Post by anansi on Apr 28, 2011 0:33:21 GMT -5
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:51 am Post subject: Foreign migration into Kmt during all periods
The close and continous relations which are revealed in these texts, and the regular movement between Egypt and Syria and Palestine have left many traces.
In the first place there is the well-known presence of various Asiatic people in Egypt.
In the story of Sinuhe we read that a bedawin sheikh from the Sinai desert had once been to Egypt;[5] juding from the chronology of the story, this visit took place in the reign of Amenemhet I.
A well -known scene in tomb no. 3 at Beni Hassan depicts the arrival of an Asiatic prince and his followers,men,women,children and asses, in year 6 of Sesotris II; they are brining the nomarch eye paint [kohl][6].
It has been though that these Amu were coming to seek hospitality in Egypt,[7] but the texts accompanying the scene say no such thing.
The newcomers have none of the apperance of poverty-stricken nomads; they are travelling with out herds. It is rather a question of an offical visit,not unconnected with trade.[8] In the tombs of Beni Hassan which date from the reigns of Amenemhet and Sesotris I ,scenes of military life show some oriental warriors among the Egyptians;[9] there is no inscription explaining the presence of these men,whom one would be tempted to take as mercenaries.[10]
The great majority of Asiatics who settled in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom were humble,peaceful people. They are to be seen in large numbers employed on domestic tasks in private houses, and they are also encountered in the services of temples.
The earliest dated instance belongs to the reign of Sesotris III; the most important group of about fifty dates from the middle of the Thirteenth Dyansty.[1]
There is no texts giving any information the circumstances in which they came. The biblical story of Joseph brings to mind the slave trade;[2] voluntary recruitment is,however, attested, during the Middle Kingdom, for nomads of Nubia.[3] If an analogy may be drawn from the New Kingdom, it would suggest most strongly captures made during wars and levies raised in territory under Egyptian domination.
Such an interpretation find support in the captives who are represented in the funerary temple of Sesotris I. In any case, it is more than probable , taking into account the extent to which Egypt was state-controlled, that the government regulated the inflow of labour. Moreoever, it is know that there existed during the Middle Kingdom, not far from the royal residence ,camps of Asiatics under the direction of Egyptian officals.[4]
page 541-542
The importation of Asiatic products during the Twelfth Dyansty is as well documented as the importation of men and livestock.
We have already reffered to the intensive working of the mines at Sinai.
The extensive use of bronze and lapis lazuli , which are Asiatic in origin, begins in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom.[5]
page 543
Asiatics are several times depicted on the monuments of Mentuhotep II.
A block from the chapel of Gebelein preserves a scene of the royal triumph over the four races which made up humanity,[12] but the person on his knees , who is identified by the legend as an Asiatic, does not have the usual chracteristic features .
Of greater interest are some fragmentary reliefs from the funerary temple of Deir el-Bahri.
These reliefs have not retained any legends giving a clear indication of the ethnic group to which the different types of foreigner represented belong,[1] but two of the mutilated inscriptions , which must have stood above such scenes , mention Asiatics;[2] we thus have confirmation that they were depicted on the walls of the monument.
It is generally agreed that they are to be recognized in the persons with the following features: hooked nose,sometimes large:narrow and fairly long goatee beard, the point of which curves inwards towards the neck;abundant hair reaching to shoulder-level and held by a narrow,light headband knotted behind the head, the ends of which fall to the nape of the neck; their only garment is a loin-cloth, the length of which cannot be determined because in none of the representations is the base of the garment preserved.[3]
One of the fragments, now in the British Museum, shows the original colors: yellow skin and yellow eye-pupil, hair and beard red, loin cloth red.[4] It is many coloured and short in the newly discovered battle scene[p. 535].
Representations of Asiatics on monuments of the Fifth and Sixth Dyansties[5] show similar hair-styles with headband, while under the Twelfth dyansty the Asiatics are always depicted without headband, their hair shirter and their clothes sometimes longer.[6] Thus there was no change between the twenty-first centuries, but a certain modification is observable between the twenty-first and twentieth-nineteenth centuries.
The evidence of the monuments would have been of considerable intere for tracing the history of the inhabitants of the countries for tracing the history of the inhabitants of the countries east of Egypt if the changes had been more radical.
page 536
. About fifteen years after Mentuhotep II's death, the Eleventh Dyansty, which he had adorned ,disintegrated and for a short time Egypt relapsed into disorder.
The nomads took advantage of the situation to return in force into the eastern Delta.
We know of their misdeeds through the Prophecy of Neferti, which combines in one sinister picture these recent memories with older memories of the depredations of the Asiatics during the First Intermediate Period.[1]
page 536-537
Internal weakness , after the end of the Old Kingdom , left the Egyptian frontiers without adequate protection.
The Asiatics took advantage of this state of affairs to make their way in force into the eastern Delta and to wander through its pastures with their flocks.
Some of these invaders settled there, while others conducted raids on the territory or used it for the seasonal movements of flocks, all of which added to the prevailing condition of anarchy in the country and contributed to its ruin.[1]
In Ipuwer's words, 'The foreigners are [now] skilled in the crafts of the Marshlands'[2] Bedawin were also to be found in Middle Egypt, serving probably as mercenaries in the internal streuggles which were rending the country.[3]
Perhaps the introduction of copper-headed arrows into Egypt should be attributed to the Asiatics.[4]
It is not easy to establish a connexion between the present of these nomads and the so-called button-seals.
These objects are chracteristic of the First Intermediate Period and they are not Egyptian in origin, but they did appear in Egypt as early as the Sixth Dyansty,before the intrusion of ther bedawin.[5]
The hypothesis,built up around the button seals according to which some Asiatic conquerors ruled over the Lower Nile Valley after the Old Kingdom,[6] is disproved by texts and must be discarded.[7]
page 533
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:57 am Post subject: Asiatics in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom
93.0909
LUFT, Ulrich, Asiatics in Illahun: A preliminary report, in: Atti VI Congresso. II, 291-297.
In the M.K. Asiatics of unknown origin were present in Egypt in considerable number.
They were designated aAm, "Asiatic." The toponym RTnw is also known; the combination of aAmw of RTnw is attested.
Some names look Egyptian, but are foreign. A safe indication is the addition aAm before the name. In Illahun Asiatics are mentioned in registers and letters. The names of the Asiatics are Egyptian for the most part. Asiatic names appear as parent's names or nicknames.
Some nicknames seem to be Egyptian. The presence of Hurrian names in the Egyptian during the 19th century B.C. can be assumed. In P. Berol 10002 a large part of the singers (Smaw) is Asiatic, but also titles and activities are attested.
It seems that the Asiatics lived under the same circumstances as the Egyptians. Pap. Berol 10004, known as a document concerning the sale of slaves, needs further study. On the basis of the Illahun evidence, Asiatics were appreciated as workers inside and outside of Egypt in the later XIIth Dynasty.
