scholarly thought on the nature and development of “personal piety” and private cult in Pharaonic Egypt and collects a basic bibliography on the subject. This much-debated topic forms the Pharaonic background for the subject of private and popular cult in Greco-Roman Egypt.
  1112. Find this resource:
  1113. Monson, Andrew. 2007. Private associations in the Ptolemaic Fayyum: The evidence of Demotic accounts. In New archaeological and papyrological researches on the Fayyum: Proceedings of the International Meeting of Egyptology and Papyrology; Lecce, June 8th–10th 2005. Edited by Mario Capasso and Paola Davoli, 181–196. Papyrologica Lupiensia 14. Lecce, Italy: Centro di Studi Papirologici dell’Università degli Studi di Lecce.
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  1115. Reconsiders Egyptian religious associations in the Ptolemaic period, on the basis of Demotic texts from the Fayum. Argues that Ptolemaic religious associations are not Greek imports but develop from Pharaonic traditions of private associations. These associations are not official parts of the “institutional hierarchy of Egyptian temples” (p. 183), but private social organizations in which priests could participate.
  1116. Find this resource:
  1117. Magic
  1118.  
  1119. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, people in Egypt developed a complex set of magical practices drawing both on Greco-Roman and indigenous traditions. Another article in the Oxford Bibliographies in Classics series discusses magic in the ancient world: see Radcliffe Edmonds’s Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World. The current list of sources focuses specifically on magical practices in Greco-Roman Egypt; for further sources on Greek and Roman magical practices and on the numerous problems involved in defining “magic” as a category, readers should refer to Edmonds’s article. Many scholars have shown that it is difficult to draw strict lines between “magic” and other types of religious practice, and some scholars have argued against using the word “magic” at all to describe ancient ritual practices. Greeks and Egyptians did have indigenous terms (Greek mageia, Egyptian heka) that correspond to certain aspects of our term “magic.” However, the Egyptian heka does not have the negative connotations of the Greek mageia, as Ritner 1993 demonstrates in a classic study of Egyptian magic. The most-important textual sources for magical practices in Greco-Roman Egypt are the so-called “magical papyri” in Greek and Demotic (Betz 1992); these texts’ production, audiences, and relationships both to Greek and Egyptian traditions have inspired much scholarly discussion (Quack 1998, Faraone 2001, Dieleman 2005). Wilburn 2012 takes an archaeological perspective on magical practices, devoting particular attention to the site of Karanis. The material culture of Greco-Egyptian magic also includes many amulets with syncretic iconography and, unfortunately, frequently uncertain provenance (Bonner 1950). Egyptian magical and religious practices influenced the development of theurgy, alchemy, and Hermetic traditions in the Greco-Roman world (Fowden 1993, cited under “Egyptomania” and the Image of Egypt Abroad), and Jasnow and Zauzich 2005 publishes an Egyptian-language parallel to the Hermetic texts. See also Divination and Oracles.
  1120.  
  1121. Betz, Hans Dieter, ed. 1992. The Greek magical papyri in translation, including the Demotic spells. 2d ed. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
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  1123. English translation of magical papyri from late Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, with explanatory essays. Unlike Karl Preisendanz’s edition of the Greek texts (Papyri graecae magicae: Die griechischen Zauberpapyri, Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1973–1974 [originally published 1928–1941]), Betz includes spells in Demotic Egyptian as well as Greek.
  1124. Find this resource:
  1125. Bonner, Campbell. 1950. Studies in magical amulets, chiefly Graeco-Egyptian. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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  1127. A catalogue of Egyptianizing magical amulets from various museums and collections, with discussions of the iconography of different amulet types. Updated images of many gems (from Bonner’s publication and others), as well as further bibliography, can be found on the Campbell Bonner Magical Gems Database, run by the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
  1128. Find this resource:
  1129. Dieleman, Jacco. 2005. Priests, tongues, and rites: The London-Leiden magical manuscripts and translation in Egyptian ritual (100–300 CE). Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 153. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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  1131. Study of two bilingual magical papyri, investigating their producers and their audience. Considers the implications of the papyri’s bilingualism for the nature of cultural interaction and scribal education within Egypt. Interprets the magical papyri as products of Egyptian priests and considers their relationship both to Egyptian and Greco-Roman portrayals of the Egyptian priesthood.
  1132. Find this resource:
  1133. Faraone, Christopher A. 2001. Handbooks and anthologies: The collection of Greek and Egyptian incantations in late Hellenistic Egypt. Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 2:195–214.
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  1135. Critiques scholarly treatments of magical papyri from Greek and Roman Egypt as primarily Egyptian in their cultural background; suggests that some texts have closer rapports with Greek magical and literary traditions. Proposes that two papyri may represent not practical handbooks for magicians, but anthologies of “the famous incantations of the day,” potentially intended for scholarly libraries (p. 71).
  1136. Find this resource:
  1137. Jasnow, Richard, and Karl-Theodor Zauzich. 2005. The ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth: A Demotic discourse on knowledge and pendant to the classical hermetica. 2 vols. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag.
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  1139. Editio princeps of a Roman-period Demotic text that forms an Egyptian counterpart to the Greco-Roman Hermetic corpus. Includes English translation, preliminary essays, and numerous explanatory notes. The text takes the form of a dialogue between the god Thoth and a scholarly disciple, concerning numerous fields of philosophy and theology.
  1140. Find this resource:
  1141. Quack, Joachim Friedrich. 1998. Kontinuität und Wandel in der spätägyptischen Magie. Studi Epigrafici e Linguistici sul Vicino Oriente Antico 15:77–94.
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  1143. Investigates change and continuity in magical practices in Greco-Roman Egypt; interprets personal curse rituals as a privatization of earlier Pharaonic execration rites.
  1144. Find this resource:
  1145. Ritner, Robert Kriech. 1993. The mechanics of ancient Egyptian magical practice. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 54. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago.
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  1147. The standard work on indigenous Egyptian magical practices. Analyzes the Egyptian concept of heka, comparing and contrasting it to our concept of “magic”; surveys a wide variety of archaeological and textual evidence.
  1148. Find this resource:
  1149. Wilburn, Andrew T. 2012. Materia magica: The archaeology of magic in Roman Egypt, Cyprus, and Spain. New Texts from Ancient Cultures. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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  1151. Providing a welcome complement to the numerous text-based studies of ancient magic, Wilburn examines the material evidence for magical practices. Chapter 3 focuses on materia magica from Karanis, in Roman Egypt.
  1152. Find this resource:
  1153. Divination and Oracles
  1154.  
  1155. Overviews of oracular and divinatory practices, both in temple settings and private magical contexts, include the diachronic surveys in Černý 1962 and von Lieven 1999 and, on the Roman period in particular, Frankfurter 1998, Dieleman 2012, and Tallet 2012. Janowski and Wilhelm 2008 is a collection of essays on divination throughout the Near East, including two chapters on Demotic and Greek divinatory texts from Egypt. Kuhlmann 1988 discusses an oracular site with particular importance for Hellenistic history. On apocalyptic literature, see Blasius and Schipper 2002.
  1156.  
  1157. Blasius, Andreas, and Bernd U. Schipper, eds. 2002. Apokalyptik und Ägypten: Eine kritische Analyse der relevanten Texte aus dem griechisch-römischen Ägypten. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 107. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
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  1159. Edited collection providing translations and discussions of several apocalyptic texts: the “Demotic Chronicle,” “The Lamb of Bocchoris,” “The Apology of the Potter,” and “The Dream of Nectanebo” (both in its Greek and Egyptian versions), as well as a passage from the ostraca of Hor and a new text from Tebtunis. Mostly in German.
  1160. Find this resource:
  1161. Černý, Jaroslav. 1962. Egyptian oracles. In A Saite oracle papyrus from Thebes in the Brooklyn Museum (Papyrus Brooklyn 47.218.3). Edited by Richard A. Parker, 35–48. Brown Egyptological Studies 4. Providence, RI: Brown Univ. Press.
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  1163. Brief survey of the evidence for oracular consultation in Egypt from Pharaonic to Greco-Roman times, written by one of the major experts on the topic. Provides an introduction to the Pharaonic background for the later Greco-Roman developments.
  1164. Find this resource:
  1165. Dieleman, Jacco. 2012. Coping with a difficult life: Magic, healing, and sacred knowledge. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 337–361. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1166. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1167. Introduction to magical and private divinatory practices in Roman Egypt; interprets such rites as attempts to deal with a dangerous and unpredictable world, in which life expectancy was short and disease was rampant. Investigates the interplay between indigenous and imported influences on magical and divinatory rites; discusses the socioeconomic factors shaping the production and consumption of magical products.
  1168. Find this resource:
  1169. Frankfurter, David. 1998. Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and resistance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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  1171. Influential study of the interplay between tradition and transformation in the religious practices of Roman through Late Antique Egypt. Chapter 4 deals with oracles.
  1172. Find this resource:
  1173. Janowski, Bernd, and Gernot Wilhelm, eds. 2008. Omina, Orakel, Rituale und Beschwörungen. Texte und der Umwelt des Alten Testaments, n.s. 4. Gütersloh, Germany: Gütersloher Verlagshaus.
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  1175. Edited collection of divinatory texts from various regions of the Near East. Two chapters address magical and divinatory texts from Greco-Roman Egypt: Joachim F. Quack presents the Demotic material (“Demotische magische und divinatorische Texte,” pp. 331–385), while Andrea Jördens presents Greek texts (“Griechische Texte aus Ägypten,” pp. 410–445).
  1176. Find this resource:
  1177. Kuhlmann, Klaus P. 1988. Das Ammoneion: Archäologie, Geschichte und Kultpraxis des Orakels von Siwa. Archäologische Veröffentlichungen 75. Mainz am Rhein, Germany: Philipp von Zabern.
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  1179. Study of the history, development, and rites of the oracular temple of Amun, known to the Greeks as Zeus-Ammon, in the Siwa Oasis. Alexander made a famous pilgrimage to this temple, where he was declared the god’s son.
  1180. Find this resource:
  1181. Tallet, Gaëlle. 2012. Oracles. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 398–418. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1182. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1183. General introduction to oracles, oracular consultation, and other divinatory practices in Roman Egypt. Contains a useful discussion of the increasing “privatization” of divination in the Roman period.
  1184. Find this resource:
  1185. von Lieven, Alexandra. 1999. Divination in Ägypten. Altorientalische Forschungen 26.1: 77–126.
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  1187. Diachronic survey of the major forms of divination in Egypt. Establishes a chronology for the development of various divinatory practices, going from the Middle Kingdom to the Greco-Roman period. An appendix contains a helpful glossary of Egyptian and Coptic terms for different types of divination.
  1188. Find this resource:
  1189. Tombs, Funerary Literature, and Mortuary Cult
  1190.  
  1191. As with most periods of Egyptian history, tombs and funerary practices have attracted much scholarly attention. In Hellenistic and—in particular—Roman Egypt, mortuary practices provide much intriguing evidence for cultural hybridity and frame switching. Charron 2002 is a catalogue of Ptolemaic material culture from funerary contexts. Landvatter 2013 uses Ptolemaic mortuary practices as evidence for regional variation and identity construction. In Alexandria, necropoleis are, archaeologically speaking, among the best-known portions of the city; Venit 2002 is the fundamental study of Alexandrian tombs. For the Roman period, Riggs 2005 is a useful study of mortuary practices. For the treatment of the bodies of the dead, see also Gessler-Löhr 2012. Schmidt 2003 includes an important collection of funerary stelae from a number of sites. Arlt 2011 discusses mummy tags. Studies of funerary literature of the Greco-Roman period include Assmann, et al. 2008 and Smith 2009. See also Mummy Portraits and Masks.
  1192.  
  1193. Arlt, Carolin. 2011. Deine Seele möge leben für immer und ewig: Die demotischen Mumienschilder im British Museum. Studia Demotica 10. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
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  1195. Catalogue and commentary on Demotic mummy tags from the British Museum. The tags include short texts and occasionally also images. Many are bilingual, including texts in Greek as well as Egyptian.
  1196. Find this resource:
  1197. Assmann, Jan, Martin Bommas, and Andrea Kucharek. 2008. Altägyptische Totenliturgien. Vol. 3, Osirisliturgien in Papyri der Spätzeit. Heidelberg, Germany: Winter.
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  1199. Publication of papyri containing funerary liturgies from the 4th century BCE and later, with transliteration, German translation, and commentary. Most of the texts in question probably originate from temple libraries.
  1200. Find this resource:
  1201. Charron, Alain, ed. 2002. La mort n’est pas une fin: Pratiques funéraires en Égypte d’Alexandre à Cléopâtre; Catalogue de l’exposition, Arles, Musée de l’Arles antique, 28 septembre 2002. Arles, France: Éditions du Musée de l’Arles Antique.
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  1203. Catalogue of an exhibition at the Musée d’Arles Antique. Contains high-quality images of many artifacts from Ptolemaic funerary contexts.
  1204. Find this resource:
  1205. Gessler-Löhr, Beatrix. 2012. Mummies and mummification. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 664–683. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1206. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1207. Surveys embalming practices in Roman Egypt, concluding that this period represented a “late heyday” (p. 677) of mummification. Demonstrates that the quality of mummification was not uniformly low throughout the Roman period, as is sometimes assumed, but varied widely based on families’ ability to pay.
  1208. Find this resource:
  1209. Landvatter, Thomas Peter. 2013. Identity, burial practice and social change in Ptolemaic Egypt. PhD diss., Univ. of Michigan.
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  1211. Uses mortuary practices at three sites (Alexandria, western Thebes, and Abydos) as evidence for the construction of social and individual identities. Argues that previous scholarship has overemphasized “ethnicity” as the sole locus of identity formation in Ptolemaic Egypt, overlooking “other identities, such as socioeconomic level, regional origin, and gender” (p. 3).
  1212. Find this resource:
  1213. Riggs, Christina. 2005. The beautiful burial in Roman Egypt: Art, identity, and funerary religion. Oxford Studies in Ancient Culture and Representation. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  1215. Study of funerary rituals in Roman Egypt, discussing the ways in which the various components of the burial worked together to ensure the afterlife of the deceased while also providing opportunities for the construction and display of identity and social status.
  1216. Find this resource:
  1217. Schmidt, Stefan. 2003. Grabreliefs im Griechisch-Römischen Museum von Alexandria. Berlin: Achet-Verlag.
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  1219. Catalogue and discussion of funerary stelae from the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, with useful essays on their cultural context and the sites that produced them.
  1220. Find this resource:
  1221. Smith, Mark. 2009. Traversing eternity: Texts for the afterlife from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  1223. Study of funerary texts from Greco-Roman Egypt, including translations and commentaries for about sixty texts; provides an excellent introduction to the overall corpus of personal funerary texts, contextualizing them within the broader framework of Egyptian mortuary theology.
  1224. Find this resource:
  1225. Venit, Marjorie Susan. 2002. Monumental tombs of ancient Alexandria: The theater of the dead. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  1227. Essential reading on tombs and burial practices in Alexandria; argues for an increasing Egyptian influence on mortuary architecture, indicating the degree of cultural exchange even within this supposedly most “Greek” city of Egypt.
  1228. Find this resource:
  1229. Languages, Texts, Textual Evidence, and Literary Culture
  1230.  
  1231. The array of surviving textual sources from Greco-Roman Egypt is extraordinary, encompassing a wealth of papyri (preserved in the dry Egyptian climate); ostraca; monumental inscriptions on temples, tombs, and stelae; graffiti; and more. Egypt in the Hellenistic and Roman periods was a multilingual society, with flourishing literary traditions both in Greek and Egyptian languages. There is fairly extensive evidence for bilingualism in at least the upper ranks of Egyptian society, and some indication that people from Greek backgrounds occasionally learned Egyptian as well as the other way around. Both Greek and Egyptian literary texts show evidence of intercultural contacts, and other written traditions left their mark on the culture of Greco-Roman Egypt as well, as with the Greek translation of the Pentateuch in Ptolemaic Alexandria. During the Roman period, the use of Latin is also attested in Egypt, though the number of Latin texts remains dwarfed by Greek.
  1232.  
  1233. Anthologies and Sourcebooks
  1234.  
