Table Of ContentAMHEIDA I:
OSTRAKA FROM TRIMITHIS
VOLUME 1
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AMHEID AI
OSTRAKA FROM TRIMITHIS
Volume 1
Texts from the 2004-2007 Seasons
by
Roger S. Bagnall and Giovanni R. Ruffini
with contributions by
Raff aella Cribiore and Günter Vittmann
New York University Press
and
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
2012
Roger S. Bagnall and Giovanni Ruffini 2012
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bagnall, Roger S.
Ostraka from Trimithis / by Roger S. Bagnall and Giovanni R. Ruffini ; with
contributions by Raffaella Cribiore and Günter Vittmann.
v. cm. — (Amheida ; 1)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Contents: v. 1. Texts from the 2004-2007 seasons.
1. Ostraka—Egypt—Trimithis (Extinct city) 2. Inscriptions, Greek—Egypt—Trimithis
(Extinct city) 3. Inscriptions, Egyptian—Egypt—Trimithis (Extinct city) 4. Written
communication—Egypt—Trimithis (Extinct city) 5. Greek language—Texts. 6. Egyptian
language—Texts. 7. Trimithis (Extinct city)—Social life and customs—Sources. 8. Trimithis
(Extinct city)—Antiquities. 9. Amheida Site (Egypt) 10. Excavations (Archaeology)—
Egypt—Amheida Site. I. Ruffini, Giovanni, 1974- II. Cribiore, Raffaella. III. Vittmann,
Günther. IV. New York University. Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. V Title.
PA3371.B34 2012
487'.3-dc23
2011041832
ISBN
978-0-8147-4526-7 cloth
Published under the direction of
Amheida
Editorial Committee
Roger S. Bagnall
Paola Davoli
Olaf E. Kaper
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PREFACE
The ostraka presented in this volume come from excavations conducted at the site of
Amheida, located in the northwestern part of the Dakhla Oasis in the western desert of
Egypt. Dakhla was part of the Great Oasis of the Graeco-Roman period. Amheida is the
largest surviving archaeological site in Dakhla today, although it was certainly smaller
in antiquity than the historic capital of the oasis, Mothis (today's Mut), the remains of
which survive only in very fragmentary form.1 In the periods from which we have
Greek and Demotic texts, Amheida was called Trimithis, meaning "the storeroom in the
north" in Egyptian; the name Amheida apparently represents the same root minus tri,
"the storeroom", at the beginning.
The excavations at Amheida have been carried out by an international team under
the sponsorship of Columbia University; with the 2009 season, primary sponsorship
passed to New York University, where it is based in the Institute for the Study of the
Ancient World. This team has worked in 2004-2007, the years from which the ostraka
published in this volume come, under the regional permit of the Dakhleh Oasis Project,
directed by A. J. Mills. The Columbia project has been directed by Roger S. Bagnall, with
Eugene Ball as field director in 2004 and Paola Davoli as archaeological director since
2005. Olaf E. Kaper has served as the project's associate director for Egyptology.
Preliminary reports for each year appear on the project's web site (www.amheida.org).
Complete lists of those who have participated in the project during these years are given
in these reports. We are grateful to all for their contributions to understanding ancient
Trimithis and the support they have given both in the field and between seasons to our
work. The present volume has benefited above all from many discussions with Paola
Davoli about the contexts and stratigraphy of the house in Area 2.1 (House Bl), and
from conservation work and study of the coins by David M. Ratzan and William E.
Metcalf. Infrared photography of the ostraka in 2009 by Rodney Ast helped improve
readings in a number of texts.