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:59 am Post subject: Asiatics in Middle Kingdom Egypt
93.0414
HELCK, Wolfgang, Das Hyksosproblem, Orientalia
62 (1993), 60-66.
In the M.K. and S.I.P. there were large numbers of 'Asiatics' living in Egypt who were originally brought there as prisoners or as slaves.
They are to be distinguished from the Asiatics of Tell ed-Dab'a, among whom there were many Phoenician traders and artisans.
The Hyksos fit in neither of these groups, and the reports on their violent behaviour make them appear as a third element.
Neither Semitic nor Hurritic, they may well have been pirates from Cyprus and southern Anatolia, intent on usurping the trade of Tell el-Dab'a.
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 7:01 am Post subject: Asiatic captives in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom
The annals refer to a small group of Egyptians
entering Bedouin territory[probablly a region
of the Sinai in order to 'hack up the land';
and two more attacks were directed at an
unknown walled towns.
The victims are
described as Aamu[Asiatics, and 1,554 of them
are said to have been captured as prisoners.
These large numbers of foreign captives may
well explain the extensive lists of Asiatics
slaves working in the houses of Thebes[Waset]
in later times.
Oxford History of Ancient EgyptT
edited by Ian Shaw
page 163
Egyptian intolerance toward the 'easteners'
was already apparent in the reign of Senusret
I, who described himself as the throat
slitter of Asia, and this general perception
is reinforced by execration texts.
page 167
Oxford History of Ancient Egypt
edited by Ian Shaw
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 7:08 am Post subject: Foreigners living in Deir el Medina during New Kingdom
94.1133
WARD, William A., Foreigners Living in the Village, in: Pharaoh's Workers, 61-85 and 163-174.
Having pointed out the problem of identifying foreign personal names in Egyptian texts in general, the author turns to the Deir el-Medina material, where he has identified 22 masculine and 10 feminine names of West-Asiatic origin, most Semitic, but also Hurrian and Hittite.
Their bearers lived almost all in the village; the women were mostly married to workmen, but the social status of the men is harder to determine. Appendix A lists 22 foreign names at Deir el-Medina published earlier by him (in "Essays in Ancient Civilization ... H.J. Kantor," Chicago 1989, 255-299) and 13 new ones from the Deir el-Medina texts, among which the extensively discussed knr (kl) and kr. Appendix B concentrates on the occurrences of the name knr (kl) at Deir el-Medina (nos. 1-11) and outside during the N.K. (12-28 ) , and in the T.I.P. (29-30) . Appendix C lists 10 occurrences of the name kr(i/y).
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 7:12 am Post subject: Immigration in Late Dyanastic Kmt
But more importantly he was able to idenity at Nebeira the site of
the ancient city of Naucratis ,which in the reign of Amasis in the
Twenty-six Dyansty[570-526 B.C.] had been granted a monopoly of Greek
trading in Egypt.
page 33
Ancient Egypt
The Land and Legacy
T.G.H. James
copyright @ 1988
First Unversity of Texas Press Paperback Printing,1990
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 5:56 pm Post subject: .........
A substantial Greek-speaking community exised in Men-nefer,and a
number of mummies incorporating potraits and of portraits taken
from mummies have been found at Saqqara;they probably present us with
the closest we may ever get to the likeness of Memphites.
page
58
Ancient Egypt
The Land and Legacy
T.G.H. James
First Unversity of Texas Press Paperback Printing,1990
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 5:58 pm Post subject: Greeks Carians Jews and Phonecians in Saqarra
Although at the end of the Dyanstic period and in Graeco-Roman times
Saqarra was a bustling place throughout the year with constant
pilgrimages to many shrines ,were troubled souls sought comfort from
the mysteries and incubation treatments available and processions and
very occasionally an Apis funeral as special entertainment,the
district was also probably rather ran down suffering from the
excessive usage of almost three thousand years.
To some extent its
bustle its bustle reflected the busy life of the city of Men-
nefer,which remained the most important centre of commerce and
administration untill it was supersededby Alexzandria.
It was
huge,amorphus,rambling place,with large ''ghettoes'' made over for
foregin communities---for Greeks,for Jews,for Carians,for
Phonecians.
Apart from itws temples it probabaly had few imposing
buildings,and was mostly made up of warren-like districts of narrow
streets and three-storey houses where collapse and rebuilding went
on continuously:unsanitary,smelly,dusty or muddy according to the
season,but full of life and interest.
page 46
Ancient Egypt
The Land and Legacy
T.G.H. James
copyright @ 1988
First Unversity of Texas Press Paperback Printing,1990
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:02 pm Post subject: Carian migration into Egypt 610 B.C.
KAMMERZELL, Frank, Studien zu Sprache und Geschichte der Karer in Ägypten, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 1993 = Göttinger Orientforschungen. IV. Reihe: Ägypten, 27. (17 x 24 cm; XV, 251 p., fig., ill.). ISBN 3-447-03411-4; Pr. DM 98
The first part of this book is concerned with the Carian script and language. The present author is not the first Egyptologist to be occupied with the problem, and it is particularly the solutions brought forward in the theory of Ray (see i.a. AEB 81.0179) that have met with much resistance.
The problem of bilingual texts and pseudoforms of this are discussed. This theory of Ray is discussed in ch. 1. A section of ch. 2 is devoted as well to the Carian as the Graeco-Carian and Egypto-Carian correspondences. An excursus is devoted to two Carian inscriptions in Abu Simbel. It is suggested that the "Egyptian approach" is by no means as discouraging of results as the critics suggested, and has many valuable points. At the end of the part, the author presents on p. 90-92 his revision of Ray's transliteration system.
Part 2 is devoted to the history of the Carian presence in Egypt, with particular reference to their own texts.
A first objective was the chronology of the Carian funerary stelae from Saqqara with the help of a combined typological and philological approach. Genealogies indicated on the stelae enabled to establish a relative chronology for the separate groups sharing stylistic features.
Next to biographic documents bearing completely different texts and true bilinguals, there exist hybrid texts, which within one utterance may change the Carian or Egyptian language.
Their owners probably sprang from mixed marriages. The Saqqara texts permit to trace the history of the Carian minority for about 150 years. The oldest documents originate from the second half of the 7th century B.C.
On the basis of stela types several phases in the history of the community can be distinguished. From about 610 B.C. an increasing assimilation with the guest country Egypt is noticeable.
At least some part of the mercenaries and their progeny became completely egyptianised.
The process is interrupted by an influx of new Carians from Asia-Minor about 545 B.C. After 500 B.C. the Saqqara funerary stelae become silent. The position of the presumedly younger graffiti from Abydos is not yet sufficiently clear.
Last remarks on most recent studies, a synoptic table presenting the modern transliteration systems, a transliteration of the Carian stelae from Saqqara, a comparative list of Carian onomastic material, a bibliography, indexes on the words in the various scripts used by the author, and a general index added
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:04 pm Post subject: Foreign visitors to Philae[Elephantine] during Ptolemaic era
MAEHLER, Herwig, Visitors to Elephantine: Who Were They?, in: Life in a Multi-Cultural Society, 209-215. (pl.).