  1235. There are a number of published anthologies of Egyptian and Greek textual sources (both literary and nonliterary) from Greco-Roman Egypt. Hoffmann and Quack 2007 and Lichtheim 2006 (both cited under Egyptian Literature) collect Egyptian-language literary sources in translation. Clack 1982 is an anthology of Alexandrian poetry, while Fowler 1990 provides English translations of selected Hellenistic poems (including many from Alexandria). Leitz 2004 collects Egyptian temple inscriptions. Austin 2006, Burstein 1985, and Bagnall and Derow 2004 are sourcebooks on Hellenistic history and society; all include much material relevant to Ptolemaic Egypt. Bagnall and Cribiore 2006 is an anthology of women’s letters from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Rowlandson 1998 contains sources relevant to the status and activities of women in Greco-Roman Egypt. For more sources on the numerous published collections of ostraca and documentary papyri, see Papyrology and Taxation, Corvée, and Liturgies. For sources dealing specifically with ancient and modern perceptions of Cleopatra VII, see “Egyptomania” and the Image of Egypt Abroad.
  1236.  
  1237. Austin, M. M. 2006. The Hellenistic world from Alexander to the Roman conquest: A selection of ancient sources in translation. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  1238. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511818080Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1239. Selections from ancient texts that shed light on Hellenistic history and society. Unlike Burstein 1985 and Bagnall and Derow 2004, Austin includes literary sources and ancient historians (e.g., Polybius, Strabo, Theocritus) in addition to inscriptions and papyri. Chapter 7 deals with Ptolemaic Egypt.
  1240. Find this resource:
  1241. Bagnall, Roger S., and Raffaella Cribiore. 2006. Women’s letters from ancient Egypt: 300 BC–AD 800. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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  1243. Important sourcebook of women’s letters in translation, with commentaries; most of the letters were written in Greek, but there are also some Coptic and Demotic examples. Provides a valuable resource on social history, daily life, and the experiences of (mostly elite or at least relatively comfortable) women in Greco-Roman Egypt.
  1244. Find this resource:
  1245. Bagnall, Roger S., and Peter Derow, eds. 2004. The Hellenistic period: Historical sources in translation. Blackwell Sourcebooks in Ancient History 1. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  1246. DOI: 10.1002/9780470752760Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1247. Selection of papyrological and epigraphic sources relevant to the study of Hellenistic history, in English translation. Of the Hellenistic states, the dry, papyrus-friendly Egyptian climate has caused Ptolemaic Egypt to be the best represented in the documentary evidence; accordingly, several chapters focus exclusively on Ptolemaic material.
  1248. Find this resource:
  1249. Burstein, Stanley M., ed. and trans. 1985. The Hellenistic age from the Battle of Ipsos to the death of Kleopatra VII. Translated Documents of Greece and Rome 3. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  1250. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511552618Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1251. Sourcebook containing a selection of documentary sources from the Hellenistic period, in English translation. The book does not contain historians whose works are easy to find in translation (e.g., Polybius), but instead it focuses on sources harder to find in English translation elsewhere, especially epigraphic and papyrological materials. Chapter 6 focuses on Ptolemaic Egypt.
  1252. Find this resource:
  1253. Clack, Jerry, ed. 1982. An anthology of Alexandrian poetry. Classical World Special Series 1. Pittsburgh, PA: Classical World.
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  1255. Anthology of poetry by authors active in Alexandria. In Greek, with English notes.
  1256. Find this resource:
  1257. Fowler, Barbara Hughes, ed. and trans. 1990. Hellenistic poetry: An anthology. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press.
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  1259. Anthology of Hellenistic Greek poetry in English translation. Contains many works by authors active in Alexandria.
  1260. Find this resource:
  1261. Leitz, Christian. 2004. Quellentexte zur ägyptischen Religion. Vol. 1, Die Tempelinschriften der griechisch-römisch Zeit. Einführungen und Quellentexte zur Ägyptologie 2. Münster, Germany: Lit Verlag.
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  1263. Compendium of hieroglyphic temple inscriptions from Greco-Roman Egypt. In Egyptian, with introduction and notes in German.
  1264. Find this resource:
  1265. Rowlandson, Jane, ed. 1998. Women and society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A sourcebook. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  1267. Sourcebook containing translated documents, mostly papyrological, concerning the lives and experience of females in Greco-Roman Egypt. While the selection of texts demonstrates a focus on gender-related topics, the resulting wealth of documentation—including selections from family archives and private letters—provides data not only on questions of gender but also a whole range of subjects related to social history and individual experience.
  1268. Find this resource:
  1269. Databases of Primary Textual Sources
  1270.  
  1271. Many online databases now exist for texts from Greco-Roman Egypt. Important papyrological resources include Trismegistos, Papyri.info, and Centre de Documentation de Papyrologie Littéraire. The online Prosopographia Ptolemaica has now been incorporated into Trismegistos. For Greek texts, the online Thesaurus Linguae Graecae is an indispensable tool. For Egyptian-language material, there is the Leuven Online Index of Ptolemaic and Roman Hieroglyphic Texts (in progress) and the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae.
  1272.  
  1273. Centre de Documentation de Papyrologie Littéraire.
  1274. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1275. Abbreviated as CEDOPAL. Searchable database of Greek and Latin literary papyri, as well as scholarly bibliography on the authors and genres attested in the papyri. Site maintained by the University of Liège, Belgium.
  1276. Find this resource:
  1277. Leuven Online Index of Ptolemaic and Roman Hieroglyphic Texts.
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  1279. Website of a project in progress, aiming to provide online transliterations and (French) translations of the extensive corpus of hieroglyphic texts from temples of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Project directed by René Preys at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, in collaboration with the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae.
  1280. Find this resource:
  1281. Papyri.info.
  1282. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1283. Portal to a range of papyrological resources. Includes a customized search engine (Papyrological Navigator) that aggregates content from several databases: the Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS), the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri (DDbDP), the Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis der griechischen Papyrusurkunden Ägyptens (HGV), and Bibliographie Papyrologique (BP). Also includes an editing application (Papyrological Editor) for those who wish to contribute content. Site maintained by the Duke Collaboratory for Classics Computing and the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.
  1284. Find this resource:
  1285. Prosopographia Ptolemaica.
  1286. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1287. Comprehensive list of all inhabitants of Egypt attested in known Greek, Egyptian, and Latin sources. Originally covered only the Ptolemaic period but now is being extended into the Roman and Byzantine periods. Has also been incorporated into Trismegistos database. Project hosted by the Department of Ancient History at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
  1288. Find this resource:
  1289. Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae.
  1290. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1291. Online dictionary of the ancient Egyptian language, drawing on an extensive digital corpus of Egyptian (including some Demotic) texts from the Old Kingdom to the Roman period. Users can search for lemmata by hieroglyphic spelling, transliteration, translation, or bibliographic reference. In future years, the content and navigational capabilities of the website are projected to expand. Project operated through the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
  1292. Find this resource:
  1293. Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.
  1294. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1295. A searchable digital library of Greek literature: most comprehensive for texts from Homer to 600 CE, but also incorporating a large amount of Byzantine material and ultimately intended to include texts in modern Greek as well. Project hosted by University of California, Irvine (access through participating institutions).
  1296. Find this resource:
  1297. Trismegistos.
  1298. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1299. Invaluable portal of papyrological and epigraphical resources on Egypt from the Late Period to about a century after the Arab Conquest. Includes databases on texts, text collections, papyrus archives, personal names, toponyms, and ancient authors and works. Builds on and incorporates a number of important earlier projects (e.g., Prosopographia Ptolemaica and others).
  1300. Find this resource:
  1301. Papyrology
  1302.  
  1303. The dry climate of Egypt has preserved a wealth of texts on papyrus, providing invaluable information about almost every aspect of society. Another article in the Oxford Bibliographies in Classics series already lists a number of useful introductory sources on papyri and papyrology: see Clayman 2009. Supplementing those sources here is Mitteis and Wilcken 1912: a landmark publication of juristic and historical papyri that helped define and shape the then-new field of papyrology and remains an essential resource for the study of Greco-Roman Egypt today.
  1304.  
  1305. Clayman, Dee L. 2009. Hellenistic literature. In Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. Edited by Dee L. Clayman. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1306. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1307. Annotated bibliographic article on Hellenistic literature; includes a section titled “Papyri,” containing a selection of references on papyrology.
  1308. Find this resource:
  1309. Mitteis, Ludwig, and Ulrich Wilcken. 1912. Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde. 4 vols. Leipzig and Berlin: B. G. Teubner.
  1310. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1311. Foundational, monumental work of juristic and historical papyrology. The first two volumes, by Wilcken, deal with historical papyri; the second two, by Mitteis, deal with juristic papyri. Each “set” is further subdivided into a volume of introduction and analysis (Grundzüge) and a volume of illustrative texts (Chrestomathie). The texts, mostly in Greek, are important primary sources for numerous aspects of Ptolemaic- and Roman-period society.
  1312. Find this resource:
  1313. Egyptian Hieroglyphic
  1314.  
  1315. The hieroglyphic script continued in use throughout the Ptolemaic and early Roman periods, with the last-known hieroglyphic inscription—the graffito of Esmet-Akhom at Philae—dating to 394 CE. Although literacy was undoubtedly higher in Demotic than in hieroglyphs, “Egyptian scribes continued to compose lengthy and stylistically complex hieroglyphic texts . . . well into the early third century CE” (Klotz 2012, p. 573). The great majority of these late hieroglyphic texts come from religious contexts, especially temples. Hieroglyphic script of the Hellenistic and Roman periods often employs much more complicated orthography, and a significantly larger sign list, than in earlier periods. On the principles behind cryptographic writing, see Fairman 1945 and Darnell 2004. On the sign list, see Daumas 1988–1995, Kurth 2007–2008, and Kurth 2010. Wilson 1997, a lexicon of the hieroglyphic vocabulary at Edfu, is a useful resource for the study of other late hieroglyphs as well. Kurth 2007–2008 is a good textbook on hieroglyphic Egyptian in the Ptolemaic period. Klotz 2012 provides an overview of the development of the script in the Roman period, as well as the contexts in which Roman-period hieroglyphs appear.
  1316.  
  1317. Darnell, John Coleman. 2004. The enigmatic Netherworld Books of the Solar-Osirian unity: Cryptographic compositions in the tombs of Tutankhamun, Ramesses VI, and Ramesses IX. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 198. Fribourg, Switzerland: Academic Press.
  1318. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1319. Includes an important analysis of the principles of Egyptian cryptography. These principles are crucial for understanding not only the enigmatic New Kingdom funerary literature at the heart of this particular study, but also the later developments of the hieroglyphic script in the Greco-Roman period.
  1320. Find this resource:
  1321. Daumas, François, ed. 1988–1995. Valeurs phonétiques des signes hiéroglyphiques d’époque gréco-romaine. 4 vols. Publications de la Recherche. Montpellier, France: Université de Montpellier.
  1322. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1323. During the Greco-Roman period, the hieroglyphic sign list was greatly expanded, and many signs took on new phonetic values. This four-volume series collects the phonetic values attested for each hieroglyphic sign in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
  1324. Find this resource:
  1325. Fairman, H. W. 1945. An introduction to the study of Ptolemaic signs and their values. Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 43:51–138.
  1326. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1327. Explains some of the principles behind the elaboration of the Ptolemaic hieroglyphic script and refutes Étienne Drioton’s “acrophonic principle.”
  1328. Find this resource:
  1329. Klotz, David. 2012. Egyptian hieroglyphs. In Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 563–580. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1330. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1331. A well-researched overview of Roman-period developments in the Egyptian language and hieroglyphic script, with a survey of the variety of sources (e.g., temples, stelae, inscribed statues, papyri) on which Roman-period hieroglyphic writings appear.
  1332. Find this resource:
  1333. Kurth, Dieter. 2007–2008. Einführung ins Ptolemaïsche: Eine Grammatik mit Zeichenliste und Übungsstücken. 2 vols. Hützel, Germany: Backe-Verlag.
  1334. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1335. Introduction to the grammar and script of hieroglyphic Egyptian in the Ptolemaic period, with exercises.
  1336. Find this resource:
  1337. Kurth, Dieter. 2010. A Ptolemaic sign-list: Hieroglyphs used in the temples of the Graeco-Roman period of Egypt and their meanings. Hützel, Germany: Backe-Verlag.
  1338. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1339. Abridged English version of the sign list in Vol. 1 of Kurth’s Einführung ins Ptolemaïsche (Kurth 2007–2008).
  1340. Find this resource:
  1341. Wilson, Penelope. 1997. A Ptolemaic lexikon: A lexicographical study of the texts in the Temple of Edfu. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 78. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
  1342. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1343. Lexicon of words used in the hieroglyphic texts at Edfu, with brief discussions of the words’ histories and etymologies. Serves as a useful reference for the vocabulary of other Ptolemaic texts.
  1344. Find this resource:
  1345. Egyptian Hieratic
  1346.  
  1347. The hieratic script was originally devised for writing with ink on papyri and ostraca, as opposed to hieroglyphs, which were often carved into stone. In the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, hieratic was used primarily for religious and literary texts (on which, see Egyptian Literature). The classic hieratic paleography is Möller 1965. For the Late Period, Verhoeven 2001 provides an updated paleography and formal analysis of developments in the hieratic script. Further bibliography on hieratic can be found at a website run by Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (Hieratisch-Bibliographie).
  1348.  
  1349. Hieratisch-Bibliographie. Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
  1350. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1351. Online bibliography collecting further references on the development and analysis of the hieratic script.
  1352. Find this resource:
  1353. Möller, Georg. 1965. Hieratische Paläographie: Die ägyptische Buchschrift in ihrer Entwicklung von der fünften Dynastie bis zur römischen Kaiserzeit. Vol. 3, Von der zweiundzwanzigsten Dynastie bis zum dritten Jahrtausend nach Christus. Osnabrück, Germany: Otto Zeller.
  1354. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1355. The classic text of hieratic paleography. Vol. 3 includes signs from the 22nd Dynasty to the Roman period.
  1356. Find this resource:
  1357. Verhoeven, Ursula. 2001. Untersuchungen zur späthieratischen Buchschrift. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 99. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
  1358. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1359. Reexamination of the development of late hieratic, incorporating a number of texts not included in Möller’s work.
  1360. Find this resource:
  1361. Egyptian Demotic
  1362.  
  1363. The Demotic script, which originated around the 7th century BCE, became the dominant means of writing many types of Egyptian texts in the Greco-Roman period. Whereas hieratic texts from this time are generally religious or literary in nature, scribes employed Demotic not only for those subjects but also many varieties of documentary texts. The term “Demotic” can also be used for a late form of the Egyptian language (between Late Egyptian and Coptic). However, while this phase of the language is often written in Demotic script, the two need not always exist together; that is, a text in Demotic script may not always belong to the Demotic phase of the Egyptian language, and vice versa. A good introduction to Demotic studies is Depauw 1997. Johnson 2001 provides a new Demotic dictionary. Ray 1994 argues for certain differences between Demotic texts and spoken language, and Clarysse 1987 discusses Greek loanwords in Demotic texts. Simpson 1996, cited under Priests, Priestly Hierarchies, and the State, analyzes the grammar of the Demotic versions of the Ptolemaic sacerdotal decrees. For literature written in Demotic, see Egyptian Literature, and for education in Demotic, see Education and Literacy.
  1364.  
  1365. Clarysse, Willy. 1987. Greek loan-words in Demotic. In Aspects of Demotic lexicography: Acts of the Second International Conference for Demotic Studies, Leiden, 19–21 September, 1984. Edited by Sven P. Vleeming, 9–33. Studia Demotica 1. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
  1366. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1367. While Greek loanwords are ubiquitous in Coptic, Demotic texts contain relatively few such loanwords. Clarysse surveys ninety-six attested Greek loanwords in Demotic, most of which prove to be either official titles or technical terms connected with “the administrative and financial sphere” (p. 12).
  1368. Find this resource:
  1369. Depauw, Mark. 1997. A companion to Demotic studies. Papyrologica Bruxellensia 28. Brussels: Fondation Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth.