We are also indebted to all of the institutions and individuals whose financial
support has made the project possible. These also are listed on the web site, but we must
record here that the bulk of the funding during 2004-2007 has come from Columbia
University (the Academic Quality Fund, the office of the Vice President for Arts and
Sciences, the Stanwood Cockey Lodge Fund of the Department of Classics, and the
Columbia University Libraries) and the Andrew W Mellon Foundation through a
Distinguished Achievement Award to Roger Bagnall. We record our thanks to all of
those who helped make the launching of this project possible, including (then) Provost
Jonathan R. Cole, (then) Vice President for Arts and Sciences David H. Cohen, and Vice
President and University Librarian James G. Neal. In Egypt, we are particularly grateful
to Zahi Hawass, (then) General Secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Magdy
El-Ghandour, (then) chief of foreign missions, and Mäher Bashendi Amin, the chief
inspector for the Dakhla Oasis in the Pharaonic and Roman Inspectorate, for their
constant support of our work. The essential logistical basis of our operations in the oasis
is provided by Ashraf Barakat, assistant to the director, and Gaber Mahmoud Murad,
1 Links to publications of the work of the Dakhleh Oasis Project at Mut el-Kharab, including the recent
excavations conducted by Colin Hope, may be found at http://arts.monash.edu.au
/archaeology/excavations/dakhleh/mut-el-kharab/index.php.
8 OSTRAKA FROM TRIMITHIS
manager of our excavation house. Without them, there would be no excavations.
Our project at Amheida was launched with as one of its explicit aims the discovery
of new textual material in a fully recorded archaeological context. Anyone who has
worked with papyri, ostraka, and inscriptions from excavations knows that context does
not always illuminate texts nor the reverse. But equally, in many cases the relationship is
deeply rewarding. Both situations occur with the ostraka presented here and will be
discussed both in the introduction to this volume and in the forthcoming publication of
the structures.
A somewhat wider context for our work, and one of the reasons for the selection of
Amheida for a field project, is the Dakhleh Oasis Project, mentioned above; the
excavations at Kellis (modern Ismant el-Kharab), directed for the past twenty years by
Colin A. Hope, were a particular inspiration, and it was the opportunity to work on the
Kellis Agricultural Account Book at his invitation that first brought Roger Bagnall to
Dakhla in 1996. We are deeply indebted to Dr. Mills and Professor Hope for their help
with our work in more ways than we can recount.
In the present volume, the Demotic texts have been prepared by Günter Vittmann,
who also contributed onomastic suggestions.2 Raffaella Cribiore has contributed to
establishing the versions of the various exercises. We are grateful to both. Professor
Vittmann wishes to note that because he was unable to see the original ostraka, his
transcriptions and comments are preliminary. He intends to provide a fuller publication
of these texts at a later date after having the opportunity to work on the originals. The
papyrologists involved in publishing the Kellis documentary and literary finds have
also contributed much at every stage to our work. In the case of the present volume,
above all we owe an enormous debt to Klaas Worp. He and we have shared
unpublished material from both sites throughout our editorial labors, and his index of
personal names from the oasis has been of great value at many points. He has also read
a draft of the present volume, discussed many difficult points in the texts with us, and
improved our readings. We thank also two anonymous referees for the Institute for the
Study of the Ancient World.
New York, November 2010
2 These indude 198, 278, 280, 305, 306 (in abnormal Hieratic), 315, 378, 384 conv., 385, 389-393, 422, 427
and 428.
CONTENTS
Preface 7
Contents 9
Figures 11
Note on Editorial Procedure 12
Introduction 13
Types of texts 13
Dating 14
Stratigraphy and coins in House Bl 23
The wells and Trimithite geography 31
Managing wells and estates 37
Commodities and measures 41
Trimithis as a political community 42
House B2 (Area 1.3) 49
Ostraka from the Temple Hill 53
Personal names 54
Archaeological contexts of the ostraka 60
Texts, translations, and commentaries 77
I. Accounts and lists (1-62) 77
II. Ration accounts (63-70) 107
III. Lists (71-95) 110
IV. Well tags: Pmoun formula (96-145) 120
V. Well tags: Hydreuma Pmoun formula (146-172) 135
VI. Tags: Miscellaneous and uncertain (173-247) 144
VII. Memoranda (248-277) 164
VIII. Receipts (278-294) 172
IX. Letters, orders, and notes (295-330) 179
X. Writing exercises (331-337) 198
XL Jar inscriptions (338-343) 199
XII. Miscellaneous (344-353) 200
XIII. Uncertain texts (354-454) 202
Indices 229
I. Chronological 229
A. Regnal years 229
B. Indiction years 229
C. Months and days 229
II. Personal names 230
III. Geographical terms 243
IV Official and military terms 246
V Professions, occupations, and statuses 246
VI. Religion 247
VII. Taxation 247
VIII. Money 248