In the Graeco-Roman period the temple of Khnum at Elephantine was a
major religious centre, where a large number of inscriptions and graffiti
both in Greek and in Demotic have survived on blocks. They are i
important, because they tell about the visitors. After presenting some
Ptolemaic dedicatory inscriptions, the author remarks that in the 2nd
century B.C. Elephantine was visited by a number of fairly high ranking
officials, while there is not a single visitor's graffito by an ordinary person.
A variety of humble people are met only in the graffiti, both Greek and
Demotic, on the temple terrace of the early Roman Period, which is
adjacent to the nilometer. The Greek graffiti form the vast majority. A
majority of the personal names are Greek, many names are common
Egyptian, and a fair proportion appears to be Roman (soldiers?). The
author suspects that the temple lost some of its importance in the
transition from the Ptolemaic to the Roman Period, when high-ranking
visitors continued to visit neighbouring Philae, but apparently not
Elephantine. The Roman temple constructions at Philae suggest that under
the Roman occupation Philae was upgraded at the expense of Elephantine.
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:05 pm Post subject: Libyans in the Late Twentieth Dynasty
HARING, B., Libyans in the Late Twentieth Dynasty, in: Village Voices, 71-80.
The author deals with the administrative documents from the Theban necropolis which contain information on the presence of Libyans in the Theban
region. Two groups can be distinguished, first the daily administration of the
necropolis, the necropolis journal on papyrus scrolls recording the day to day
progress, deliveries and the specific events (many Giornale documents from the
Museo Egizio, Turin). The second group consists of letters from the end of the
Ramesside Period, the so-called "Late Ramesside Letters." The texts are
discussed in chronological order, from year 1 of Ramses IX through the reign of
Ramses X to the couple of years of the wHm-mswt era starting in year 19 of
Ramses XI, altogether a relatively short period attesting the Libyan presence. Denominations in this type of documents are mSwS, rbw and xAstyw "foreigners"; in literary and official texts also TmHw, THnw and qhq occur. At the end a brief discussion of to whom the denominations xry "the enemy" and rmT "people" found in administrative documents refer
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:06 pm Post subject: Jews and other immigrants in Late Period Egypt
Chapter 32
Jews and other immigrants in Late Period Egypt
J.D. Ray
The University of Cambridge
Egypt acted as a magnet for immigrants during most periods,but this is particulary true of the centuries beginning with the Twenty-sixth Dyansty and continuing to the end of Ptolemaic rule. Such newcomers were attracted by the potential wealth of the country, which was in marked contrasts to conditions in the Aegean of in much of the rest of the Near-East. In general, a pattern emerges of slow but steady assimilation to the culture, and even the religion, of the immigrants' new home. The Ionians, for example , are attested early[witness the new inscription from Priene published by Masson and Yoyotte 1988,pp. 171-80]. However, if we consider the well-known Curse of Artemisia[+UPZ I 1], which dates from 311 B.C., we find that although the language of this text is Ionic Greek, the text can be transposed phrase for phrase into Demotic; indeed, it can almost be described as an ancient Egyptian text written in Greek. Another interesting example is given in the early[fourth century ?] papyri published by Zaghloul, where the affairs of an ibis-cult in Middle Egypt are in the hands of a man named Ariston[3 rstn]. It is hard to imagine a more Egytian occupation. The Carians ,closely associated with the Ionians, show a similar pattern of Egyptianization. Graffiti left by Phonecian pilgrims at Abydos show the same features, and from a large but amorphous community of Aramaic speakers in Egypt we have the Carpentras stele[Grelot 1972, no. 86], which is not only an Egyptian funerary prayer to Osiris, but even contains Egyptian words[nb m3 'ty, hsyw] transliterated into Aramaic. This too can be seen as an ancient Egyptian text,in spite of its language. The now-notorious Amherst papyrus may represent a highly-developed example of this tendency; in many ways this text foreshadowed the though-world of later Greco-Egyptian magic.
The principal exception to this pattern of assimilation is the case of the Jews. These are known mainly fromthe archives at Elephantine, but have also left traces of their attitude in the books of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and in the story of Joseph, the archetypal history of an immigrant made good. The reasons for Jewish separteness are complex: one may suggest tighter family structure, the maintenance of links with the homeland, and possibly the codification of Jewish scripture.Certainly in late period Egypt Zeus could become Amun, and Thoth Hermes, but the Jewish God remains itself. Ionians and Phonecians turned into Ionomemphites and Phoinikaigyptioi, but the Jews never became other than Ioudaioi.
page 273
Life in a Multi-Cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and Beytond
edited by Janet H. Johnson
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:07 pm Post subject: Greek intermarriage with indigenous Egyptians
Monimos is, as far as I know , the first alexandrian [or desendant of an Alexandrian] of whom we know that he married an Egyptian woman. Fraser's suggestion that Alexandrian immigrants in the chora '' are unlikely to have contracted marriages with Egyptian women''[because this would endanger the civil status of their offspring[Fraser 1972,pp.71-72] is here for the first time disproved. And I doubt if Alexandrians living in the chora really behaved differently from other Greeks at all.
Monimos was certainly not the only Greek in the village or town to marry an Egyptian girl, the same census document substantially auguments the number of mixed families known for the third century B.C.; Stephanos, son of 3my3.t,Protarchos and Diodoros are moreover married to Egyptian women themselves. Perhaps the scarcity of mixed marriages in our third century documentation is for a large part due to the types of documents on which modern surveyance is based[in the Zenon archive for instance ''irregular'' filiation are totally absent from the 1700 Greek documents, but two are found in the twenty-odd Demotic texts].
One last point should be stressed in this text; though he belongs to an Alexandrian family, Monimos has to pay the poll tax[salt tax] at the rate of one drachma just like other Greeks. Egyptians have to pay an extra obol[ the one obol tax] as is clear both from Demotic Papyrus Lille III 101 and from CPR XII 1 and 2, recently published by Harrauer[1987]. This is an important new element , as we have here for the first time clear proof of offical discrimination against the Egyptian part of the population. Such a discrimination , even if the payment involved was very small,necessitated seperate offical registers of Greeks and Egyptians. Thus being a Greek or an Egyptian was not just a matter of personal and community feeling[''ethnicity''], but also offical policy; being Greek involved some privileges that an Egyptian could not claim[pace Goudriaan 1988].
page 52
Some Greeks in Egypt
Willy Clarysse
Katholieke Universiteit ,Leuven
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:11 pm Post subject: Egyptians,Greeks,Romans,Arabes, And Ioudaioi in the First Ce
The Arabes of the Zenon archive derived their names from the eastern desert on the left bank of the Nile. The entire desert area was known as ''Arabia'',[20] while the nome ''Arabia'' lay in the north part of the eastern desert,south of Pelusium[Bowersock 1983, pp. 144-47].