  1370. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1371. A good introduction to Demotic studies. Discusses the script and language, the history and methods of Demotic studies as a discipline, the tools used by scribes, the range of texts written in Demotic (both literary and documentary), and extant ancient archives and libraries, among other topics.
  1372. Find this resource:
  1373. Johnson, Janet H., ed. 2001. The Demotic dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago.
  1374. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1375. A dictionary for texts written in Demotic; updates and supplements Wolja Erichsen’s Demotisches Glossar (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1954). Available online as a series of PDF files.
  1376. Find this resource:
  1377. Ray, John David C. 1994. How Demotic is Demotic? In Acta demotica: Acts of Fifth International Conference for Demotists; Pisa, 4th–8th September 1993. Edited by Edda Bresciani, 251–264. Egitto e Vicino Oriente 17. Pisa, Italy: Giardini.
  1378. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1379. Argues that Demotic is not, in fact, an exact representation of spoken vernacular; rather, Ray sees Demotic texts as writing a purified form of Egyptian, stripped of most loanwords and indicators of regional dialect. Compares modern Greek katharevousa and Modern Standard Arabic.
  1380. Find this resource:
  1381. Tait, W. J. 1997. Aspects of Demotic education. Paper presented at the 21st International Congress of Papyrologists, held 13–19 August 1985 in Berlin. In Akten des 21. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses Berlin, 13.–19.8.1995. Vol. 2. Edited by Bärbel Kramer, Wolfgang Luppe, Herwig Maehler, and Günther Poethke, 931–938. Archiv für Papyrusforschung und Verwandte Gebiete 3. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner.
  1382. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1383. Surveys textual and archaeological evidence for Demotic schools and education in the Hellenistic and Roman periods; also provides some background on education in Pharaonic Egypt.
  1384. Find this resource:
  1385. Greek and Latin in Greco-Roman Egypt
  1386.  
  1387. On the writing of Greek and Latin in papyri from Greco-Roman Egypt, good introductory sources can be found in Bagnall 2009 and Evans and Obbink 2010. Adams 2003 and Evans 2012 collect the evidence for Latin writing and Latin speakers in Egypt. Benaissa 2012 briefly discusses some characteristic features of the forms of Greek that were spoken and written in Roman-period Egypt. On the educational system for learning Greek, see Education and Literacy.
  1388.  
  1389. Adams, J. N. 2003. Bilingualism and the Latin language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  1390. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511482960Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1391. Chapter 5 contains a discussion of Latin in Egypt. Only a small percentage of documents from Roman Egypt are in Latin, but Adams finds substantial “direct and indirect evidence for bilingualism in Egypt where one of the languages was Latin” (p. 630).
  1392. Find this resource:
  1393. Bagnall, Roger S., ed. 2009. The Oxford handbook of papyrology. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1394. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1395. A number of chapters within this volume discuss the writing of Greek and Latin in Greco-Roman Egypt. See especially Guglielmo Cavallo’s “Greek and Latin Writing in the Papyri” (pp. 101–148), and Eleanor Dickey’s “The Greek and Latin Languages in the Papyri” (pp. 149–169).
  1396. Find this resource:
  1397. Benaissa, Amin. 2012. Greek language, education, and literary culture. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 526–542. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1398. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1399. General overview of the use of the Greek language in Roman Egypt. Argues from variant orthographies that the Egyptian language exerted some degree of “bilingual interference” on the pronunciation of Greek. Also surveys educational practices, literary papyri, and Alexandrian intellectual culture.
  1400. Find this resource:
  1401. Evans, T. V. 2012. Latin in Egypt. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 516–525. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1402. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1403. Surveys the (relatively limited) written records in Latin from Egypt and discusses the function of Latin as a “symbolic expression of imperial power and authority” in the Imperial period (p. 518).
  1404. Find this resource:
  1405. Evans, T. V., and D. D. Obbink, eds. 2010. The language of the papyri. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1406. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1407. Edited volume on the significance of papyri for the linguistic study of Greek and Latin. Part I deals with “Linguistic Change and Diversity.” Part II covers “Language Contact” and contains essays on bilingualism, ancient translations, and the linguistic effects of language contacts.
  1408. Find this resource:
  1409. Bilingualism
  1410.  
  1411. Much research continues to investigate bilingualism and language contact in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Papaconstantinou 2010 is an edited volume devoted to the “multilingual experience” in Hellenistic through Arabic Egypt, while Fewster 2002 and Depauw 2012 focus on Roman-period bilingualism and linguistic diversity. Bagnall 2009 contains two chapters on the “multilingual environment” of Egypt during different periods, and Adams 2003 surveys evidence for bilingual Latin speakers in Egypt. Clarysse 1987 (cited under Egyptian Demotic) discusses Greek loanwords in Demotic. Thompson 1992, cited under Ptolemaic Administration, argues that the tax system created financial incentives for Egyptians to become bilingual in Greek in the early Ptolemaic period. Derchain 2000 discusses several hieroglyphic inscriptions suggesting bilingualism among early Ptolemaic Egyptian elites, and van Minnen 1998 shows that some Egyptian priests in the Fayum were reading Greek literature. On bilingualism in magical papyri, see also Dieleman 2005 (cited under Magic). On contacts and cross-pollination between Greek and Egyptian literature, see Egyptian Literature. On bilingualism and ethnic identity, see also Ethnicity and Ethnic Identity.
  1412.  
  1413. Adams, J. N. 2003. Bilingualism and the Latin language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  1414. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511482960Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1415. Chapter 5 contains a discussion of Latin in Egypt. Although Roman Egypt has produced relatively few Latin documents, Adams collects and discusses a range of evidence for the activities of bilingual, Latin-speaking individuals within the province.
  1416. Find this resource:
  1417. Bagnall, Roger S., ed. 2009. The Oxford handbook of papyrology. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1418. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1419. Two chapters in this volume discuss the multilingual nature of Ptolemaic- and Roman-period society: Dorothy J. Thompson’s “The Multilingual Environment of Persian and Ptolemaic Egypt: Egyptian, Aramaic, and Greek Documentation” (pp. 395–417) and Jean-Luc Fournet’s “The Multilingual Environment of Late Antique Egypt: Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Persian Documentation” (pp. 418–451).
  1420. Find this resource:
  1421. Depauw, Mark. 2012. Language use, literacy, and bilingualism. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 493–506. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1422. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1423. Provides a brief survey of linguistic diversity and language contact in Roman Egypt; discusses the evidence for bilingualism, loanwords, and rates of literacy.
  1424. Find this resource:
  1425. Derchain, Philippe. 2000. Les impondérables de l’hellénisation: Littérature d’hiérogrammates. Monographies Reine Elisabeth 7. Brussels: Fondation Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth.
  1426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1427. Translation and analysis of several hieroglyphic inscriptions, written by early Ptolemaic elites, that suggest certain types of engagement with Hellenic society. Shows that some early Ptolemaic Egyptian elites were bilingual in Greek, worked closely with the Ptolemaic administration and court, and/or were children of mixed marriages.
  1428. Find this resource:
  1429. Evans, T. V., and D. D. Obbink, eds. 2010. The language of the papyri. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1430. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1431. Edited volume on the significance of papyri for the linguistic study of Greek and Latin. Particularly relevant to the subject of bilingualism is Part II, “Language Contact,” which contains essays on bilingualism, ancient translations, and the linguistic effects of language contacts.
  1432. Find this resource:
  1433. Fewster, Penelope. 2002. Bilingualism in Roman Egypt. In Bilingualism in ancient society: Language contact and the written word. Edited by J. N. Adams, Mark Janse, and Simon Swain, 220–245. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1434. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199245062.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1435. Overview of the extent, nature, functions, and social implications of bilingualism in the Roman period. Concludes that although many Egyptian peasants might have had little competency in Greek, elites would often have been fluent both in Egyptian and Greek.
  1436. Find this resource:
  1437. Papaconstantinou, Arietta, ed. 2010. The multilingual experience in Egypt, from the Ptolemies to the ‘Abbāsids. Farnham, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
  1438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1439. Collection of edited essays on linguistic diversity in Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Arabic Egypt. Subjects pertaining to the Hellenistic and Roman periods include essays on linguistic identity in Greco-Roman Egypt, Greek/Demotic bilingual papyrus archives, Greek influence on Coptic and vice versa, and Greco-Egyptian magical texts.
  1440. Find this resource:
  1441. van Minnen, Peter. 1998. Boorish or bookish? Literature in Egyptian villages in the Fayum in the Graeco-Roman period. Journal of Juristic Papyrology 28:99–184.
  1442. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1443. Discusses the archaeological and social context of literary papyri (both Greek and Egyptian) from settlement sites: Who owned these texts, and for what reasons? Determines that Egyptian priests were “actively copying (or collecting) Greek literature” and engaging with Greek, as well as Egyptian, literary and philosophical thought (p. 169).
  1444. Find this resource:
  1445. Education and Literacy
  1446.  
  1447. The best sources on Greek education in Greco-Roman Egypt are Raffaella Cribiore’s books (Cribiore 1996, Cribiore 2001). Tait 1997 discusses the evidence for Demotic education. On literacy, Depauw 2012 provides a brief overview of literacy rates in Roman Egypt, while Kraus 2000 points out that some people described as “illiterate” in Greek papyri might in fact be literate in Egyptian. On the broader topic of literacy in Antiquity, fundamental sources include Harris 1989 and Bowman and Woolf 1994; see Joyal 2011 for further bibliography on education and literacy in the classical world.
  1448.  
  1449. Bowman, Alan K., and Greg Woolf, eds. 1994. Literacy and power in the ancient world. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  1450. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1451. Includes two chapters on Egypt: John Ray’s “Literacy and Language in Egypt in the Late and Persian Periods” (pp. 51–66) and Dorothy J. Thompson’s “Literacy and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt” (pp. 67–83). Ray’s essay provides the historical background for later Ptolemaic-period developments, while Thompson argues that certain Ptolemaic tax policies were designed to encourage Egyptians to become literate in Greek.
  1452. Find this resource:
  1453. Cribiore, Raffaella. 1996. Writing, teachers, and students in Graeco-Roman Egypt. American Studies in Papyrology 36. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
  1454. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1455. Influential study by one of the most prominent scholars of Greek education in Greco-Roman Egypt, focusing on the first stage of education (learning to write). Provides a valuable resource in the form of a collection of 412 ancient school exercises.
  1456. Find this resource:
  1457. Cribiore, Raffaella. 2001. Gymnastics of the mind: Greek education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  1458. DOI: 10.1515/9781400844418Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1459. Following up on Cribiore 1996, Cribiore expands her area of focus to cover later stages in the ancient educational process.
  1460. Find this resource:
  1461. Depauw, Mark. 2012. Language use, literacy, and bilingualism. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 493–506. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1462. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1463. Provides a brief survey of linguistic diversity and language contact in Roman Egypt; discusses the evidence for bilingualism, loanwords, and rates of literacy.
  1464. Find this resource:
  1465. Harris, William V. 1989. Ancient literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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  1467. Influential study on the extent of literacy in Antiquity, asking how many people were capable of reading and writing (and coming up with relatively pessimistic estimates). The focus is not on Egypt qua Egypt, but some material from Greco-Roman Egypt is discussed.
  1468. Find this resource:
  1469. Joyal, Mark. 2011. Education. In Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. Edited by Dee L. Clayman. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1470. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1471. Extensive annotated bibliographic article on education in Greek and Roman Antiquity.
  1472. Find this resource:
  1473. Kraus, T. J. 2000. (Il)literacy in non-literary papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt: Further aspects of the educational ideal in ancient literary sources and modern times. Mnemosyne, 4th ser. 53.3: 322–342.
  1474. DOI: 10.1163/156852500510633Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1475. Investigates the social status of people in Greco-Roman Egypt who were not literate in Greek. While Greek literacy carried social and economic advantages, Kraus demonstrates that (1) many individuals illiterate in Greek were literate in Egyptian, and (2) some individuals who worked as village scribes (komogrammateus) were actually illiterate or semiliterate in Greek.
  1476. Find this resource:
  1477. Tait, W. J. 1997. Aspects of Demotic education. Paper presented at the 21st International Congress of Papyrologists, held 13–19 August 1985 in Berlin. In Akten des 21. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses Berlin, 13.–19.8.1995. Vol. 2. Edited by Bärbel Kramer, Wolfgang Luppe, Herwig Maehler, and Günther Poethke, 931–938. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner.
  1478. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1479. Surveys textual and archaeological evidence for Demotic schools and education in the Hellenistic and Roman periods; contextualizes that evidence through reference to Pharaonic precedents.
  1480. Find this resource:
  1481. The Library and Museum of Alexandria
  1482.  
  1483. The Museum of Alexandria was one of the greatest research institutes of the ancient world, and the museum’s library was Antiquity’s most comprehensive. For bibliography on these institutions, see another article in the Oxford Bibliographies series, Clayman 2009.
  1484.  
  1485. Clayman, Dee L. 2009. Hellenistic literature. In Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. Edited by Dee L. Clayman. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1486. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1487. Annotated bibliographic article on Hellenistic literature. Includes a section on the library and museum at Alexandria.
  1488. Find this resource:
  1489. Greek Literature
  1490.  
  1491. Alexandria was one of the most important centers of Greek scholarship and literature in the Hellenistic period. Several other articles in the Oxford Bibliography series cover many of the important Greek literary developments and literary figures associated with Hellenistic Egypt. Clayman 2009b deals with Hellenistic literature as a whole, while Clayman 2009a and Foster 2009 address individual literary figures active in Alexandria.
  1492.  
  1493. Clayman, Dee L. 2009a. Callimachus of Cyrene. In Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. Edited by Dee L. Clayman. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1494. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1495. Annotated bibliographic article on Callimachus, a poet active in Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE.
  1496. Find this resource:
  1497. Clayman, Dee L. 2009b. Hellenistic literature. In Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. Edited by Dee Clayman. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1499. Annotated bibliographic article on Hellenistic literature. Includes many sources on specifically Alexandrian material: see especially the sections titled “The Library and Museum at Alexandria” and “Literary Controversy in Alexandria.”
  1500. Find this resource:
  1501. Foster, J. Andrew. 2009. Theocritus of Syracuse. In Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. Edited by Dee L. Clayman. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1502. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1503. Annotated bibliographic article on Theocritus, a poet patronized by Ptolemy II in 3rd-century BCE Alexandria.
  1504. Find this resource:
  1505. Egyptian Literature
  1506.  
  1507. Egyptian-language literature of the Greco-Roman period encompasses a broad range of text types, including religious hymns, apocalyptic texts, narrative tales, wisdom literature, satire, and more. Discussions of various textual genres appear in Depauw 1997, Dieleman and Moyer 2010, Hoffmann 2000, Quack 2005, and Ryholt 2010. Anthologies of selected primary sources in translation include Hoffmann and Quack 2007 and Lichtheim 2006. The question of interconnections between Egyptian and Greek literature has attracted particular attention (e.g., Dieleman and Moyer 2010, Quack 2005, and Tait 1992).
  1508.  
  1509. Depauw, Mark. 1997. A companion to Demotic studies. Papyrologica Bruxellensia 28. Brussels: Fondation Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth.
  1510. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1511. A good introduction to Demotic studies by an expert in the field. Chapter 6 provides a survey of ancient literature written in Demotic, together with extensive bibliographies on the texts discussed.
  1512. Find this resource:
  1513. Dieleman, Jacco, and Ian S. Moyer. 2010. Egyptian literature. In A companion to Hellenistic literature. Edited by James J. Clauss and Martine Cuypers, 429–447. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Chichester, UK, and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
  1514. DOI: 10.1002/9781118970577Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1515. Surveys the evidence for literature in the Egyptian language during the Ptolemaic period. Covers some of the same material as Ryholt 2010 but focuses on a more narrow time frame, with more detailed discussion of intercultural influences. Contains a useful discussion of intertextuality between Greek and Egyptian literature in Ptolemaic Egypt.
  1516. Find this resource:
  1517. Hoffmann, Friedhelm. 2000. Ägypten: Kultur und Lebenswelt in griechisch-römischer Zeit; Eine Darstellung nach den demotischen Quellen. Studienbücher Geschichte und Kultur der Alten Welt. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
  1518. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1519. Introduction to, and survey of, Demotic texts from Greco-Roman Egypt. Includes sections on school texts, administrative texts, letters, legal texts, scholarly texts (in which category the author includes magical papyri), religious documents, priestly decrees, prophecies, literary texts, wisdom literature, satire, and graffiti.
