These two volumes have no maps. But all the Greek and Roman place names which are mapped in the atlas volume are here given together with references to the original research which marshals the evidence for how we know where the ancient places were.
During the Graeco-Roman period, the Fayum became one of the most productive agricultural regions of Egypt and was the focus of a systematic settlement and cultivation program. This volume contains the conferences given at the third international symposion for Fayum studies held at Freudenstadt/ Schwarzwald from May 29 to June 1, 2007. Egyptologists, papyrologists and archaeologists from all over the world joined in order to report their current research and to contribute with their special point of view in enhancing and completing our picture of the Fayum in the Graeco-Roman period. Das Fayum entwickelte sich in der griechisch-romischen Zeit zu einer der landwirtschaftlich produktivsten Regionen Agyptens und stand im Mittelpunkt einer gezielten Besiedlungs- und Bewirtschaftungspolitik. Der Band beinhaltet die Vortrage des mittlerweile 3. internationalen Fayum-Symposions, das vom 29. Mai bis 1. Juni 2007 in Freudenstadt im Schwarzwald stattfand. Agyptologen, Papyrologen und Archaologen aus aller Welt kamen zusammen, um aus ihrer aktuellen Forschung zu berichten und durch Beitrage aus dem Blickwinkel ihrer verschiedenen Disziplinen dazu beizutragen, unser Bild des Fayum in der griechisch-romischen Zeit weiter zu vervollstandigen.
Contents include: The place of Nomos Arsinoites in the Egyptian administrative system under the Roman rule; Nomos Arsinoites - its nomarchai, strategoi and basilikoi grammateis. The Arsinoite merides; The Arsinoite toparchies; Komogrammateiai as administrative units. Village officials (komogrammateis, presbyteroi acting as komogrammateis, amphodokomogrammateis, komarchai); Pagi in the Arsinoite nome: Unification of the administrative structures.
In Excavations at the Seila Pyramid and Fag el-Gamous Cemetery, the excavation team provides crucial information about the Old Kingdom and Graeco-Roman Egypt. While both periods have been heavily studied, Kerry Muhlestein and his contributors provide new archaeological information that will help shape thinking about these eras. The construction and ritual features of the early Fourth Dynasty Seila Pyramid represents innovations that would influence royal funerary cult for hundreds of years. Similarly, as one of the largest excavated cemeteries of Egypt, Fag el-Gamous helps paint a picture of multi-cultural life in the Fayoum of Egypt during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Excavations there provide a statistically impactful understanding of funerary customs under the influence of new cultures and religion.
Private associations organized around a common cult, occupation, ethnic identity, neighborhood or family were among the principal means of organizing social and economic life in the ancient Mediterranean. They offered opportunities for sociability, cultic activities, mutual support and contexts in which to display and recognize virtuous achievement. This volume collects 140 inscriptions and papyri from Ptolemaic and early Roman Egypt, along with translations, notes, commentary, and analytic indices. The dossier of association-related documents substantially enhances our knowledge of the extent, activities, and importance of private associations in the ancient Mediterranean, since papyri, unavailable from most other locations in the Mediterranean, preserve a much wider range of data than epigraphical monuments. The dossier from Egypt includes not only honorific decrees, membership lists, bylaws, dedications, and funerary monuments, but monthly accounts of expenditures and income, correspondence between guild secretaries and local officials, price and tax declarations, records of legal actions concerning associations, loan documents, petitions to local authorities about associations, letters of resignation, and many other papyrological genres. These documents provide a highly variegated picture of the governance structures and practices of associations, membership sizes and profiles, and forms of interaction with the State.
Egypt played a crucial role in the Roman Empire for seven centuries. It was wealthy and occupied a strategic position between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds, while its uniquely fertile lands helped to feed the imperial capitals at Rome and then Constantinople. The cultural and religious landscape of Egypt today owes much to developments during the Roman period, including in particular the forms taken by Egyptian Christianity. Moreover, we have an abundance of sources for its history during this time, especially because of the recovery of vast numbers of written texts giving an almost uniquely detailed picture of its society, economy, government, and culture. This book, the work of six historians and archaeologists from Egypt, the US, and the UK, provides students and a general audience with a readable new history of the period and includes many illustrations of art, archaeological sites, and documents, and quotations from primary sources.
The history of Ptolemaic Egypt has usually been doubly isolated--separated both from the history of other Hellenistic states and from the history of ancient Egypt. The Last Pharaohs, the first detailed history of Ptolemaic Egypt as a state, departs radically from previous studies by putting the Ptolemaic state firmly in the context of both Hellenistic and Egyptian history. More broadly still, J. G. Manning examines the Ptolemaic dynasty in the context of the study of authoritarian and premodern states, shifting the focus of study away from modern European nation-states and toward ancient Asian ones. By analyzing Ptolemaic reforms of Egyptian economic and legal structures, The Last Pharaohs gauges the impact of Ptolemaic rule on Egypt and the relationships that the Ptolemaic kings formed with Egyptian society. Manning argues that the Ptolemies sought to rule through--rather than over--Egyptian society. He tells how the Ptolemies, adopting a pharaonic model of governance, shaped Egyptian society and in turn were shaped by it. Neither fully Greek nor wholly Egyptian, the Ptolemaic state within its core Egyptian territory was a hybrid that departed from but did not break with Egyptian history. Integrating the latest research on archaeology, papyrology, theories of the state, and legal history, as well as Hellenistic and Egyptian history, The Last Pharaohs draws a dramatically new picture of Egypt's last ancient state.
Materia Magica approaches magic as a material endeavor, in which spoken spells, ritual actions, and physical objects all played vital roles in the performance of a rite. Through case studies drawing on objects excavated or discovered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century at three Mediterranean sites, Andrew T. Wilburn identifies previously unknown forms of magic. He discovers evidence of the practice of magic in objects of ancient daily life, suggesting that individuals frequently turned to magic, particularly in times of crises. Studying the remains of spells enacted by practitioners, Wilburn examines the material remains of magical practice by identifying and placing them within their archaeological contexts. His method of connecting an analysis of the texts and inscriptions found on artifacts of magic with a close consideration of the physical form of these objects illuminates an exciting path toward new discoveries in the field.