These Arabes were apparently Semetic in origin,although names of Arabes in the Zenon corpus are either Greek or Egyptian[Bowswinkel 1983,p. 35]. The Arabes of the Julio-Claudian tax archive paid capitation taxes at the higest level and they were registered for tax purposes together with the other peasentsof Philadelphia, for the village was their idia.[21]
Their names are,for the most part,Greco-Egyptian,although , the father of Appelles[line 2], points to a Semetic origin[cf. Iudaeus Apella at horace,Satires 1.5.100]. This .list of Arabes, a , seems to parallel other lists complied by the tax office of weavers,greengrocers, and other professions whose socioeconomic functions were of interest to the Roman goverment[22]
Some of the Arabesmentioned in Zenon archive performed guard duities, and performed such functions on both sides of the Nile from the early Ptolemaic period into the Byzantine times[e.g.P. Hamb 3.225.33 and 39; P. Harris 2.200.3].
The Arabes associated with Philadelphia in the days of Zenon,however, were more often concerned with flocks of sheep and goats[Bowswinkel 1983,pp. 36-37], and the same business interests may have occupied the Julio-Claudian Arabes of Philadelphia, although the notations and lists made by the tax bureau guarantee no more than that Arabes constituted a group of interest to the state.
The Roman government early displayed concern with the flocks of herds of Egypt, as the many declarations from owners make clear, and taxes on preoccupation,[23]
In the Julio-Claudian period there was considerable experimentation with finding a form of registeration for flocks that would prove the more efficent, and the accounts of Lucius from A.D. 56/57[see Appendix,below], may have been kept with a view toward complying with the goverment regulation that required a supplementary declaration in Mecheif, in effect in precisely three years.[24]
In the Julio-Claudian tax archive the ethnic Ioudaios appears only the the accounts of Lucius, the praktor Nemesion's associate in agritcultural matters, and Ioudaios most often chracterized a man names Isak. The name Isak's father is never mentioned.
Such as omission may indicate that his father's name was not known in the village and that while Isak frequented Philadelphia on business, he was not registered there for poll tax, Isak trafficed in sheep and goats, their hides, and their fleece, and he may have been the owner of the flocks; he was not a shepard, as was Pnepheros who served Lucius for a monthly wage as both sephard and agent[cf. below the Appendix: 880r. 26; cf. also 3,32,41,43-44,48,56, 81; 152.8, 14,32,33].
The two ethnics still in use in the tax archive from Julio-Claudian Philadephia , Arabes and Ioudaioi, designate men apparetly Semetic in origin and possibly involved with pastoralism.[25]
page 137-138
The Semites for whom the village served as political and /or economic center had apparently not blended with its Greco-Egyptian population for theirs were the only ethnic designation still in current use in the public and private documents of the tax archive.
page 140
As the dominant elite, Roman citzens were everywhere exempt from the payment of the poll tax and other capitation taxes, levied on males between the ages of fourteen and sixty-two.[2]. The next , most favored group within the Roman tax structure were the citizens of the so-called Greek cities-Alexandria, Naukratis in the Delta, and Ptolemais in Upper Egypt, for they too enjoyed the exemption from the poll tax, as well as the privilege of continuing to use Greek civic institutions.
Alexandrian citzens not only bore Greek names and spoke the Greek language , but they also claimed that education in the Greek gymnasium and the holding of prestigious magistracies in the polis were traditional in their families.
Less privileged in the Roman tax structure were those with metropolite citzenship.[3] Romans assessed these citzens of the district capitals, or metropoleis, at half-rate for capitation taxes and yet, at the same time, they extended to them many of the same Greek civic institutions that had under the Ptolemies been reserved for the so-called Greek cities.
By so doing, the Romans were not only expressing their own approval of life in cities, but they were also acknowleading the extent to which the Greek Egyptians, had, in the course of time, successfully fused to produce a city dwelling bicultural population.
Egyptians acqired Greekness to the extent that personal names and language were no longer dependable distinguishers between Egyptians and Greeks by the beginning of the second century B.C.[WChres., no. 50, pp. 78-79], and immigrant Greeks were being tranformed by their Egyptian experiances, as many took Egyptian wives and participated in the worship of Egyptian cults.[4]
page 134
Agustas and his JulipClaudian successors did not, however, privilage all inhabitants of alexandria and the Greek cities , for they denied exemptions from capitation taxes to the non-Greek politeumata, taxing these groups at the higest rate.
That is, members of the ''foreign'' politeumata paid the poll tax at a rate that was paid by Egyptian peasents,wheather those peasents lived in their villages or had migrated to the metropolis or to Alexandria.
page 134
Egyptians,Greeks,Romans,Arabes, And Ioudaioi in the First Century A.D. Tax Archive from Philadelphia: P. Mich. Inv. 880 Recto and P. Princ. III 152 Revised
Ann Ellis Hanson
Department of Classical Studies , The University of Michigan
Life in a Multi-cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and beyond
edited by Janet H. Johnson
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:14 pm Post subject: Kleruchs and Greek pressence in Upper Egypt
Kleruchs, or reservist soldiers, although also present in Upper Egypt were settled in greater numbers in the Fayyum where they reclaimed tracts of land in exchange for service in the army when called upon[13], and it was easier and politically more expedient to reclaim land there rather than seizing temple property in the Nile Valley.[14].
The early Ptolemies were very keen to keep Egyptian temples and the native priesthood on their side. the use of newlands to settle soliders was very important--- it enabled the early Ptolemies to have a ready and, more importantly, a loyal fighting force [incontrast to other Hellenistic kings who more than once experianced soldiers defecting to the other side],and it also served as way of reclaiming land by forcing kleruchs themselves to take on this task.
page 86
Although Greeks certainly lived throughout the Nile Valley, their pressence in Upper Egypt was much less marked than in the north.
This appears to be truer of the third century than the second but caution is called for since the capricious survival of textual evidence may give a misleading impression.[66]
In Edfu, a 'Greek born in Egypt'[wynn ms n kmy] appears as a money-lender to whom several plots of temple land were handed over upon default of the loan.[67]
Although the numbers of Greeks may have been small, the Ptolemies did have a continuing interest in Upper Egypt and over time more Greeks [albeit,perhaps defined by less rigorous ethnic criteria] settled in the valley.
After the Theban revolt was put down in 186 BCE, towns were garrisoned at the narrowest point in the Upper Egyptian valley, at Krokodilopolis and Pathyn's, which also led to an increase in the number of Greeks in the valley.[68]
page 100
The Land-Tenture Regime in Ptolemaic Upper Egypt*
J.G. Manning
Proceedings of the British Academy.96
Agriculture in Egypt From Pharaonic to Modern Times
Edited by Alan K. Bowman and Eugene Rogan
Back to top
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:51 am Post subject: Foreign migration into Kmt during all periods
The close and continous relations which are revealed in these texts, and the regular movement between Egypt and Syria and Palestine have left many traces.