  1520. Find this resource:
  1521. Hoffmann, Friedhelm, and Joachim Friedrich Quack. 2007. Anthologie der demotischen Literatur. Einführungen und Quellentexte zur Ägyptologie 4. Berlin: Lit Verlag.
  1522. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1523. Anthology of Egyptian Demotic literature in German translation. Contains some material (e.g., the “Texte zum Bastetfest” on pp. 305ff.) that remains unpublished or not yet fully published elsewhere.
  1524. Find this resource:
  1525. Lichtheim, Miriam. 2006. Ancient Egyptian literature: A book of readings. Vol. III, The Late Period. 2d ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
  1526. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1527. Anthology of Egyptian literature, from the Third Intermediate Period through the Roman period, in English translation. Includes much Ptolemaic and Roman material originally written in Egyptian (mostly in hieroglyphic and Demotic, in addition to one hieratic text).
  1528. Find this resource:
  1529. Quack, Joachim Friedrich. 2005. Einführung in die altägyptische Literaturgeschichte. Vol. III, Die demotische und gräko-ägyptische Literatur. Einführungen und Quellentexte zur Ägyptologie 3. Münster, Germany: Lit Verlag.
  1530. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1531. Survey of major genres of Demotic literature, including narrative tales, poetry, wisdom literature, dialogues, and prophetic literature. Concludes with an analysis of Demotic literature’s relationship to indigenous and foreign traditions; assesses the literature as “unverkennbar ägyptisch” (p. 171), or unmistakably Egyptian, in character, despite some evidence of engagement with foreign literature.
  1532. Find this resource:
  1533. Ryholt, Kim. 2010. Late Period Literature. In A companion to ancient Egypt. Vol. 2. Edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 709–731. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World 36. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
  1534. DOI: 10.1002/9781444320053Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1535. A general survey of Egyptian manuscript literature from the Third Intermediate period through the Roman period, providing an introduction to the range of text types attested. Addresses hieratic texts (for which no single overview exists for the Greco-Roman period) as well as Demotic. Other chapters in Part V of the same edited volume discuss Egyptian literature from other periods of history.
  1536. Find this resource:
  1537. Tait, W. J. 1992. Demotic literature and Egyptian society. Paper presented at the Fourth International Congress of Demotists, held 4–8 September 1990 at the Oriental Institute, Univ. of Chicago. In Life in a multi-cultural society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and beyond. Edited by Janet H. Johnson, 303–310. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 51. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago.
  1538. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1539. Addresses Demotic literary sources as evidence for social history. Argues for (limited) Homeric influence on some of the Demotic tales of Inaros (p. 310).
  1540. Find this resource:
  1541. Archaeology and Material Culture
  1542.  
  1543. The arid Egyptian climate allows the preservation of many types of material objects that would elsewhere not survive, such as artifacts made of organic materials, extensive archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological evidence, and, indeed, the mummified remains of Greco-Roman Egypt’s inhabitants themselves. Accordingly, archaeologists working in Egypt have an unusual wealth of data at their disposal. Archaeological practice in Egypt has changed dramatically since the late 20th century, as researchers increasingly engage with broader-ranging theoretical questions and employ the methodologies and technologies of modern archaeology (e.g., GIS, various types of remote sensing, and updated survey methods). The excavation of Greco-Roman settlements further offers an opportunity to rectify the long-standing underrepresentation of settlement archaeology in Egypt, where monumental temples and tombs have traditionally attracted more scholarly attention. In addition to these ongoing developments in field archaeology, other types of material culture studies have also taken great strides in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, as archaeologists continue to glean new information from old museum collections and from the reexamination of data and notes from earlier excavations.
  1544.  
  1545. Encyclopedias, Guidebooks, and Textbooks
  1546.  
  1547. There are several useful reference works on the archaeology and material culture of Greco-Roman Egypt. Bagnall and Rathbone 2004 is a helpful guide to archaeological sites of the Ptolemaic through Late Antique periods. Bard 1999 is an encyclopedia of Egyptian archaeology, with many entries on sites and material of the Greco-Roman period. The standard introductory volume on Egyptian art is Robins 1997. For museum catalogues and other published compendia of individual artifacts, see Catalogues.
  1548.  
  1549. Bagnall, Roger S., and Dominic W. Rathbone, eds. 2004. Egypt from Alexander to the Copts: An archaeological and historical guide. London: British Museum Press.
  1550. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1551. Well-researched guide to the archaeological sites of Hellenistic, Roman, and Coptic Egypt. Provides an introduction to a wide range of sites, describing each site’s excavation history, historical context, and current condition as of 2004. Also provides basic bibliography for further reading.
  1552. Find this resource:
  1553. Bard, Kathryn A., ed. and comp. 1999. Encyclopedia of the archaeology of ancient Egypt. London and New York: Routledge.
  1554. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1555. Reference book covering archaeology and material culture in Egypt from the Paleolithic through Roman periods. Includes entries for many Greco-Roman-period archaeological sites.
  1556. Find this resource:
  1557. Robins, Gay. 1997. The art of ancient Egypt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
  1558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1559. Classic introductory textbook on Egyptian art. Chapter 13 deals with the Late and Ptolemaic periods.
  1560. Find this resource:
  1561. Catalogues
  1562.  
  1563. The material culture of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt has been the focus of many museum exhibits and catalogues raisonnés. The following publications all include a range of different artifact types, although they tend to be dominated by luxury goods or figural art. Adriani, et al. 1961– aims for a comprehensive presentation of selected categories of Greek-style art from Greco-Roman Egypt. The Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire series presents selections from the vast collections of the Cairo Museum, organized by material type, while Hassan 2002 provides an introduction to the collections of the Graeco-Roman Museum of Alexandria. Bianchi 1988, Walker and Higgs 2001, and Ashton 2004 are catalogues of important exhibitions of Ptolemaic- and Roman-period material culture at the Brooklyn Museum, the British Museum, and the Fitzwilliam Museum, respectively. Catalogues of early-21st-century exhibitions of material from the underwater exploration of the Alexandrian coast and the Bay of Aboukir include Goddio and Fabre 2008 and Hawass and Goddio 2010. Catalogues devoted to more specific types of material culture can be found in Stone Statuary, Painting and Mosaic, Mummy Portraits and Masks, Terracotta Figurines, and Other Material Culture.
  1564.  
  1565. Adriani, Achille, Klaus Parlasca, Patrizio Pensabene, Nicola Bonacasa, and Hans G. Frenz. 1961–. Repertorio d’arte dell’Egitto greco-romano. Palermo, Italy: Fondazione “Ignazio Mormino” del Banco di Sicilia.
  1566. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1567. Series founded by Adriani, providing a catalogue raisonné of selected categories of Greek-influenced art from Greco-Roman Egypt (but excluding works deemed completely indigenous in style). Serie A deals with sculpture; Serie B, with mummy portraits; Serie C, with architecture; and Serie D (forthcoming), with “minor arts.”
  1568. Find this resource:
  1569. Ashton, Sally-Ann, ed. 2004. Roman Egyptomania. London: Golden House.
  1570. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1571. Catalogue of an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK. Publishes a range of artifacts and art objects from Roman Egypt, as well as certain objects of Egyptianizing material culture produced and consumed elsewhere in the Roman Empire.
  1572. Find this resource:
  1573. Bianchi, Robert S., ed. 1988. Cleopatra’s Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies. New York: Brooklyn Museum.
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  1575. Catalogue of a museum exhibit organized by the Brooklyn Museum in 1988–1989. Contains images of numerous objects of Ptolemaic (and, in some cases, Roman-period) material culture. Features useful essays by Robert S. Bianchi, Roger S. Bagnall, Jean-Claude Goyon, and Jan Quaegebeur on Ptolemaic culture, art, ethnicity, and religion.
  1576. Find this resource:
  1577. Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire series. Cairo, Egypt: Imprimerie de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale.
  1578. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1579. Series of volumes publishing the antiquities collection of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Many of the volumes deal with material culture of the Greco-Roman period. Michael Tilgner, Ingeborg Waanders, and Alain Dautant have compiled a list of all volumes in the series; the list may be found online.
  1580. Find this resource:
  1581. Goddio, Franck, and David Fabre, eds. 2008. Egypt’s sunken treasures. 2d ed. Munich and New York: Prestel.
  1582. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1583. Catalogue accompanying the 2006–2009 international exhibition “Egypt’s Sunken Treasures,” displaying objects from the underwater excavations by Franck Goddio and the Institut Européen d’Archéologie Sous-Marine. Includes short essays about relevant sites and regions (Alexandria, Heracleon-Thonis, and the Canopic region) as well as images of almost five hundred artifacts.
  1584. Find this resource:
  1585. Hassan, Fekri, ed. 2002. Alexandria Graeco-Roman Museum: A thematic guide. Cairo, Egypt: National Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage and the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
  1586. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1587. Contains (somewhat grainy) images and brief descriptions for selected objects from the Alexandria Graeco-Roman Museum, one of the world’s preeminent collections of artifacts from Hellenistic and Roman Egypt.
  1588. Find this resource:
  1589. Hawass, Zahi, and Franck Goddio, eds. 2010. Cleopatra: The search for the last queen of Egypt. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society.
  1590. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1591. Catalogue accompanying an exhibition of Ptolemaic-period material from Alexandria, Canopus, Heracleion, and Taposiris Magna, much of it derived from the underwater excavations by Goddio and the Institut Européen d’Archéologie Sous-Marine. Readers should be cautious of the interpretation presented for Taposiris Magna, as the theory that this site held the tomb of Cleopatra VII has been rejected by most scholars.
  1592. Find this resource:
  1593. Walker, Susan, and Peter Higgs, eds. 2001. Cleopatra of Egypt: From history to myth. London: British Museum.
  1594. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1595. Excellent catalogue from an exhibit of Ptolemaic art and material culture at the British Museum. Includes essays by prominent scholars on many aspects of Ptolemaic art, society, and history. High-quality images, mostly in color. A good introduction to the range and types of Ptolemaic (luxury and figural) material culture.
  1596. Find this resource:
  1597. Field Archaeology
  1598.  
  1599. The late 20th and early 21st centuries have seen great advancements in the field archaeology of Greco-Roman Egypt. Bagnall 2001 and Bagnall and Davoli 2011 are important survey articles summarizing archaeological work on Hellenistic and Roman Egypt from the mid-1990s through the first decade of the 21st century. For overviews of archaeological work in specific regions of Greco-Roman Egypt, see Davoli 2012, Kaper 1998, Robinson and Wilson 2010, and Wilson 2012, and for additional sources on the archaeology and material culture of particular areas, see Selected Sites and Regions. Further information about foreign missions currently conducting archaeological survey or excavation in Egypt appears on the website of Egypt’s Ministry of State for Antiquities, Current and Recent Foreign Missions.
  1600.  
  1601. Bagnall, Roger S. 2001. Archaeological work on Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 1995–2000. American Journal of Archaeology 105.2: 227–243.
  1602. DOI: 10.2307/507272Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1603. Useful review article summarizing and synthesizing archaeological research on Hellenistic and Roman Egypt in the later 1990s. Collects much bibliography on many sites and projects.
  1604. Find this resource:
  1605. Bagnall, Roger S., and Paola Davoli. 2011. Archaeological work on Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 2000–2009. American Journal of Archaeology 115.1: 103–157.
  1606. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1607. Another invaluable compendium of early-21st-century archaeological research. An updated (and substantially longer) follow-up article to Bagnall 2001, discussing archaeological research from 2000 to 2009 on sites and materials from the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
  1608. Find this resource:
  1609. Current and Recent Foreign Missions. Ministry of State for Antiquities, Arab Republic of Egypt.
  1610. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1611. List of foreign archaeological missions currently or recently operating in Egypt, together with contact information; includes numerous projects working on sites that date from the Greco-Roman period, or that include Hellenistic or Roman remains.
  1612. Find this resource:
  1613. Davoli, Paola. 2012. The archaeology of the Fayum. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 152–170. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1614. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1615. Introduction to the archaeology of the Fayum in the Roman period, with particular emphasis on settlement architecture. Surveys the range of excavated sites and discusses settlement layout and house types.
  1616. Find this resource:
  1617. Kaper, Olaf E., ed. 1998. Life on the fringe: Living in the southern Egyptian deserts during the Roman and Early-Byzantine periods. Papers presented at a colloquium held 9–12 December 1996 in Cairo, Egypt, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Netherlands Institute for Archaeology and Arabic Studies. CNWS Publications 71. Leiden, The Netherlands: Research School CNWS, School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies.
  1618. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1619. Collection of nineteen essays on different aspects of life under Roman rule in the Western and Eastern Deserts. Topics include field reports, botanical analysis, osteology, ceramics, and religion.
  1620. Find this resource:
  1621. Robinson, Damian, and Andrew Wilson, eds. 2010. Alexandria and the North-Western Delta: Joint conference proceedings of Alexandria; City and Harbour (Oxford 2004) and the Trade and Topography of Egypt’s North-West Delta, 8th Century BC to 8th Century AD (Berlin 2006). Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology Monograph 6. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology, Institute for Archaeology.
  1622. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1623. Edited volume containing the joint proceedings of two conferences organized by the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology. Papers cover various aspects of the archaeology of Alexandria and the Northwest Delta, including archaeological and geophysical survey, underwater excavation, and material culture studies. Most articles are in English.
  1624. Find this resource:
  1625. Wilson, Penelope. 2012. Archaeology in the Delta. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 136–151. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1626. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1627. Introduction to the archaeology of the Delta in the Roman period, with separate sections on survey and excavation.
  1628. Find this resource:
  1629. Architecture: Domestic and Civic
  1630.  
  1631. Information on the forms and uses of domestic and civic architecture in Greco-Roman Egypt comes both from archaeological excavations and papyri describing built structures. Nowicka 1969 surveys Ptolemaic private houses, while Maehler 1983 looks at housing in the Roman-period Fayum. Husson 1983 is a study of terminology used in Greek papyri to describe domestic housing. Husselman 1979 publishes the architecture of the well-preserved settlement at Karanis. Majcherek 1995 presents results from the excavation of Roman and Byzantine houses at Alexandria, while McKenzie 2007 is an important synthesis of archaeological and textual information on Alexandrian architecture. Boozer 2010 is a theoretically informed analysis of domestic architecture and identity at a Roman site in Dakhla Oasis. Adriani and Pensabene 1966–1993 collects Classicizing architectural materials from Alexandria and other sites. For more references on domestic and civic architecture from the Fayum, see Fayum.
  1632.  
  1633. Adriani, Achille, and Patrizio Pensabene. 1966–1993. Repertorio d’arte dell’Egitto greco-romano: Serie C. 3 vols. Palermo, Italy: Fondazione “Ignazio Mormino” del Banco di Sicilia.
  1634. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1635. Part of a larger series providing catalogues raisonnés of Greek-influenced art from Greco-Roman Egypt (but excluding works deemed completely indigenous in style); Serie C deals with architecture. Vols. 1–2 (by Adriani) focus on the city and necropoleis of Alexandria; Vol. 3 (by Pensabene) focuses on architectural fragments from Alexandria and other Egyptian sites.
  1636. Find this resource:
  1637. Boozer, Anna. 2010. Memory and microhistory of an empire: Domestic contexts in Roman Amheida, Egypt. In Archaeology and memory. Edited by Dušan Borić, 138–157. Oxford: Oxbow.
  1638. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1639. Study of household archaeology at a Roman-period site in the Dakhla Oasis. Investigates domestic architecture as an embodiment of social memory and expression of cultural identity within the context of empire.
  1640. Find this resource:
  1641. Husselman, Elinor M. 1979. Karanis excavations of the University of Michigan in Egypt, 1928–1935: Topography and architecture; A summary of the reports of the director, Enoch E. Peterson. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan.
  1642. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1643. Results of the University of Michigan excavations at Karanis, a well-preserved settlement site. The site was founded in the early Ptolemaic period and inhabited into Late Antiquity; most of the surviving standing architecture is Roman in date.