In the first place there is the well-known presence of various Asiatic people in Egypt.
In the story of Sinuhe we read that a bedawin sheikh from the Sinai desert had once been to Egypt;[5] juding from the chronology of the story, this visit took place in the reign of Amenemhet I.
A well -known scene in tomb no. 3 at Beni Hassan depicts the arrival of an Asiatic prince and his followers,men,women,children and asses, in year 6 of Sesotris II; they are brining the nomarch eye paint [kohl][6].
It has been though that these Amu were coming to seek hospitality in Egypt,[7] but the texts accompanying the scene say no such thing.
The newcomers have none of the apperance of poverty-stricken nomads; they are travelling with out herds. It is rather a question of an offical visit,not unconnected with trade.[8] In the tombs of Beni Hassan which date from the reigns of Amenemhet and Sesotris I ,scenes of military life show some oriental warriors among the Egyptians;[9] there is no inscription explaining the presence of these men,whom one would be tempted to take as mercenaries.[10]
The great majority of Asiatics who settled in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom were humble,peaceful people. They are to be seen in large numbers employed on domestic tasks in private houses, and they are also encountered in the services of temples.
The earliest dated instance belongs to the reign of Sesotris III; the most important group of about fifty dates from the middle of the Thirteenth Dyansty.[1]
There is no texts giving any information the circumstances in which they came. The biblical story of Joseph brings to mind the slave trade;[2] voluntary recruitment is,however, attested, during the Middle Kingdom, for nomads of Nubia.[3] If an analogy may be drawn from the New Kingdom, it would suggest most strongly captures made during wars and levies raised in territory under Egyptian domination.
Such an interpretation find support in the captives who are represented in the funerary temple of Sesotris I. In any case, it is more than probable , taking into account the extent to which Egypt was state-controlled, that the government regulated the inflow of labour. Moreoever, it is know that there existed during the Middle Kingdom, not far from the royal residence ,camps of Asiatics under the direction of Egyptian officals.[4]
page 541-542
The importation of Asiatic products during the Twelfth Dyansty is as well documented as the importation of men and livestock.
We have already reffered to the intensive working of the mines at Sinai.
The extensive use of bronze and lapis lazuli , which are Asiatic in origin, begins in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom.[5]
page 543
Asiatics are several times depicted on the monuments of Mentuhotep II.
A block from the chapel of Gebelein preserves a scene of the royal triumph over the four races which made up humanity,[12] but the person on his knees , who is identified by the legend as an Asiatic, does not have the usual chracteristic features .
Of greater interest are some fragmentary reliefs from the funerary temple of Deir el-Bahri.
These reliefs have not retained any legends giving a clear indication of the ethnic group to which the different types of foreigner represented belong,[1] but two of the mutilated inscriptions , which must have stood above such scenes , mention Asiatics;[2] we thus have confirmation that they were depicted on the walls of the monument.
It is generally agreed that they are to be recognized in the persons with the following features: hooked nose,sometimes large:narrow and fairly long goatee beard, the point of which curves inwards towards the neck;abundant hair reaching to shoulder-level and held by a narrow,light headband knotted behind the head, the ends of which fall to the nape of the neck; their only garment is a loin-cloth, the length of which cannot be determined because in none of the representations is the base of the garment preserved.[3]
One of the fragments, now in the British Museum, shows the original colors: yellow skin and yellow eye-pupil, hair and beard red, loin cloth red.[4] It is many coloured and short in the newly discovered battle scene[p. 535].
Representations of Asiatics on monuments of the Fifth and Sixth Dyansties[5] show similar hair-styles with headband, while under the Twelfth dyansty the Asiatics are always depicted without headband, their hair shirter and their clothes sometimes longer.[6] Thus there was no change between the twenty-first centuries, but a certain modification is observable between the twenty-first and twentieth-nineteenth centuries.
The evidence of the monuments would have been of considerable intere for tracing the history of the inhabitants of the countries for tracing the history of the inhabitants of the countries east of Egypt if the changes had been more radical.
page 536
. About fifteen years after Mentuhotep II's death, the Eleventh Dyansty, which he had adorned ,disintegrated and for a short time Egypt relapsed into disorder.
The nomads took advantage of the situation to return in force into the eastern Delta.
We know of their misdeeds through the Prophecy of Neferti, which combines in one sinister picture these recent memories with older memories of the depredations of the Asiatics during the First Intermediate Period.[1]
page 536-537
Internal weakness , after the end of the Old Kingdom , left the Egyptian frontiers without adequate protection.
The Asiatics took advantage of this state of affairs to make their way in force into the eastern Delta and to wander through its pastures with their flocks.
Some of these invaders settled there, while others conducted raids on the territory or used it for the seasonal movements of flocks, all of which added to the prevailing condition of anarchy in the country and contributed to its ruin.[1]
In Ipuwer's words, 'The foreigners are [now] skilled in the crafts of the Marshlands'[2] Bedawin were also to be found in Middle Egypt, serving probably as mercenaries in the internal streuggles which were rending the country.[3]
Perhaps the introduction of copper-headed arrows into Egypt should be attributed to the Asiatics.[4]
It is not easy to establish a connexion between the present of these nomads and the so-called button-seals.
These objects are chracteristic of the First Intermediate Period and they are not Egyptian in origin, but they did appear in Egypt as early as the Sixth Dyansty,before the intrusion of ther bedawin.[5]
The hypothesis,built up around the button seals according to which some Asiatic conquerors ruled over the Lower Nile Valley after the Old Kingdom,[6] is disproved by texts and must be discarded.[7]
page 533
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:57 am Post subject: Asiatics in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom
93.0909
LUFT, Ulrich, Asiatics in Illahun: A preliminary report, in: Atti VI Congresso. II, 291-297.
In the M.K. Asiatics of unknown origin were present in Egypt in considerable number.
They were designated aAm, "Asiatic." The toponym RTnw is also known; the combination of aAmw of RTnw is attested.
Some names look Egyptian, but are foreign. A safe indication is the addition aAm before the name. In Illahun Asiatics are mentioned in registers and letters. The names of the Asiatics are Egyptian for the most part. Asiatic names appear as parent's names or nicknames.
Some nicknames seem to be Egyptian. The presence of Hurrian names in the Egyptian during the 19th century B.C. can be assumed. In P. Berol 10002 a large part of the singers (Smaw) is Asiatic, but also titles and activities are attested.
It seems that the Asiatics lived under the same circumstances as the Egyptians. Pap. Berol 10004, known as a document concerning the sale of slaves, needs further study. On the basis of the Illahun evidence, Asiatics were appreciated as workers inside and outside of Egypt in the later XIIth Dynasty.
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:59 am Post subject: Asiatics in Middle Kingdom Egypt
93.0414
HELCK, Wolfgang, Das Hyksosproblem, Orientalia
62 (1993), 60-66.
In the M.K. and S.I.P. there were large numbers of 'Asiatics' living in Egypt who were originally brought there as prisoners or as slaves.
They are to be distinguished from the Asiatics of Tell ed-Dab'a, among whom there were many Phoenician traders and artisans.
The Hyksos fit in neither of these groups, and the reports on their violent behaviour make them appear as a third element.
Neither Semitic nor Hurritic, they may well have been pirates from Cyprus and southern Anatolia, intent on usurping the trade of Tell el-Dab'a.
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 7:01 am Post subject: Asiatic captives in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom
The annals refer to a small group of Egyptians
entering Bedouin territory[probablly a region
of the Sinai in order to 'hack up the land';
and two more attacks were directed at an
unknown walled towns.
The victims are
described as Aamu[Asiatics, and 1,554 of them
are said to have been captured as prisoners.
These large numbers of foreign captives may
well explain the extensive lists of Asiatics
slaves working in the houses of Thebes[Waset]
in later times.
Oxford History of Ancient EgyptT
edited by Ian Shaw
page 163
Egyptian intolerance toward the 'easteners'
was already apparent in the reign of Senusret
I, who described himself as the throat
slitter of Asia, and this general perception
is reinforced by execration texts.
page 167
Oxford History of Ancient Egypt
edited by Ian Shaw
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 7:08 am Post subject: Foreigners living in Deir el Medina during New Kingdom
94.1133
WARD, William A., Foreigners Living in the Village, in: Pharaoh's Workers, 61-85 and 163-174.
Having pointed out the problem of identifying foreign personal names in Egyptian texts in general, the author turns to the Deir el-Medina material, where he has identified 22 masculine and 10 feminine names of West-Asiatic origin, most Semitic, but also Hurrian and Hittite.
Their bearers lived almost all in the village; the women were mostly married to workmen, but the social status of the men is harder to determine. Appendix A lists 22 foreign names at Deir el-Medina published earlier by him (in "Essays in Ancient Civilization ... H.J. Kantor," Chicago 1989, 255-299) and 13 new ones from the Deir el-Medina texts, among which the extensively discussed knr (kl) and kr. Appendix B concentrates on the occurrences of the name knr (kl) at Deir el-Medina (nos. 1-11) and outside during the N.K. (12-28 ) , and in the T.I.P. (29-30) . Appendix C lists 10 occurrences of the name kr(i/y).
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 7:12 am Post subject: Immigration in Late Dyanastic Kmt
But more importantly he was able to idenity at Nebeira the site of
the ancient city of Naucratis ,which in the reign of Amasis in the
Twenty-six Dyansty[570-526 B.C.] had been granted a monopoly of Greek
trading in Egypt.
page 33
Ancient Egypt
The Land and Legacy
T.G.H. James
copyright @ 1988
First Unversity of Texas Press Paperback Printing,1990
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 5:56 pm Post subject: .........
A substantial Greek-speaking community exised in Men-nefer,and a
number of mummies incorporating potraits and of portraits taken
from mummies have been found at Saqqara;they probably present us with
the closest we may ever get to the likeness of Memphites.
page
58
Ancient Egypt
The Land and Legacy
T.G.H. James
First Unversity of Texas Press Paperback Printing,1990
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 5:58 pm Post subject: Greeks Carians Jews and Phonecians in Saqarra
Although at the end of the Dyanstic period and in Graeco-Roman times
Saqarra was a bustling place throughout the year with constant
pilgrimages to many shrines ,were troubled souls sought comfort from
the mysteries and incubation treatments available and processions and
very occasionally an Apis funeral as special entertainment,the
district was also probably rather ran down suffering from the
excessive usage of almost three thousand years.
To some extent its
bustle its bustle reflected the busy life of the city of Men-
nefer,which remained the most important centre of commerce and
administration untill it was supersededby Alexzandria.
It was
huge,amorphus,rambling place,with large ''ghettoes'' made over for
foregin communities---for Greeks,for Jews,for Carians,for
Phonecians.
Apart from itws temples it probabaly had few imposing
buildings,and was mostly made up of warren-like districts of narrow
streets and three-storey houses where collapse and rebuilding went
on continuously:unsanitary,smelly,dusty or muddy according to the
season,but full of life and interest.
page 46
Ancient Egypt
The Land and Legacy
T.G.H. James
copyright @ 1988
First Unversity of Texas Press Paperback Printing,1990
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:02 pm Post subject: Carian migration into Egypt 610 B.C.
KAMMERZELL, Frank, Studien zu Sprache und Geschichte der Karer in Ägypten, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 1993 = Göttinger Orientforschungen. IV. Reihe: Ägypten, 27. (17 x 24 cm; XV, 251 p., fig., ill.). ISBN 3-447-03411-4; Pr. DM 98
The first part of this book is concerned with the Carian script and language. The present author is not the first Egyptologist to be occupied with the problem, and it is particularly the solutions brought forward in the theory of Ray (see i.a. AEB 81.0179) that have met with much resistance.
The problem of bilingual texts and pseudoforms of this are discussed. This theory of Ray is discussed in ch. 1. A section of ch. 2 is devoted as well to the Carian as the Graeco-Carian and Egypto-Carian correspondences. An excursus is devoted to two Carian inscriptions in Abu Simbel. It is suggested that the "Egyptian approach" is by no means as discouraging of results as the critics suggested, and has many valuable points. At the end of the part, the author presents on p. 90-92 his revision of Ray's transliteration system.
Part 2 is devoted to the history of the Carian presence in Egypt, with particular reference to their own texts.
A first objective was the chronology of the Carian funerary stelae from Saqqara with the help of a combined typological and philological approach. Genealogies indicated on the stelae enabled to establish a relative chronology for the separate groups sharing stylistic features.
Next to biographic documents bearing completely different texts and true bilinguals, there exist hybrid texts, which within one utterance may change the Carian or Egyptian language.
Their owners probably sprang from mixed marriages. The Saqqara texts permit to trace the history of the Carian minority for about 150 years. The oldest documents originate from the second half of the 7th century B.C.
On the basis of stela types several phases in the history of the community can be distinguished. From about 610 B.C. an increasing assimilation with the guest country Egypt is noticeable.
At least some part of the mercenaries and their progeny became completely egyptianised.
The process is interrupted by an influx of new Carians from Asia-Minor about 545 B.C. After 500 B.C. the Saqqara funerary stelae become silent. The position of the presumedly younger graffiti from Abydos is not yet sufficiently clear.
Last remarks on most recent studies, a synoptic table presenting the modern transliteration systems, a transliteration of the Carian stelae from Saqqara, a comparative list of Carian onomastic material, a bibliography, indexes on the words in the various scripts used by the author, and a general index added
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:04 pm Post subject: Foreign visitors to Philae[Elephantine] during Ptolemaic era
MAEHLER, Herwig, Visitors to Elephantine: Who Were They?, in: Life in a Multi-Cultural Society, 209-215. (pl.).