  1644. Find this resource:
  1645. Husson, Geneviève. 1983. Oikia: Le vocabulaire de la maison privée en Égypte d’après les papyrus grecs. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.
  1646. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1647. Study of housing in Egypt from the 3rd century BCE to the 7th century CE, on the basis of Greek papyrological documentation. Provides a lexicon of the vocabulary used in papyri to describe domestic built structures. An appendix provides information on seven specific houses known from unusually detailed textual descriptions.
  1648. Find this resource:
  1649. Maehler, Herwig. 1983. Häuser und ihre Bewohner im Fayûm in der Kaiserzeit. In Das römisch-byzantinische Ägypten: Akten des internationalen Symposiums, 26.–30. September 1978 in Trier. Edited by Günter Grimm, 119–137. Aegyptiaca Treverensia 2. Mainz am Rhein, Germany: Philipp von Zabern.
  1650. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1651. Examines housing and households in Roman Egypt, taking the Fayum as a case study. Employs archaeological evidence (e.g., excavations at Karanis and Soknopaiou Nesos) and documentary evidence (e.g., recorded sale prices of houses and land plots). Argues that Fayum housing largely followed indigenous traditions of domestic architecture.
  1652. Find this resource:
  1653. Majcherek, Grzegorz. 1995. Notes on Alexandrian habitat: Roman and Byzantine houses from Kom el-Dikka’. Topoi 5:133–150.
  1654. DOI: 10.3406/topoi.1995.1562Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1655. Preliminary report on the excavation of an Alexandrian house from the early Roman period (1st–3rd centuries CE), as well as two late Roman–Byzantine houses (4th–7th centuries CE).
  1656. Find this resource:
  1657. McKenzie, Judith. 2007. The architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, c. 300 B.C. to A.D. 700. Yale University Press Pelican History of Art. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
  1658. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1659. Invaluable resource collecting all known information on Alexandrian architecture from the Hellenistic through Byzantine periods. Some specific theses and methodological choices have been controversial: see the review by Lothar Haselberger, “Rediscovering the Architecture of Alexandria,” in Journal of Roman Archaeology 21 (2008): 703–712.
  1660. Find this resource:
  1661. Nowicka, Maria. 1969. La maison privée dans l’Égypte ptolémaïque. Bibliotheca Antiqua 9. Wrocław, Poland: Zakład Narodowy Imienia Ossolińskich.
  1662. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1663. Study of house types and construction in Hellenistic Egypt. Some statements should be taken with caution (e.g., the assumption that Roman “Nilotic scenes” provide accurate depictions of rural Egyptian house types: p. 130). Ongoing archaeological research makes an updated study desirable, but the book remains a useful resource.
  1664. Find this resource:
  1665. Stone Statuary
  1666.  
  1667. Ptolemaic- and Roman-period stone statuary has attracted much art-historical attention. Adriani 1961 is an important collection of Greek-style sculpture, and Bothmer 1960, a catalogue of Egyptian sculpture from 700 BCE through the early Roman period, remains essential. Older catalogues should, however, also be supplemented with more-recent publications of new finds (e.g., the statues found in underwater excavations off the Alexandrian coast): see several references in Catalogues. Ruler portraits remain a major focus of research; Kyrieleis 1975, Ashton 2001, and Stanwick 2002 address Ptolemaic royal statuary, while Kiss 1984 deals with Roman imperial portraiture in Egypt. Albersmeier 2002 incorporates non-royal as well as queenly portraits into a study of Ptolemaic female statuary. On statues of elites in Ptolemaic Egypt, see also Baines 2004 (cited under Social Stratification). For Roman portrait statues in Egypt, Graindor 1937 remains a useful resource; a more recent overview appears in Borg 2012, cited under Mummy Portraits and Masks. Hamma 1996 contains several useful articles about statuary and its relationship to other arts in Greco-Roman Alexandria.
  1668.  
  1669. Adriani, Achille. 1961. Repertorio d’arte dell’Egitto greco-romano: Serie A, scultura. 2 vols. Palermo, Italy: Fondazione “Ignazio Mormino” del Banco di Sicilia.
  1670. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1671. Part of a larger series providing a catalogue raisonné of selected categories of Greek-influenced art from Greco-Roman Egypt (but excluding works deemed completely indigenous in style). Serie A deals with sculpture.
  1672. Find this resource:
  1673. Albersmeier, Sabine. 2002. Untersuchungen zu den Frauenstatuen des ptolemäischen Ägypten. Aegyptiaca Treverensia 10. Mainz am Rhein, Germany: Philipp von Zabern.
  1674. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1675. Study of 161 “Egyptian-style” statues of royal and non-royal women from Ptolemaic Egypt. Although queenly statues have been examined elsewhere, non-royal female statuary has not been thoroughly addressed in previous literature; this study thus addresses a gap in scholarship.
  1676. Find this resource:
  1677. Ashton, Sally-Ann. 2001. Ptolemaic royal sculpture from Egypt: The interaction between Greek and Egyptian traditions. BAR International Series 923. Oxford: Archaeopress.
  1678. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1679. Attempts to establish a chronological framework for the study of Ptolemaic royal statuary. Includes a catalogue of about seventy portraits from assorted museums.
  1680. Find this resource:
  1681. Bothmer, Bernard V., comp. 1960. Egyptian sculpture of the Late Period, 700 B.C. to A.D. 100. Edited by Elizabeth Riefstahl. New York: Brooklyn Museum.
  1682. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1683. Catalogue of an exhibition on late Egyptian sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum, and also a landmark study of Late Period through early Roman-period Egyptian sculpture. Bothmer’s further plans for a truly monumental Corpus of Late Egyptian Sculpture never led to publication, but the project’s vast archive (at the Brooklyn Museum) remains an important resource; for more discussion of Bothmer’s legacy, see pp. xvii-xxii in Madeleine E. Cody, ed., Egyptian Art: Selected Writings of Bernard V. Bothmer (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004).
  1684. Find this resource:
  1685. Graindor, Paul. 1937. Bustes et statues-portraits d’Égypte romaine. Cairo, Egypt: Grenier and Barbey.
  1686. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1687. Still a valuable resource. Much of the statuary published in this volume derives from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria.
  1688. Find this resource:
  1689. Hamma, Kenneth, ed. 1996. Alexandria and Alexandrianism. Papers presented at a symposium held 22–25 April 1993 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, CA. Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum.
  1690. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1691. The second section of this edited volume contains ten articles about art in Alexandria, including several valuable studies that either focus on sculpture (e.g., the articles by Bernard V. Bothmer and R. R. R. Smith), address sculpture together with other arts, or interrogate the concept of an “Alexandrian style” (e.g., Andrew Stewart’s article).
  1692. Find this resource:
  1693. Kiss, Zsolt. 1984. Études sur le portrait impérial romain en Égypte. Warsaw, Poland: PWN.
  1694. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1695. Historical survey of imperial portraiture in Egypt, from the start of the Roman period to the Tetrarchy. The author focuses on changing artistic styles, which he analyzes as evidence for top-down ideological strategies. Includes some discussion of royal portraiture in non-monumental media, although particular attention is paid to stone sculpture.
  1696. Find this resource:
  1697. Kyrieleis, Helmut. 1975. Bildnisse der Ptolemäer. Archäologische Forschungen 2. Berlin: Mann.
  1698. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1699. Catalogue of artistic representations of members of the Ptolemaic dynasty, in a variety of media, but with a particular emphasis on marble portraits. Focuses on stylistic analysis and portrait identification.
  1700. Find this resource:
  1701. Stanwick, Paul Edmund. 2002. Portraits of the Ptolemies: Greek kings as Egyptian pharaohs. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.
  1702. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1703. Provides a more Egyptologically informed approach to the material than can be found in many earlier studies of Ptolemaic portraiture. Examines not only the most-“Greek-style” portraits, but also those carved in more-indigenous styles. Investigates the functions of royal portraits as tools for communicating power.
  1704. Find this resource:
  1705. Pottery
  1706.  
  1707. The study of Greco-Roman-period ceramics has grown substantially since the 1990s. A synthesis of much important research, particularly regarding regional traditions, appears in Ballet 2001; Gates-Foster 2012 focuses on the Roman period. Wodzińska 2010 illustrates a variety of Ptolemaic and Roman ceramic forms from Egypt but is primarily intended for field identification rather than scholarly research. Much current research on Egyptian ceramics, including ceramics of the Greco-Roman period, can be found in two journals, Bulletin de Liaison du Groupe International d’Étude de la Céramique Égyptienne (BCE) and Cahiers de la Céramique Égyptienne (CCE). The classic introduction to the study of Egyptian ceramics (though focusing on pre-Hellenistic material) is Arnold and Bourriau 1993; see also, more recently, Bourriau, et al. 2000. Hayes 1972 is the essential work on late Roman pottery, within Egypt as elsewhere. For studies of Roman amphorae or other sources on Roman-period pottery outside Egypt, readers should consult the “Ceramics” section of Kathryn J. McDonnell’s Oxford Bibliographies article Roman Archaeology.
  1708.  
  1709. Arnold, Dorothea, and Janine Bourriau, eds. 1993. An introduction to ancient Egyptian pottery. 2 vols. Sonderschrift 17. Mainz am Rhein, Germany: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
  1710. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1711. Landmark study of Egyptian ceramic production from the Predynastic through Pharaonic periods. Vol. 1 discusses manufacturing techniques; Vol. 2 focuses on clays and fabrics. Does not cover ceramics and fabrics of the Greco-Roman period but remains an essential reference on the Pharaonic background for ceramic manufacture in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt.
  1712. Find this resource:
  1713. Ballet, Pascale. 2001. Céramiques hellénistiques et romaines d’Égypte. In Céramiques hellénistiques et romaines. Vol. III. Edited by Pierre Lévêque and Jean-Paul Morel, 105–144. Travaux du Centre Camille Jullian 28. Besançon, France: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté.
  1714. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1715. Provides a “synthèse provisoire” (p. 105) of current knowledge on regional traditions of pottery production and consumption in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt.
  1716. Find this resource:
  1717. Bourriau, Janine D., Paul T. Nicholson, and Pamela J. Rose. 2000. Pottery. In Ancient Egyptian materials and technology. Edited by Paul T. Nicholson and Ian Shaw, 121–147. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  1718. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1719. Excellent overview of the study of Egyptian ceramics. Discusses the chaîne opératoire of Egyptian pottery production and use and provides an introduction to the categories and techniques of fabric analysis for Pharaonic-period ceramics. Also discusses the social and economic context of Egyptian ceramic manufacture.
  1720. Find this resource:
  1721. Bulletin de Liaison du Groupe International d’Étude de la Céramique Égyptienne.
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  1723. Journal for current research on Egyptian ceramics, including ceramics of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Largely devoted to preliminary reports on ceramic work from field seasons at Egyptian sites.
  1724. Find this resource:
  1725. Cahiers de la Céramique Égyptienne.
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  1727. Another journal devoted to studies of Egyptian ceramics. In addition to reports on ceramics from specific sites (similar to those published in BCE), CCE also publishes some more-synthetic articles.
  1728. Find this resource:
  1729. Gates-Foster, Jennifer. 2012. Pottery. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 648–663. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1730. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1731. Surveys the corpus of, and early-21st-century research on, ceramics from Roman Egypt.
  1732. Find this resource:
  1733. Hayes, John W. 1972. Late Roman pottery. London: British School at Rome.
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  1735. Foundational work on late Roman pottery typologies, characterizing and describing a range of different wares. See also Hayes’s later supplement to the book: A Supplement to Late Roman Pottery (London: British School at Rome, 1980).
  1736. Find this resource:
  1737. Wodzińska, Anna. 2010. A manual of Egyptian pottery. Vol. 4, Ptolemaic period–modern. AERA Field Manual 1. Boston: Ancient Egypt Research Associates.
  1738. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1739. Field manual developed for the Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA) school for Egyptian inspectors; designed as a reference for pottery identification in the field. Intended more for beginning students than experts, but the illustrated pottery forms and introductory discussion of ceramic analysis will be helpful for those starting out in the field.
  1740. Find this resource:
  1741. Painting and Mosaic
  1742.  
  1743. Brown 1957 is an overview, now somewhat outdated, of Ptolemaic paintings and mosaics. Daszewski 1985 provides a catalogue of mosaics from Hellenistic and early Roman Egypt, while Guimier-Sorbets 2004 offers a more recent survey of the Hellenistic material. Kołątaj, et al. 2007 discusses the famous mosaics from the “Villa of the Birds” in Alexandria. Rouveret 1998 analyzes painted stelae from Hellenistic Alexandria, while Venit 2002 discusses many painted tombs. On painted mummy portraits, see Mummy Portraits and Masks.
  1744.  
  1745. Brown, Blanche R. 1957. Ptolemaic paintings and mosaics and the Alexandrian style. Monographs on Archaeology and Fine Arts 6. Cambridge, MA: Archaeological Institute of America.
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  1747. Overview of paintings (mostly from funerary contexts) and mosaics from Hellenistic Egypt. Still worth checking, though must be supplemented with more-recent publications. Note that Hadra vases are no longer seen as Alexandrian products, as Brown asserts, and mostly appear to have been made on Crete.
  1748. Find this resource:
  1749. Daszewski, Wiktor Andrzej. 1985. Corpus of mosaics from Egypt. Vol. 1, Hellenistic and early Roman period. Aegyptiaca Treverensia 3. Mainz, Germany: Philipp von Zabern.
  1750. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1751. Catalogue of mosaics datable to Hellenistic and early Roman Egypt. Includes discussions of mosaic manufacture, iconography, and context, as well as literary sources on mosaics. Most of the known mosaics come from Lower Egypt, especially the Alexandrian region, although precise contextual information is generally lacking.
  1752. Find this resource:
  1753. Guimier-Sorbets, Anne-Marie. 2004. Mosaics of Alexandria. In Alexandria, real and imagined. Edited by Anthony Hirst and Michael Silk, 67–73. London: Ashgate.
  1754. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1755. Brief article surveying finds of, and stylistic developments in, Alexandrian mosaics of the Ptolemaic period.
  1756. Find this resource:
  1757. Kołątaj, Wojciech, Grzegorz Majcherek, and Ewa Parandowska. 2007. Villa of the Birds: The excavation and preservation of the Kom al-Dikka mosaics. Cairo, Egypt: American Univ. in Cairo Press.
  1758. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1759. Polish excavations at Kom el-Dikka in the late 1990s revealed an early Roman villa whose elaborate floor mosaics led to its being called the “Villa of the Birds.” This book focuses on the excavation and conservation of the mosaics.
  1760. Find this resource:
  1761. Rouveret, Agnès. 1998. Un exemple de diffusion des techniques de la peinture hellénistique: Les steles alexandrines du musée du Louvre. In L’Italie méridionale et les premières expériences de la peinture hellénistique: Actes de la table ronde de Rome, 18 février 1994. Edited by Agnès Rouveret, 175–190. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 244. Rome: École Française de Rome.
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  1763. Analysis of a group of Alexandrian painted funerary stelae, with comparisons to predecessors and parallels elsewhere in Greek funerary art.
  1764. Find this resource:
  1765. Venit, Marjorie Susan. 2002. The monumental tombs of ancient Alexandria: The theater of the dead. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  1767. Essential reading on tombs and burial practices in Alexandria; argues for increasing Egyptian influence on mortuary architecture, indicating the degree of cultural contact even within this supposedly most “Greek” city of Egypt. Includes discussions of many painted tombs.
  1768. Find this resource:
  1769. Mummy Portraits and Masks
  1770.  
  1771. Funerary portraits—especially “mummy portraits” painted on wooden panels—are among the most commonly discussed aspects of art from Roman Egypt and have formed the subject of popular museum exhibitions (e.g., Walker 2000). Borg 2012 provides an overview of the subject, relating mummy portraits to other forms of portraiture in Roman Egypt. Riggs 2002 is a theoretically informed study emphasizing the importance of mummy portraits, and related types of funerary art, as data for understanding culture and society. Parlasca 1966 is a foundational study, and Bierbrier 1997 contains much useful scholarship on the production, uses, and cultural context of funerary portraiture. Corcoran 1995 makes a provocative argument about the cultic uses of mummy portraits. Parlasca and Frenz 1969–2003 is a comprehensive catalogue of mummy portraits from Roman Egypt, while Aubert and Cortopassi 2004–2008 contains the numerous Roman-period funerary portraits from the Louvre’s collection.