In the Graeco-Roman period the temple of Khnum at Elephantine was a
major religious centre, where a large number of inscriptions and graffiti
both in Greek and in Demotic have survived on blocks. They are i
important, because they tell about the visitors. After presenting some
Ptolemaic dedicatory inscriptions, the author remarks that in the 2nd
century B.C. Elephantine was visited by a number of fairly high ranking
officials, while there is not a single visitor's graffito by an ordinary person.
A variety of humble people are met only in the graffiti, both Greek and
Demotic, on the temple terrace of the early Roman Period, which is
adjacent to the nilometer. The Greek graffiti form the vast majority. A
majority of the personal names are Greek, many names are common
Egyptian, and a fair proportion appears to be Roman (soldiers?). The
author suspects that the temple lost some of its importance in the
transition from the Ptolemaic to the Roman Period, when high-ranking
visitors continued to visit neighbouring Philae, but apparently not
Elephantine. The Roman temple constructions at Philae suggest that under
the Roman occupation Philae was upgraded at the expense of Elephantine.
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:05 pm Post subject: Libyans in the Late Twentieth Dynasty
HARING, B., Libyans in the Late Twentieth Dynasty, in: Village Voices, 71-80.
The author deals with the administrative documents from the Theban necropolis which contain information on the presence of Libyans in the Theban
region. Two groups can be distinguished, first the daily administration of the
necropolis, the necropolis journal on papyrus scrolls recording the day to day
progress, deliveries and the specific events (many Giornale documents from the
Museo Egizio, Turin). The second group consists of letters from the end of the
Ramesside Period, the so-called "Late Ramesside Letters." The texts are
discussed in chronological order, from year 1 of Ramses IX through the reign of
Ramses X to the couple of years of the wHm-mswt era starting in year 19 of
Ramses XI, altogether a relatively short period attesting the Libyan presence. Denominations in this type of documents are mSwS, rbw and xAstyw "foreigners"; in literary and official texts also TmHw, THnw and qhq occur. At the end a brief discussion of to whom the denominations xry "the enemy" and rmT "people" found in administrative documents refer
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:06 pm Post subject: Jews and other immigrants in Late Period Egypt
Chapter 32
Jews and other immigrants in Late Period Egypt
J.D. Ray
The University of Cambridge
Egypt acted as a magnet for immigrants during most periods,but this is particulary true of the centuries beginning with the Twenty-sixth Dyansty and continuing to the end of Ptolemaic rule. Such newcomers were attracted by the potential wealth of the country, which was in marked contrasts to conditions in the Aegean of in much of the rest of the Near-East. In general, a pattern emerges of slow but steady assimilation to the culture, and even the religion, of the immigrants' new home. The Ionians, for example , are attested early[witness the new inscription from Priene published by Masson and Yoyotte 1988,pp. 171-80]. However, if we consider the well-known Curse of Artemisia[+UPZ I 1], which dates from 311 B.C., we find that although the language of this text is Ionic Greek, the text can be transposed phrase for phrase into Demotic; indeed, it can almost be described as an ancient Egyptian text written in Greek. Another interesting example is given in the early[fourth century ?] papyri published by Zaghloul, where the affairs of an ibis-cult in Middle Egypt are in the hands of a man named Ariston[3 rstn]. It is hard to imagine a more Egytian occupation. The Carians ,closely associated with the Ionians, show a similar pattern of Egyptianization. Graffiti left by Phonecian pilgrims at Abydos show the same features, and from a large but amorphous community of Aramaic speakers in Egypt we have the Carpentras stele[Grelot 1972, no. 86], which is not only an Egyptian funerary prayer to Osiris, but even contains Egyptian words[nb m3 'ty, hsyw] transliterated into Aramaic. This too can be seen as an ancient Egyptian text,in spite of its language. The now-notorious Amherst papyrus may represent a highly-developed example of this tendency; in many ways this text foreshadowed the though-world of later Greco-Egyptian magic.
The principal exception to this pattern of assimilation is the case of the Jews. These are known mainly fromthe archives at Elephantine, but have also left traces of their attitude in the books of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and in the story of Joseph, the archetypal history of an immigrant made good. The reasons for Jewish separteness are complex: one may suggest tighter family structure, the maintenance of links with the homeland, and possibly the codification of Jewish scripture.Certainly in late period Egypt Zeus could become Amun, and Thoth Hermes, but the Jewish God remains itself. Ionians and Phonecians turned into Ionomemphites and Phoinikaigyptioi, but the Jews never became other than Ioudaioi.
page 273
Life in a Multi-Cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and Beytond
edited by Janet H. Johnson
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:07 pm Post subject: Greek intermarriage with indigenous Egyptians
Monimos is, as far as I know , the first alexandrian [or desendant of an Alexandrian] of whom we know that he married an Egyptian woman. Fraser's suggestion that Alexandrian immigrants in the chora '' are unlikely to have contracted marriages with Egyptian women''[because this would endanger the civil status of their offspring[Fraser 1972,pp.71-72] is here for the first time disproved. And I doubt if Alexandrians living in the chora really behaved differently from other Greeks at all.
Monimos was certainly not the only Greek in the village or town to marry an Egyptian girl, the same census document substantially auguments the number of mixed families known for the third century B.C.; Stephanos, son of 3my3.t,Protarchos and Diodoros are moreover married to Egyptian women themselves. Perhaps the scarcity of mixed marriages in our third century documentation is for a large part due to the types of documents on which modern surveyance is based[in the Zenon archive for instance ''irregular'' filiation are totally absent from the 1700 Greek documents, but two are found in the twenty-odd Demotic texts].
One last point should be stressed in this text; though he belongs to an Alexandrian family, Monimos has to pay the poll tax[salt tax] at the rate of one drachma just like other Greeks. Egyptians have to pay an extra obol[ the one obol tax] as is clear both from Demotic Papyrus Lille III 101 and from CPR XII 1 and 2, recently published by Harrauer[1987]. This is an important new element , as we have here for the first time clear proof of offical discrimination against the Egyptian part of the population. Such a discrimination , even if the payment involved was very small,necessitated seperate offical registers of Greeks and Egyptians. Thus being a Greek or an Egyptian was not just a matter of personal and community feeling[''ethnicity''], but also offical policy; being Greek involved some privileges that an Egyptian could not claim[pace Goudriaan 1988].
page 52
Some Greeks in Egypt
Willy Clarysse
Katholieke Universiteit ,Leuven
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:11 pm Post subject: Egyptians,Greeks,Romans,Arabes, And Ioudaioi in the First Ce
The Arabes of the Zenon archive derived their names from the eastern desert on the left bank of the Nile. The entire desert area was known as ''Arabia'',[20] while the nome ''Arabia'' lay in the north part of the eastern desert,south of Pelusium[Bowersock 1983, pp. 144-47].
These Arabes were apparently Semetic in origin,although names of Arabes in the Zenon corpus are either Greek or Egyptian[Bowswinkel 1983,p. 35]. The Arabes of the Julio-Claudian tax archive paid capitation taxes at the higest level and they were registered for tax purposes together with the other peasentsof Philadelphia, for the village was their idia.[21]
Their names are,for the most part,Greco-Egyptian,although , the father of Appelles[line 2], points to a Semetic origin[cf. Iudaeus Apella at horace,Satires 1.5.100]. This .list of Arabes, a , seems to parallel other lists complied by the tax office of weavers,greengrocers, and other professions whose socioeconomic functions were of interest to the Roman goverment[22]
Some of the Arabesmentioned in Zenon archive performed guard duities, and performed such functions on both sides of the Nile from the early Ptolemaic period into the Byzantine times[e.g.P. Hamb 3.225.33 and 39; P. Harris 2.200.3].
The Arabes associated with Philadelphia in the days of Zenon,however, were more often concerned with flocks of sheep and goats[Bowswinkel 1983,pp. 36-37], and the same business interests may have occupied the Julio-Claudian Arabes of Philadelphia, although the notations and lists made by the tax bureau guarantee no more than that Arabes constituted a group of interest to the state.
The Roman government early displayed concern with the flocks of herds of Egypt, as the many declarations from owners make clear, and taxes on preoccupation,[23]
In the Julio-Claudian period there was considerable experimentation with finding a form of registeration for flocks that would prove the more efficent, and the accounts of Lucius from A.D. 56/57[see Appendix,below], may have been kept with a view toward complying with the goverment regulation that required a supplementary declaration in Mecheif, in effect in precisely three years.[24]
In the Julio-Claudian tax archive the ethnic Ioudaios appears only the the accounts of Lucius, the praktor Nemesion's associate in agritcultural matters, and Ioudaios most often chracterized a man names Isak. The name Isak's father is never mentioned.
Such as omission may indicate that his father's name was not known in the village and that while Isak frequented Philadelphia on business, he was not registered there for poll tax, Isak trafficed in sheep and goats, their hides, and their fleece, and he may have been the owner of the flocks; he was not a shepard, as was Pnepheros who served Lucius for a monthly wage as both sephard and agent[cf. below the Appendix: 880r. 26; cf. also 3,32,41,43-44,48,56, 81; 152.8, 14,32,33].
The two ethnics still in use in the tax archive from Julio-Claudian Philadephia , Arabes and Ioudaioi, designate men apparetly Semetic in origin and possibly involved with pastoralism.[25]
page 137-138
The Semites for whom the village served as political and /or economic center had apparently not blended with its Greco-Egyptian population for theirs were the only ethnic designation still in current use in the public and private documents of the tax archive.
page 140
As the dominant elite, Roman citzens were everywhere exempt from the payment of the poll tax and other capitation taxes, levied on males between the ages of fourteen and sixty-two.[2]. The next , most favored group within the Roman tax structure were the citizens of the so-called Greek cities-Alexandria, Naukratis in the Delta, and Ptolemais in Upper Egypt, for they too enjoyed the exemption from the poll tax, as well as the privilege of continuing to use Greek civic institutions.
Alexandrian citzens not only bore Greek names and spoke the Greek language , but they also claimed that education in the Greek gymnasium and the holding of prestigious magistracies in the polis were traditional in their families.
Less privileged in the Roman tax structure were those with metropolite citzenship.[3] Romans assessed these citzens of the district capitals, or metropoleis, at half-rate for capitation taxes and yet, at the same time, they extended to them many of the same Greek civic institutions that had under the Ptolemies been reserved for the so-called Greek cities.
By so doing, the Romans were not only expressing their own approval of life in cities, but they were also acknowleading the extent to which the Greek Egyptians, had, in the course of time, successfully fused to produce a city dwelling bicultural population.
Egyptians acqired Greekness to the extent that personal names and language were no longer dependable distinguishers between Egyptians and Greeks by the beginning of the second century B.C.[WChres., no. 50, pp. 78-79], and immigrant Greeks were being tranformed by their Egyptian experiances, as many took Egyptian wives and participated in the worship of Egyptian cults.[4]
page 134
Agustas and his JulipClaudian successors did not, however, privilage all inhabitants of alexandria and the Greek cities , for they denied exemptions from capitation taxes to the non-Greek politeumata, taxing these groups at the higest rate.
That is, members of the ''foreign'' politeumata paid the poll tax at a rate that was paid by Egyptian peasents,wheather those peasents lived in their villages or had migrated to the metropolis or to Alexandria.
page 134
Egyptians,Greeks,Romans,Arabes, And Ioudaioi in the First Century A.D. Tax Archive from Philadelphia: P. Mich. Inv. 880 Recto and P. Princ. III 152 Revised
Ann Ellis Hanson
Department of Classical Studies , The University of Michigan
Life in a Multi-cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and beyond
edited by Janet H. Johnson
Back to top
AswaniAswan
Site Admin
Joined: 05 Jun 2005
Posts: 1053
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:14 pm Post subject: Kleruchs and Greek pressence in Upper Egypt
Kleruchs, or reservist soldiers, although also present in Upper Egypt were settled in greater numbers in the Fayyum where they reclaimed tracts of land in exchange for service in the army when called upon[13], and it was easier and politically more expedient to reclaim land there rather than seizing temple property in the Nile Valley.[14].
The early Ptolemies were very keen to keep Egyptian temples and the native priesthood on their side. the use of newlands to settle soliders was very important--- it enabled the early Ptolemies to have a ready and, more importantly, a loyal fighting force [incontrast to other Hellenistic kings who more than once experianced soldiers defecting to the other side],and it also served as way of reclaiming land by forcing kleruchs themselves to take on this task.
page 86
Although Greeks certainly lived throughout the Nile Valley, their pressence in Upper Egypt was much less marked than in the north.
This appears to be truer of the third century than the second but caution is called for since the capricious survival of textual evidence may give a misleading impression.[66]
In Edfu, a 'Greek born in Egypt'[wynn ms n kmy] appears as a money-lender to whom several plots of temple land were handed over upon default of the loan.[67]
Although the numbers of Greeks may have been small, the Ptolemies did have a continuing interest in Upper Egypt and over time more Greeks [albeit,perhaps defined by less rigorous ethnic criteria] settled in the valley.
After the Theban revolt was put down in 186 BCE, towns were garrisoned at the narrowest point in the Upper Egyptian valley, at Krokodilopolis and Pathyn's, which also led to an increase in the number of Greeks in the valley.[68]
page 100
The Land-Tenture Regime in Ptolemaic Upper Egypt*
J.G. Manning
Proceedings of the British Academy.96
Agriculture in Egypt From Pharaonic to Modern Times
Edited by Alan K. Bowman and Eugene Rogan
Back to top