  1772.  
  1773. Aubert, Marie-France, and Roberta Cortopassi. 2004–2008. Portraits funéraires de l’Égypte romaine. 2 vols. Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux.
  1774. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1775. Catalogue publishing numerous funerary portraits from the Roman period at the Louvre; Vol. 1 contains stucco masks, while Vol. 2 contains cartonnage, shrouds, and portraits on wood.
  1776. Find this resource:
  1777. Bierbrier, M. L., ed. 1997. Portraits and masks: Burial customs in Roman Egypt. Papers presented at a colloquium held in July 1995 at the British Museum, London. London: British Museum.
  1778. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1779. Proceedings of a conference on mortuary practices in Roman Egypt. The twenty-one papers focus largely on mummy portraits, examining topics such as (among other things) the production, function, cultural antecedents, and display of the portraits.
  1780. Find this resource:
  1781. Borg, Barbara E. 2012. Portraits. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 613–629. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1782. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1783. Borg’s extensive work on the subject of mummy portraits includes a 1996 monograph (Mumienporträts: Chronologie und kultureller Kontext, Mainz, Germany: Philipp von Zabern) and a number of articles. This essay is her most recent work on the subject, relating mummy portraits to other forms of portraiture from Roman Egypt.
  1784. Find this resource:
  1785. Corcoran, Lorelei H. 1995. Portrait mummies from Roman Egypt (I–IV Centuries A.D.): With a catalog of portrait mummies in Egyptian museums. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 56. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago.
  1786. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1787. Catalogue of portrait mummies in Egyptian museums. Among other things, Corcoran argues for a cultic function for the portraits, relating them to Pharaonic ȝḫ ỉqr n Rʿ stelae and ancestor busts and suggesting that they may have been displayed for cultic purposes during the lifetimes of the individuals portrayed (pp. 74–76).
  1788. Find this resource:
  1789. Parlasca, Klaus. 1966. Mumienporträts und verwandte Denkmäler. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. Wiesbaden, Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag.
  1790. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1791. Influential study of the development and functions of mummy portraits and painted shrouds.
  1792. Find this resource:
  1793. Parlasca, Klaus, and Hans G. Frenz. 1969–2003. Ritratti di mummie: Repertorio d’arte dell’Egitto greco-romano; Serie B. 4 vols. Edited by Nicolo Bonacasa. Palermo, Italy: Fondazione “Ignazio Mormino” del Banco di Sicilia.
  1794. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1795. Comprehensive, multivolume catalogue raisonné of the corpus of mummy portraits from Roman Egypt. First three volumes are by Parlasca; final volume was coauthored with Frenz. Part of a larger series providing a catalogue raisonné of selected categories of Greek-influenced art from Greco-Roman Egypt (but excluding works deemed completely indigenous in style).
  1796. Find this resource:
  1797. Riggs, Christina. 2002. Facing the dead: Funerary art of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. American Journal of Archaeology 106.1: 85–101.
  1798. DOI: 10.2307/507190Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1799. Aims to inject more theoretical rigor into the study of funerary material. Moving beyond an exclusive focus on “mummy portraits” as a self-contained group, Riggs contextualizes the portraits within the broader category of funerary art and emphasizes their utility as data for answering broader questions about ancient society.
  1800. Find this resource:
  1801. Walker, Susan, ed. 2000. Ancient faces: Mummy portraits from Roman Egypt. New York: Routledge.
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  1803. Catalogue of an exhibition of mummy portraits displayed at the British Museum (1997) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2000), with high-quality images and brief but informative background essays.
  1804. Find this resource:
  1805. Terracotta Figurines
  1806.  
  1807. Mass-produced, made of cheap materials, and accessible to a wide audience, terracotta figurines are common at Ptolemaic and Roman Egyptian sites. Because their iconography often depicts deities, priests, or festival participants, they are often studied as evidence for popular religion. An overview of the subject appears in Sandri 2012, which focuses on material attributed to the Roman period—although as the author notes (p. 632), terracotta figurines from unknown contexts are notoriously hard to date stylistically. Publications of figurines from controlled scientific excavations include Allen 1985 and Szymańska 2005. Dunand 1979 publishes an important corpus of terracottas from the Cairo Museum. Török 1995 and Bailey 2008 offer useful comments on figurine iconography, while Boutantin 2014 goes well beyond a stated focus on zoomorphic figurines in also providing a broad, up-to-date synthesis of the varied ritual functions of terracotta figurines from Greco-Roman Egypt. Uhlenbrock 1990 provides an excellent introduction to the broader field of coroplastic studies. Barrett 2011 looks at Egyptianizing terracottas from a Hellenistic port site outside Egypt, using the artifacts as evidence for trade contacts and religious change. See also Seif el-Din 1998 (cited under Other Material Culture) for a collection of plaster molds that may have been used to produce terracotta figurines, as well as other objects.
  1808.  
  1809. Allen, Marti Lu. 1985. The terracotta figurines from Karanis: A study of technique, style, and chronology in Fayoumic coroplastics. PhD diss., Univ. of Michigan.
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  1811. Catalogue of figurines found during the excavations at Karanis, with discussions of the archaeological context of the artifacts (which, for many figurines, is unfortunately later fill). Includes the results of neutron activation analysis of the clay fabrics used to make the figurines.
  1812. Find this resource:
  1813. Bailey, Donald M. 2008. Catalogue of terracottas in the British Museum. Vol. IV, Ptolemaic and Roman terracottas from Egypt. London: British Museum.
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  1815. Catalogue of the extensive collection of Greco-Roman Egyptian figurines in the British Museum. Contains many useful observations on, and interpretations of, the iconography of the figurines.
  1816. Find this resource:
  1817. Barrett, Caitlín. 2011. Egyptianizing figurines from Delos: A study in Hellenistic religion. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 36. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
  1818. DOI: 10.1163/9789004222663Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1819. Investigates Hellenistic engagement with Egyptian religion through an interdisciplinary study of terracotta figurines of Egyptian deities, mostly from domestic contexts, from the trading port of Delos. Argues that these artifacts indicate a serious Greek engagement with Egyptian theology, as well as a complex relationship between “popular” and “official” cults.
  1820. Find this resource:
  1821. Boutantin, Céline. 2014. Terres cuites et culte domestique: Bestiaire de l’Égypte gréco-romaine. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 179. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.
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  1823. Although the author devotes particular attention to animal figurines, this book also provides a much broader-ranging consideration of the uses of terracottas in domestic and other contexts (especially see pp. 97–156), as well as the locations and organization of figurine production and consumption (pp. 6–52, 91–96). Includes an extensive catalogue of animal figurines from Greco-Roman Egypt, with high-quality color photos.
  1824. Find this resource:
  1825. Dunand, Françoise. 1979. Religion populaire en Égypte romaine: Les terres cuites isiaques du Musée du Caire. Études Préliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l’Empire Romain 76. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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  1827. Publication of a large corpus of Greco-Roman-period terracotta figurines from the Cairo Museum; treats the figurines as evidence for popular cult. Dunand’s study does not include the museum’s full collection of terracottas, but rather, a selection of figurines that she considers to be linked to the cult of Isis.
  1828. Find this resource:
  1829. Sandri, Sandra. 2012. Terracottas. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 630–647. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1830. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1831. A good introduction to the manufacture, uses, and iconography of terracotta figurines from Roman Egypt. Sensibly argues that both elites and non-elites could possess such figurines, and interprets terracottas as showing continuity, rather than rupture, between “temple” and “popular” cult.
  1832. Find this resource:
  1833. Szymańska, Hanna. 2005. Terres cuites d’Athribis. Monographies Reine Elisabeth 12. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols.
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  1835. Important publication of figurines excavated at the site of Athribis. Certain iconographic types once thought to date only to the Roman period prove to appear in Ptolemaic occupation levels, necessitating a rethinking of traditional chronologies.
  1836. Find this resource:
  1837. Török, László. 1995. Hellenistic and Roman terracottas from Egypt. Monumenta Antiquitatis Extra Fines Hungariae Reperta 4. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider.
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  1839. Catalogue of figurines from collections in Budapest. The analysis of the figurines’ imagery is sensitive and well informed, teasing out many complex religious allusions in the objects’ iconography.
  1840. Find this resource:
  1841. Uhlenbrock, Jaimee Pugliese, ed. 1990. The coroplast’s art: Greek terracottas of the Hellenistic world; An exhibition and publication in honor of Dorothy Burr Thompson, New Paltz, N.Y., College Art Gallery, Febr. 9–March 15, 1991. New Rochelle, NY: A. D. Caratzas.
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  1843. Classic work on coroplastic studies. An edited volume containing chapters on a range of topics, including the production, distribution, and consumption of terracottas; the methodological challenges inherent in studying mass-produced figurines; and the varying iconography of figurines from different regions of the Mediterranean. Includes a chapter by Joan Breton Connelly on Alexandrian figurines (pp. 89–92).
  1844. Find this resource:
  1845. Other Material Culture
  1846.  
  1847. This article has devoted particular space to several types of material culture that have attracted especially intense scholarly engagement (Architecture: Domestic and Civic, Stone Statuary, Pottery, Painting and Mosaic, Mummy Portraits and Masks, Terracotta Figurines, and, within the section on Economy, see also Money and Numismatics). However, craftsmen in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt also produced many other types of material culture, including bronze statuettes, faience, ivory and bone carving, glass, and more. Bonacasa and di Vita 1983–1984 and Empereur 1998 include many useful essays on the material culture of Alexandria, while Ashton 2008 surveys the evidence for the production of various crafts at Memphis. Nenna and Seif el-Din 2004 is an important study of faience from Greco-Roman Egypt, while Thompson 1973 discusses the iconography and possible functions of a particular subset of faience objects: vessels with iconography related to queenly cult. Perdrizet 1911 catalogues the Cairo Museum’s collection of bronze figurines. From that same museum, the Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire (cited under Catalogues) includes a number of volumes on the material culture of the Greco-Roman period.
  1848.  
  1849. Ashton, Sally-Ann. 2008. Ptolemaic and Roman Memphis as a production centre. In Archaeology, history and science: Integrating approaches to ancient materials. Edited by Marcos Martinón-Torres and Thilo Rehren, 101–116. Publications of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast.
  1850. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1851. Uses archaeological evidence to argue for Memphis’s importance as a production center for material culture of many types, including sculpture, faience, terracotta, bronze, and ceramic vessels.
  1852. Find this resource:
  1853. Bonacasa, Nicola, and Antonino di Vita, eds. 1983–1984. Alessandria e il mondo ellenistico-romano: Studi in onore di Achille Adriani. 3 vols. Studi e Materiali, Istituto di Archeologia 4. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider.
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  1855. Collection of essays on the history and culture of Greco-Roman Alexandria and the rest of the Mediterranean world. Part I (Vols. 1–2) is devoted to Alexandria, while Part II (Vol. 3) deals with other parts of the Mediterranean. The majority of essays in Vols. 1 and 3 address various aspects of (mostly luxury) material culture. Studies are grouped according to type of material (e.g., architecture, plastic arts, terracottas and relief vases, ivory and bones, glass). Essays are in Italian, German, French, English, and Spanish.
  1856. Find this resource:
  1857. Empereur, Jean-Yves, ed. 1998. Commerce et artisanat dans l’Alexandrie hellénistique et romaine: Actes du Colloque d’Athènes organisé par le CNRS, le laboratoire de céramologie de Lyon et l’École Française d’Athènes, 11–12 décembre 1988. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 33. Athens, Greece: École Française d’Athènes.
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  1859. Collection of essays, mostly in French, on production and trade in Greco-Roman Alexandria. Section II contains a number of essays on different types of craft production, including metalworking, bone and ivory carving, jewelry and amulet production, molding of figurines (of terracotta, bronze, faience, and plaster), and pottery manufacture.
  1860. Find this resource:
  1861. Nenna, Marie-Dominique, and Merwatte Seif el-Din. 2004. La vaisselle en faïence d’époque gréco-romaine: Catalogue du Musée gréco-romain d’Alexandrie. Études Alexandrines 4. Cairo, Egypt: Institut Française d’Archéologie Orientale.
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  1863. Catalogue of a large corpus of faience vessels, many of them from the Graeco-Roman Museum of Alexandria, and many previously unpublished. Discussion chapters provide a valuable introduction to the production, diffusion, decoration, and forms of faience vessels in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
  1864. Find this resource:
  1865. Perdrizet, Paul. 1911. Bronzes grecs d’Égypte de la collection Fouquet. Paris: Bibliothèque d’Art et Archéologie.
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  1867. Catalogue of a large collection of bronze figurines from Greco-Roman Egypt.
  1868. Find this resource:
  1869. Seif el-Din, Mervatte. 1998. The Gayer-Anderson collection of plaster moulds in the Graeco-Roman Museum of Alexandria. In Commerce et artisanat dans l’Alexandrie hellénistique et romaine: Actes du Colloque d’Athènes organisé par le CNRS, le laboratoire de céramologie de Lyon et l’École Française d’Athènes, 11–12 décembre 1988. Edited by Jean-Yves Empereur, 165–204. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 33. Athens, Greece: École Française d’Athènes.
  1870. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1871. Publication of a collection of plaster molds used to produce figurines. Plaster molds could be used to cast a variety of figurine types, including terracotta, bronze, and faience. Includes a brief description of the manufacturing process.
  1872. Find this resource:
  1873. Thompson, Dorothy Burr. 1973. Ptolemaic oinochoai and portraits in Faience: Aspects of the ruler-cult. Oxford Monographs on Classical Archaeology. Oxford: Clarendon.
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  1875. Catalogue and analysis of faience oinochoai depicting Ptolemaic queens, as well as a number of related faience objects. Most come from Alexandria, primarily from funerary contexts. While the precise functions of the vessels are still uncertain, they serve as important primary sources for the study of queenly cult.
  1876. Find this resource:
  1877. Selected Sites and Regions
  1878.  
  1879. In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Egyptian society incorporated not only “Greek” and “Egyptian” components, but also a high degree of local and regional cultural diversity. Of Greco-Roman Egypt’s many nomes (administrative subdivisions) and settlements, the following sources focus on several key sites and regions: the new capital of Alexandria, the Pharaonic-period capitals (and continuing cultural centers) of Memphis and Thebes, the Fayum region, and finally, on the fringes of Greco-Roman Egypt, the deserts and oases.
  1880.  
  1881. Topographies and Toponyms of Greco-Roman Egypt
  1882.  
  1883. Several important resources collect, and provide bibliography on, a wide range of places and monuments in Greco-Roman Egypt. Calderini and Daris 1935–1987 collects toponyms attested in Greek and Latin texts. Porter, et al. 1960–2007 is a monumental, topographically arranged bibliography on Egyptian monuments. Trismegistos Places is an online database of toponyms related to Greco-Roman Antiquity, with particular emphasis on locations in Egypt. Bagnall and Rathbone 2004, cited under Encyclopedias, Guidebooks, and Textbooks, is a useful guide to the archaeological sites of Greco-Roman Egypt.
  1884.  
  1885. Calderini, Aristide, and Sergio Daris. 1935–1987. Dizionario dei nomi geografici e topografici dell’Egitto greco-romano. 5 vols. Pisa, Italy, and Rome: Fabrizio Serra.
  1886. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1887. Topographical dictionary containing a comprehensive collection of Greek and Latin toponyms either located in Egypt or referenced in texts from Egypt. Provides much useful bibliography for each site. A series of supplements have followed the publication of the five major volumes.
  1888. Find this resource:
  1889. Porter, Bertha, Rosalind L. B. Moss, and Jaromir Malek. 1960–2007. Topographical bibliography of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, statues, reliefs and paintings. 8 vols. Oxford: Griffith Institute.
  1890. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1891. Comprehensive reference work providing bibliography on Egyptian monuments (of all periods), arranged topographically. Jaromir Malek took over the editorial role for the “Porter and Moss” series in 1971.
  1892. Find this resource:
  1893. Trismegistos Places.
  1894. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1895. Online database of toponyms related to sites in, and beyond, Greco-Roman Egypt. Part of the Trismegistos portal of papyrological and epigraphical resources on Egypt from the Late Period to about a century after the Arab Conquest. Incorporates information from the Fayum Project, a gazetteer of places in the Greco-Roman Fayum.
  1896. Find this resource:
  1897. Alexandria
  1898.  
  1899. Research on ancient Alexandria and its surroundings has been advanced by the ongoing underwater explorations off the coast of the modern city and around the Bay of Aboukir (e.g., Goddio and Fabre 2008, Robinson and Wilson 2010), as well as Judith McKenzie’s compilation of all available archaeological and textual evidence on the ancient city (McKenzie 2007). Peter Fraser’s monumental work on Ptolemaic Alexandria (Fraser 1972) is still an essential reference. More recently, a number of edited collections of essays address many aspects of life and society in Hellenistic and Roman Alexandria (Hamma 1996, Harris and Ruffini 2004, Hirst and Silk 2004, Robinson and Wilson 2010). Tkaczow 1993 collects evidence on the topography and layout of ancient Alexandria. On literary culture in Alexandria, see also the Library and Museum of Alexandria and Greek Literature. On artistic and craft production within the city, see many entries in Archaeology and Material Culture.
  1900.  
  1901. Fraser, Peter M. 1972. Ptolemaic Alexandria. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
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  1903. Magisterial volume on Alexandria in the Ptolemaic period; still a fundamental reference, especially for classical sources on Alexandria. Includes discussions of the city’s foundation and topography; its population; and its political, social, commercial, religious, and, above all, cultural life. The intellectual developments associated with Alexandrian scholarship receive particularly detailed examination.
  1904. Find this resource:
  1905. Goddio, Franck, and David Fabre, eds. 2008. Egypt’s sunken treasures. 2d ed. Munich: Prestel.
  1906. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1907. Catalogue accompanying the 2006–2009 international exhibition “Egypt’s Sunken Treasures,” displaying objects from the underwater excavations by Franck Goddio and the Institut Européen d’Archéologie Sous-Marine. The publication includes short essays about relevant sites and regions (Alexandria, Heracleon-Thonis, and the Canopic region) as well as images of many artifacts.
  1908. Find this resource:
  1909. Hamma, Kenneth, ed. 1996. Alexandria and Alexandrianism. Papers presented at a symposium held 22–25 April 1993 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, CA. Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum.
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  1911. Useful collection of essays (almost all in English) on many aspects of ancient Alexandria, including daily life, identity and ethnicity, city planning, religion, science and learning, art and architecture, and post-Antique history.
  1912. Find this resource:
  1913. Harris, William V., and Giovanni Ruffini, eds. 2004. Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece. Papers presented at a conference titled “Alexandria between Egypt and Greece,” held 11–12 October 2002 at Columbia Univ., New York. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 26. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.
  1914. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1915. Collection of edited papers from a conference at Columbia University. The papers address different aspects of life in Alexandria from Ptolemaic times to Late Antiquity, paying particular attention to the subject of cultural contacts. Mostly in English.
  1916. Find this resource:
  1917. Hirst, Anthony, and Michael Silk, eds. 2004. Alexandria real and imagined. Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
  1918. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1919. Edited collection containing essays on Alexandria from Antiquity to the modern period. About half the book focuses on various aspects of society, cultural identity, and religion in ancient Alexandria.
  1920. Find this resource:
  1921. McKenzie, Judith. 2007. The architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, c. 300 B.C. to A.D. 700. Yale University Press Pelican History of Art. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
  1922. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1923. Invaluable resource collecting all known information on Alexandrian architecture from the Hellenistic through Byzantine periods. Also a useful source for further bibliography on Alexandria. Some specific theses and methodological choices have been controversial: see the review by Lothar Haselberger, “Rediscovering the Architecture of Alexandria,” in Journal of Roman Archaeology 21 (2008): 703–712.
  1924. Find this resource:
  1925. Robinson, Damian, and Andrew Wilson, eds. 2010. Alexandria and the North-Western Delta: Joint conference proceedings of Alexandria; City and Harbour (Oxford 2004) and the Trade and Topography of Egypt’s North-West Delta, 8th Century BC to 8th Century AD (Berlin 2006). Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology Monograph 6. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology, Institute for Archaeology.
  1926. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1927. Edited volume containing the joint proceedings of two conferences organized by the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology. Papers cover different aspects of the archaeology of Alexandria and the Northwest Delta, including archaeological and geophysical survey, underwater excavation, and material culture studies. Most articles are in English.
  1928. Find this resource:
  1929. Tkaczow, Barbara. 1993. The topography of ancient Alexandria: An archaeological map. Translated by Iwona Zyc. Travaux du Centre d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne de l’Académie Polonaise de Sciences 32. Warsaw, Poland: Zakład Archeologii Śródziemnomorskiej, Polskiej Akadmii Nauk.
  1930. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1931. Catalogue of archaeological evidence for the topography, plan, and architecture of Hellenistic and Roman Alexandria, with maps (later updated in subsequent articles by the same author). A useful resource, although with relatively little analysis of the results.
  1932. Find this resource:
  1933. Memphis
  1934.  
  1935. Dorothy Thompson (née Crawford) has dominated much of the research on Ptolemaic Memphis. The classic study of the city in the Hellenistic period, drawing primarily on textual evidence, is Thompson 1988. Ashton 2003 is a more recent work focusing on archaeological evidence from the city. Crawford, et al. 1980 is an edited collection of essays on different aspects of life in Ptolemaic Memphis. The close relationship between the Ptolemaic government and the upper echelons of the Memphite priesthood has drawn much scholarly attention (e.g., Thompson 1990); Maystre 1992 is a diachronic study of the high priests of Ptah at Memphis. Ashton 2008 discusses Memphis as a craft production center.
  1936.  
  1937. Ashton, Sally-Ann. 2003. Petrie’s Ptolemaic and Roman Memphis. London: Institute of Archaeology, Univ. College London.
  1938. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1939. Publication and analysis of finds from W. M. Flinders Petrie’s excavations at Memphis, now stored in the Petrie Museum at University College London. Places emphasis on the differences in material culture between the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Illustrations on accompanying CD.
  1940. Find this resource:
  1941. Ashton, Sally-Ann. 2008. Ptolemaic and Roman Memphis as a production centre. In Archaeology, history and science: Integrating approaches to ancient materials. Edited by Marcos Martinón-Torres and Thilo Rehren, 101–116. Publications of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast.
  1942. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1943. Uses archaeological evidence to emphasize Memphis’s importance as a production center for material culture of many types, including sculpture, faience, terracotta, bronze, and ceramic vessels.
  1944. Find this resource:
  1945. Crawford, Dorothy J., Jan Quaegebeur, and Willy Clarysse. 1980. Studies on Ptolemaic Memphis. Studia Hellenistica 24. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
  1946. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1947. Collection containing four articles on specific aspects of history, religion, and the priesthood in Ptolemaic Memphis. More useful for specialists than undergraduates or those who want an introductory overview of Memphite life and society.
  1948. Find this resource:
  1949. Maystre, Charles. 1992. Les grands prêtres de Ptah de Memphis. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 113. Fribourg, Switzerland: Universitätsverlag.
  1950. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1951. Monograph on the history and functions of the Memphite priesthood of Ptah, from the Old Kingdom to the Roman period. Useful for providing a broader historical context for the Ptolemaic and Roman high priests of Ptah.
  1952. Find this resource:
  1953. Thompson, Dorothy J. 1988. Memphis under the Ptolemies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  1954. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1955. Examines several aspects of life in Ptolemaic Memphis, with particular emphasis on religious developments. The first part deals with the city’s economy, population, and ethnic makeup; the second (and longest) part deals with religion and Memphite cults; and the third and final section provides a comparison to Roman Memphis.
  1956. Find this resource:
  1957. Thompson, Dorothy J. 1990. The high priests of Memphis under Ptolemaic rule. In Pagan priests: Religion and power in the ancient world. Edited by Mary Beard and John North, 95–116. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
  1958. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1959. Analysis of the relationship between the Memphite priesthood and the Ptolemaic kings, interrogating the collaboration and shifting power dynamics between these two sources of power and authority.
  1960. Find this resource:
  1961. Thebes
  1962.  
  1963. During the Hellenistic period, Thebes was the site of several major anti-Ptolemaic rebellions. Łajtar 2012 surveys Thebes in the Roman period, a time when the city is often believed to have gone into decline; however, Klotz 2012 demonstrates that it was still a vibrant religious and cultural center. Several conferences have focused on Thebes in the Hellenistic and Roman periods (Vleeming 1995, Delattre and Heilporn 2008, Dorman and Bryan 2011). Bataille 1952, a study of the Theban necropoleis, is still widely cited. Mynářová and Onderka 2007 presents a selection of Theban material culture from various periods. Because of space constraints, this article does not cite the numerous specialist publications of tax ostraca or papyrus archives from Thebes, or publications of individual temples in the Thebaid; however, references to these can be found in the sources included here.
  1964.  
  1965. Bataille, André. 1952. Les Memnonia: Recherches de papyrologie et d’épigraphie grecques sur la nécropole de la Thèbes d’Égypte aux époques hellénistique et romaine. Recherches d’Archéologie, de Philologie et d’Histoire 23. Cairo, Egypt: Institut Française d’Archéologie Orientale.
  1966. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1967. Influential study of the necropoleis of Western Thebes in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Bataille’s analysis of Roman Thebes as a “ville-musée” has been challenged more recently; see Klotz 2012.
  1968. Find this resource:
  1969. Delattre, Alain, and Paul Heilporn, eds. 2008. Et maintenant ce ne sont plus que des villages: Thèbes et sa région aux époques hellénistique, romaine et byzantine; Actes du colloque tenu à Bruxelles les 2 et 3 décembre 2005. Papyrologica Bruxellensia 34. Brussels: Association Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth.
  1970. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1971. Conference proceedings with papers in French, English, and German. Contributions provide a range of archaeological and textual perspectives on society, economy, and religion in Hellenistic through Byzantine Thebes, with religious topics particularly well represented.
  1972. Find this resource:
  1973. Dorman, Peter F., and Betsy M. Bryan, eds. 2011. Perspectives on Ptolemaic Thebes: Papers from the Theban Workshop 2006. Papers presented at the Thebes Workshop held in 2006 in Chicago. Occasional Proceedings of the Theban Workshop: Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 65. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago.
  1974. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1975. Proceedings of a workshop on Thebes in the Hellenistic period. Includes seven essays on a range of topics, including political relations with the Ptolemaic government, the offices and self-presentation of local elites, and temple inscriptions and graffiti.
  1976. Find this resource:
  1977. Klotz, David. 2012. Caesar in the city of Amun: Egyptian temple construction and theology in Roman Thebes. Monographies Reine Elisabeth 15. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols.
  1978. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1979. Draws on epigraphic and archaeological evidence (much previously unpublished) to assemble a comprehensive overview of Theban temple building and theology in the Roman period. Demonstrates the continued vibrancy and innovation of Thebes as a cultural and religious center, in contrast to older narratives about the decline of indigenous temples under Roman rule.
  1980. Find this resource:
  1981. Łajtar, Adam. 2012. The Theban region under the Roman Empire. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 171–188. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  1982. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1983. An introduction to the history, population, and cultural practices of Roman-period Thebes.
  1984. Find this resource:
  1985. Mynářová, Jana, and Pavel Onderka, eds. 2007. Théby: Mĕsto bohů a faraonů / Thebes: City of gods and pharaohs. Prague: Národni Museum.
  1986. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1987. Catalogue of an exhibit on artifacts from Thebes, from Pharaonic through Greco-Roman times. Includes a few Ptolemaic and Roman objects (stelae and a mummy with its coffin). Also features brief essays by Filip Coppens on Greco-Roman Thebes, its temples, and the revolt of Herwennefer and Ankhwennefer. All text both in Czech and English.
  1988. Find this resource:
  1989. Vleeming, Sven P., ed. 1995. Hundred-gated Thebes: Acts of a colloquium on Thebes and the Theban area in the Graeco-Roman period. Papers presented at a colloquium held 9–11 September 1992 in Leiden, The Netherlands. Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava 27. Leiden, The Netherlands, and New York: Brill.
  1990. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1991. Colloquium proceedings containing essays by prominent scholars on different aspects of life in Greco-Roman Thebes. Topics related to religion (e.g., temples, priests, tombs, magic) are particularly well represented. Chapters are in English, French, German, and Italian.
  1992. Find this resource:
  1993. The Fayum
  1994.  
  1995. The Fayum region is particularly well represented both in archaeological and textual evidence from the Greco-Roman period. Bagnall 2000 discusses the region’s cultural and ethnic composition. Davoli 1998 is an important study of the archaeology of Fayum settlements (on which, see also Davoli 2012, cited under Field Archaeology). Gazda 2004 provides an introduction to the well-known site of Karanis. Derda 2006 investigates Roman administration in the region. On the extensive papyrological evidence from the site of Kerkeosiris, see Crawford 1971 and Verhoogt 1998. The proceedings of three early-21st-century conferences on the Greco-Roman Fayum are published in Capasso and Davoli 2007; Lippert and Schentuleit 2008; and Arlt, et al. 2013. For more sources on the Fayum and its material culture, see Cities and Settlements, Field Archaeology, Architecture: Domestic and Civic, Households and Families, and Mummy Portraits and Masks.
  1996.  
  1997. Arlt, Carolin, Martin Andreas Stadler, and Ulrike Weinmann, eds. 2013. Das Fayyûm in Hellenismus und Kaiserzeit: Fallstudien zu multikulturellen Leben in der Antike. Papers presented at the 4th Fayyûmtagung, held in May 2011 at Kloster Bronnbach, Wertheim, Germany. Collaboration by Ulrike Weinmann. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag.
  1998. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  1999. Collection of fourteen papers from a symposium near Würzburg in 2011, concerning diverse aspects of current research on the Fayum. Papers deal with archaeology, papyrology, religion, history, and agriculture, among other subjects. In German, English, and Italian.
  2000. Find this resource:
  2001. Bagnall, Roger S. 2000. The Fayum and its people. In Ancient faces: Mummy portraits from Roman Egypt. Edited by Susan Walker, 26–30. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  2002. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2003. Short but useful analysis of the ethnic composition of the Fayum, together with a concise and elegant comparison of Ptolemaic- and Roman-period constructions of ethnicity.
  2004. Find this resource:
  2005. Capasso, Mario, and Paola Davoli, eds. 2007. New archaeological and papyrological researches on the Fayyum: Proceedings of the International Meeting of Egyptology and Papyrology; Lecce, June 8th–10th, 2005. Papyrologica Lupiensia 14. Lecce, Italy: Centro di Studi Papirologici dell’Università degli Studi di Lecce.
  2006. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2007. Proceedings of a conference at Lecce, Italy, in 2005. Taken together, the articles provide an excellent overview of research in Fayumic archaeology and papyrology, demonstrating the directions of early-21st-century scholarship in the field. In Italian, English, German, and French.
  2008. Find this resource:
  2009. Crawford, Dorothy J. 1971. Kerkeosiris: An Egyptian village in the Ptolemaic period. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  2010. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2011. Draws on papyrological evidence to investigate economy, land use, and society in a late-2nd-century BCE Ptolemaic settlement in the Fayum. Provides a valuable perspective on life in a small, peripheral agricultural village.
  2012. Find this resource:
  2013. Davoli, Paola. 1998. L’archeologia urbana nel Fayyum di età ellenistica e romana. Naples, Italy: Generoso Procaccini Editore.
  2014. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2015. Provides an important synthesis of archaeological work at Hellenistic and Roman settlements in the Fayum. The author has directed two expeditions in the region in question (at Soknopaiou Nesos and Bacchias).
  2016. Find this resource:
  2017. Derda, Tomasz. 2006. Arsinoites Nomos: Administration of the Fayum under Roman rule. Journal of Juristic Papyrology Supplement 7. Warsaw, Poland: Faculty of Law and Administration of Warsaw Univ.
  2018. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2019. Examines Roman administrative practices in the Fayum through the lens of documentary papyri.
  2020. Find this resource:
  2021. Gazda, Elaine K., ed. 2004. Karanis, an Egyptian town in Roman times: Discoveries of the University of Michigan expedition to Egypt (1924–1935). 2d ed. Ann Arbor: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, Univ. of Michigan.
  2022. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2023. A short but useful first introduction to the site of Karanis, a Fayum settlement where the University of Michigan’s excavations in the 1920s and 1930s revealed extensive archaeological remains, ostraca, and papyri. Includes essays about rural economy, domestic life, and religion at the site. Bibliography contains references to many further publications from the Michigan excavations.
  2024. Find this resource:
  2025. Lippert, Sandra, and Maren Schentuleit, eds. 2008. Graeco-Roman Fayum—texts and archaeology: Proceedings of the Third International Fayum Symposion, Freudenstadt, May 29–June 1, 2007. Wiesbaden, Germany: Otto Harrassowitz.
  2026. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2027. Conference proceedings collecting the results of much early-21st-century archaeological and papyrological research on the Fayum. In Italian, English, German, and French.
  2028. Find this resource:
  2029. Verhoogt, Arthur M. F. W. 1998. Menches, komogrammateus of Kerkeosiris: The doings and dealings of a village scribe in the late Ptolemaic period (120–110 B.C). Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava 29. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
  2030. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2031. Analyzes surviving material discarded from the archive of the village scribes of Kerkeosiris in order to reconstruct the activities and administrative milieu of the komogrammateus (village scribe) Menches. For more on Kerkeosiris, see Crawford 1971.
  2032. Find this resource:
  2033. The Deserts and Oases
  2034.  
  2035. Since the late 20th century, research has intensified in Egypt’s Eastern and Western Deserts, as well as the string of inhabited oases in the Western Desert. For overviews of the environmental conditions and spectrum of human activities in the deserts and oases over the course of Egyptian history, see Darnell 2007 and Mills 2007. Kaper 1998 is an important collection of essays on activities both in the Eastern and Western Deserts in Roman and early Byzantine times. On activities in the Eastern Desert in the Greco-Roman period, see Barnard and Duistermaat 2012 and Gates 2006. On the Western Desert, see Darnell 2002 and Boozer 2013. Klotz 2013 discusses the political situation of the deserts and oases in the 1st millennium BCE, including the Ptolemaic period. For a major site in the Siwa Oasis, see Kuhlmann 1988, cited under Divination and Oracles.
  2036.  
  2037. Barnard, Hans, and Kim Duistermaat, eds. 2012. The history of the peoples of the Eastern Desert. Papers presented at a conference held 25–27 November 2008 at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute, Cairo, Egypt. Monograph 73. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Univ. of California.
  2038. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2039. Collection of essays on the long-term history of the Eastern Desert, from prehistory to the present. Includes one chapter on the Eastern Desert during the Ptolemaic period, and several chapters on Romans, Nabataeans, Blemmyes, monks, and others in the Eastern Desert during the Roman period and Late Antiquity.
  2040. Find this resource:
  2041. Boozer, Anna Lucille. 2013. Frontiers and borderlands in imperial perspectives: Exploring the Egyptian frontier. American Journal of Archaeology 117.2: 275–292.
  2042. DOI: 10.3764/aja.117.2.0275Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2043. Provides a synthetic overview of the archaeological and textual evidence for Roman-period activity in the Great Oasis (i.e., Kharga and Dakhla Oases). Analyzes the ideological, as well as military, function of the Great Oasis as a buffer zone against desert nomads.
  2044. Find this resource:
  2045. Darnell, John Coleman. 2002. Theban desert road survey in the Egyptian Western Desert. Assisted by Deborah Darnell. University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications 119. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago.
  2046. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2047. Publication of rock inscriptions from Kharga Oasis that testify to the economic, political, and military uses of the Western Desert from Predynastic to late Roman times.
  2048. Find this resource:
  2049. Darnell, John Coleman. 2007. The deserts. In The Egyptian world. Edited by Toby Wilkinson, 29–48. Routledge Worlds. London and New York: Routledge.
  2050. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2051. Overview of the extent and types of human activity in the Egyptian deserts from the Predynastic to Greco-Roman periods. Includes a brief discussion of religious activity in the deserts, and the place of the deserts in ancient Egyptian worldviews.
  2052. Find this resource:
  2053. Gates, Jennifer E. 2006. Hidden passage: Graeco-Roman roads in Egypt’s Eastern Desert. In Space and spatial analysis in archaeology. Edited by Elizabeth C. Robertson, Jeffrey D. Seibert, Deepika C. Fernandez, and Marc U. Zender, 315–322. Calgary, AB: Univ. of Calgary Press.
  2054. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2055. Synthesizes archaeological evidence for regional trade routes in the Eastern Desert in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Positions the study of desert roads within the broader framework of landscape archaeology.
  2056. Find this resource:
  2057. Kaper, Olaf E., ed. 1998. Life on the fringe: Living in the southern Egyptian deserts during the Roman and Early-Byzantine periods; Proceedings of a colloquium held on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Netherlands Institute for Archaeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo, 9–12 December 1996. Leiden, The Netherlands: Research School CNWS, School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies.
  2058. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2059. Collection of nineteen essays on different aspects of life under Roman rule in the Western and Eastern Deserts. Topics include religion, botanical analysis, osteology, ceramics, and field reports.
  2060. Find this resource:
  2061. Klotz, David. 2013. Administration of the deserts and oases: First millennium B.C.E. In Ancient Egyptian administration. Edited by Juan Carlos Moreno García, 901–909. Handbook of Oriental Studies 1.104. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
  2062. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2063. Surveys the evidence for government administration of the deserts and oases of Egypt from the Third Intermediate Period to the Ptolemaic period.
  2064. Find this resource:
  2065. Mills, A. J. 2007. The oases. In The Egyptian world. Edited by Toby Wilkinson, 49–56. Routledge Worlds. London and New York: Routledge.
  2066. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2067. Brief overview of ecological conditions in the Western Desert oases, and changing historical patterns of cultural activity in these regions from Predynastic to Roman times.
  2068. Find this resource:
  2069. Foreign Reception of Egyptian Culture
  2070.  
  2071. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, political and trade relations between Egypt and the rest of the Mediterranean took on a new dimension. Outside Egypt, deities such as Isis and Sarapis attracted an international following, and in a wide range of foreign social and political settings, the idea of Egypt inspired powerful imaginative responses ranging from fascination to fear. The foreign reception of Egyptian culture has accordingly constituted a fertile field for much modern scholarship.
  2072.  
  2073. “Egyptomania” and the Image of Egypt Abroad
  2074.  
  2075. In contrast to the emphasis in Vasunia 2001 on Greek prejudice against Egyptians, Gruen 2011 stresses ancient attempts to seek connections with other cultures, and Moyer 2011 presents Greco-Egyptian interactions as a two-way street in which Egyptians actively participated in shaping the ways in which Greeks perceived Egyptian culture. Fowden 1993 and Hornung 2001 discuss the reception of Egyptian esoteric traditions in Greco-Roman Antiquity and beyond. Jones 2006 is a sourcebook of texts (in translation) providing both ancient and modern perceptions of Cleopatra VII, the famous/infamous last queen of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Swetnam-Burland 2012 provides an overview of Roman attitudes toward and artistic depictions of Egypt and Egyptian culture. Ashton 2004 provides examples of Egyptianizing material culture produced and consumed within other parts of the Roman Empire. On the reception of Egyptian divinities outside Egypt, see Egyptianizing Cults in the Greco-Roman World.
  2076.  
  2077. Ashton, Sally-Ann, ed. 2004. Roman Egyptomania. London: Golden House.
  2078. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2079. Catalogue of an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, from 24 September 2004 to 8 May 2005. Publishes a range of artifacts and art objects from Roman Egypt, as well as objects of Egyptianizing material culture produced and consumed elsewhere in the Roman Empire.
  2080. Find this resource:
  2081. Fowden, Garth. 1993. The Egyptian Hermes: A historical approach to the late pagan mind. Rev. ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  2082. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2083. Important study of the Hermetic tradition in the Greco-Roman world, relating “technical Hermetica” and “philosophical Hermetica” to Egyptian practices. After the publication of this study, Richard Jasnow and Karl-Theodor Zauzich published a Roman-period Demotic text that forms an Egyptian counterpart to the Greco-Roman Hermetic corpus (Jasnow and Zauzich 2005, cited under Magic).
  2084. Find this resource:
  2085. Gruen, Erich S. 2011. Rethinking the other in Antiquity. Martin Classical Lectures. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  2086. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2087. Argues that modern scholarship has overemphasized Greek, Roman, and Jewish strategies of “othering”; seeks to illuminate “the powerful ancient penchant (largely unnoticed in modern works) of buying into other cultures to augment one’s own” (p. 5). Chapter 3 focuses on “Egypt in the Classical Imagination,” and Greco-Egyptian relationships are also discussed elsewhere in the book.
  2088. Find this resource:
  2089. Hornung, Erik. 2001. The secret lore of Egypt: Its impact on the West. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
  2090. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2091. English translation of Hornung’s Das esoterische Ägypten (Munich: Beck, 1999). Hornung, a prominent Egyptologist, analyzes the long-standing “Western” association of Egypt with esoteric wisdom, magic, and mysticism, tracing this phenomenon from its classical roots to the modern day.
  2092. Find this resource:
  2093. Jones, Prudence J. 2006. Cleopatra: A sourcebook. Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture 31. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press.
  2094. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2095. Sourcebook collecting both ancient and modern sources on the image of, and traditions surrounding, Cleopatra VII. Part I provides English translations of the major Greek and Roman writings on Cleopatra, while Part II focuses on medieval through modern writings.
  2096. Find this resource:
  2097. Moyer, Ian S. 2011. Egypt and the limits of Hellenism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  2098. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511894992Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2099. Well-argued and frequently groundbreaking reconsideration of Greco-Egyptian interactions from the 5th century BCE through the Roman period, as illustrated through four case studies. Challenges the common tendency to view Greek representations of Egypt solely as “othering,” colonialism, or orientalism avant la lettre, exploring cultural exchange between Greeks and Egyptians as a complex two-way process.
  2100. Find this resource:
  2101. Swetnam-Burland, Molly. 2012. Nilotica and the image of Egypt. In The Oxford handbook of Roman Egypt. Edited by Christina Riggs, 684–697. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  2102. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571451.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2103. Provides an introduction to the subject of depictions of Egypt in Roman art and analyzes this material as evidence for changing Roman attitudes toward Egypt.
  2104. Find this resource:
  2105. Vasunia, Phiroze. 2001. The gift of the Nile: Hellenizing Egypt from Aeschylus to Alexander. Classics and Contemporary Thought 8. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  2106. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2107. Analysis of Greek perceptions of Egypt from the Classical to early Hellenistic periods. Places particular emphasis on strategies of “othering” and expressions of ethnic prejudice; readers may contrast the interpretive frameworks of Moyer 2011 or Gruen 2011.
  2108. Find this resource:
  2109. Egyptianizing Cults in the Greco-Roman World
  2110.  
  2111. The bibliography on Egyptian gods in the Greco-Roman world is truly vast. Since the turn of the 21st century, a series of international conferences on Isis studies have produced several important edited collections of essays (including, among others, Bricault 2000 and Bricault, et al. 2007; for the cult of Isis within Egypt, see Bricault and Versluys 2010, cited under Religion and Ideology). Dunand 2000 offers a general introduction to the goddess Isis and her worship both in Egypt and abroad. Merkelbach 2001 provides a useful compendium of information about the cults of Isis and Sarapis, although the author’s arguments concerning mystery cult references in Greco-Roman novels have encountered much criticism. Takács 1995 is a well-argued study of the worship of Isis and Sarapis in the Roman Empire. Heyob 1975 examines the roles and social status of females involved in Isis cult. Barrett 2011 analyzes terracotta figurines from Delos as evidence for the incorporation of Egyptian gods into the daily life of Hellenistic households. Arslan 1997 is an important catalogue of material culture associated with the cult of Isis, while Bricault 2005 brings together a vast corpus of epigraphic evidence on the same subject.
  2112.  
  2113. Arslan, Ermanno A., ed. 1997. Iside: Il mito, il mistero, la magia. Milan: Electa.
  2114. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2115. Catalogue of an exhibition of material culture related to the Isis cult outside Egypt; in addition to the catalogue proper, the volume also contains many useful essays on the history, cult sites, diffusion, and practices of Isis worship. In Italian.
  2116. Find this resource:
  2117. Barrett, Caitlín E. 2011. Egyptianizing figurines from Delos: A study in Hellenistic religion. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 36. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.
  2118. DOI: 10.1163/9789004222663Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2119. Investigates Hellenistic engagement with Egyptian religion through an interdisciplinary study of terracotta figurines of Egyptian deities, mostly from domestic contexts, from the trading port of Delos. Argues that these artifacts indicate a complex relationship between “popular” and “official” cults.
  2120. Find this resource:
  2121. Bricault, Laurent, ed. 2000. De Memphis à Rome: Actes du 1er Colloque international sur les études isiaques, Poiters–Futuroscope, 8–10 avril 1999. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 140. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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  2123. Proceedings of an important conference on Isiac cult in the Greco-Roman world, with contributions from numerous prominent scholars. Articles are mostly in French.
  2124. Find this resource:
  2125. Bricault, Laurent. 2005. Recueil des inscriptions concernant les cultes isiaques (RICIS). 3 vols. Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, n.s. 31. Paris: De Boccard.
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  2127. Collects epigraphic evidence for the worship of Isis, Sarapis, and related deities throughout the Hellenistic and Roman Mediterranean. Vols. 1–2 contain the textual corpus, organized geographically; Vol. 3 contains plates.
  2128. Find this resource:
  2129. Bricault, Laurent, Miguel John Versluys, and Paul G. P. Meyboom, eds. 2007. Nile into Tiber: Egypt in the Roman world; Proceedings of the IIIrd International Conference of Isis Studies, Leiden, May 11–14, 2005. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 159. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.
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  2131. Proceedings of an important conference on Roman receptions of Egypt and Isiac cult. The book is divided into two major parts: “Interpretations of the Meaning of Aegyptiaca Romana,” and “Understanding the Cults of Isis in Their Local Context.” Articles are in French and English.
  2132. Find this resource:
  2133. Dunand, Françoise. 2000. Isis, mère des dieux. Collection des Hespérides. Paris: Éditions Errance.
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  2135. Introduction to the cult of Isis within Egypt and beyond. The lack of footnotes poses a disadvantage, but the book remains useful as an introduction for nonspecialists. More reliable and Egyptologically informed than the standard English-language introductory volume on Isis, R. E. Witt’s Isis in the Ancient World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1997).
  2136. Find this resource:
  2137. Heyob, Sharon Kelly. 1975. The cult of Isis among women in the Graeco-Roman world. Études Préliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l’Empire Romain 51. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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  2139. Monograph on the existence, social status, and roles of female adherents of the Isis cult. Demonstrates that the majority of known cult officiants and devotees of Isis are in fact male, not female; also argues against the idea that female devotees of Isis came primarily from a “demi-monde.”
  2140. Find this resource:
  2141. Merkelbach, Reinhold. 2001. Isis Regina—Zeus Sarapis: Die griechisch-ägyptische Religion nach den Quellen dargestellt. 2d ed. Munich: K. G. Saur.
  2142. DOI: 10.1515/9783110955675Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  2143. The author’s arguments concerning Greco-Roman novels—which, in line with his earlier publications, he reads as coded references to mystery cults—have met with much resistance. However, Part I of the book provides a wealth of data on myths and rituals associated with Isis and Sarapis, and is widely acknowledged as a valuable source of information and references. First published in 1995 (Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner).
  2144. Find this resource:
  2145. Takács, Sarolta A. 1995. Isis and Sarapis in the Roman world. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 124. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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  2147. Very useful analysis of Isis and Sarapis worship in different parts of the Roman world and during different periods of time. Argues persuasively against older assumptions concerning the popularity of the Isis cult; for example, that it was popular mostly with the poor or with women, or that it afforded some greater degree of spirituality or emotionalism.
  2148. Find this resource:
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