Elephantine papyri and ostraca


The Elephantine Papyri and Ostraca consist of thousands of documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Aswan, which yielded hundreds of papyri and ostraca in hieratic and demotic Egyptian, Aramaic, Koine Greek, Latin and Coptic, spanning a period of 100 years in the 5th to 4th centuries BCE. The documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives and are thus an invaluable source of knowledge for scholars of varied disciplines such as epistolography, law, society, religion, language, and onomastics. The Elephantine documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives: divorce documents, the manumission of enslaved people, and other business. The dry soil of Upper Egypt preserved the documents.
Hundreds of these Elephantine papyri span 100 years, during the 5th to 4th centuries BCE. Legal documents and a cache of letters survived, turned up on the local "grey market" of antiquities starting in the late 19th century, and were scattered into several Western collections.
A number of the Aramaic papyri document the Jewish community among soldiers stationed at Elephantine under Achaemenid rule, 495–399 BCE. The so-called "Passover Letter" of 419 BCE, which appears to give instructions for the observance of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, is in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin.
The standard reference collection of the Aramaic documents from Elephantine is the Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt.

Discovery, excavation, collections and publications

Between 1815 and 1904, all discoveries were unprovenanced and came via informal discoveries and antiquities dealers; only later were they understood by scholars to have originated from Elephantine. The first known such papyri were bought by Giovanni Belzoni and Bernardino Drovetti; a number of Aramaic letters and a demotic letter were presented by Belzoni to the Musei Civici di Padova in 1819 and three hieratic pieces from Drovetti – and the Turin Aramaic Papyrus – were deposited at the new Museo Egizio in Turin in 1824.
Formal excavation of the mound at Elephantine Island began in 1904, and continued for the next seven years. Further finds were discovered through the first half of the 20th century.
The mode of burial of the documents remains unknown, but they are thought to have been stored laterally and horizontally in close proximity to each other.

Major discoveries

The major Elephantine collections consist of discoveries from the end of the 19th and start of the 20th century, and these collections are now in museums in Berlin, Brooklyn, Cairo, London, Munich, and Paris. The largest collection is part of the Berlin Papyrus Collection of the Berlin State Museums with texts in each of the languages.
  • 1875–76: The British Museum acquired two Aramaic and one Coptic ostraca from the Rev. Greville John Chester. The two Aramaic ostraca are now known as CIS II 138 and CIS II 139
  • 1890s: From Luxor via the dealer Abd el-Megid was purchased a bilingual family archive which included three Greek legal texts and a demotic matrimonial document
  • 1893: American collector Charles Edwin Wilbour acquired a number of papyri, including 12 Aramaic documents from the Anani archive. Wilbour's family passed the documents to the Brooklyn Museum a few decades after his death, and they were published in 1953. It was at this time that scholars concluded that "Wilbour had acquired the first Elephantine papyri".
  • 1898–99: Richard August Reitzenstein and Wilhelm Spiegelberg acquired the first identifiable Aramaic papyrus from Elephantine in 1898–99. He donated it to what is now the National and University Library in Strasbourg.
  • 1899: The Papyrussammlung und Papyrusmuseum of Vienna acquired four demotic documents, probably via Jakob Krall
  • 1901: Archibald Henry Sayce acquired a fragmented Aramaic papyrus and three Aramaic ostraca, which he donated to the Bodleian Library in Oxford
  • 1901–02: large collection of Greek and demotic papyri, including an IOU of a blacksmith from Syene, were acquired by Théodore Reinach; this collection is now in the Sorbonne.
  • Early 1900s: Over a number of years, Baroness Mary Cecil and Robert Mond acquired from dealers in Aswan a total of 11 Aramaic papyri from the Mibtahiah archive. These were donated to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which retained nine; one was subsequently acquired by the Bodleian. Their high-profile publication in 1906 by Sayce and Cowley catalyzed expeditions for more Aramaic papyri. They were originally thought to have been found in Aswan rather than on the Elephantine island.
  • 1904: The first excavation on the Elephantine mound took place, after Sayce encouraged Gaston Maspero to excavate to search there for more Aramaic texts. No Aramaic texts were found, but a number of Greek and demotic fragments were.
  • Early 1906 until 1908: the German expedition was assigned to excavate the Western side of the mound; following Otto Rubensohn having been told by local Egyptians that it was the find spot of the recently discovered Aramaic papyri. The expedition worked for three seasons, two under the direction of Rubensohn and the third under Friedrich Zucker. The daily logs reported the discovery of papyri and ostraca, but made no record of their find-spots; the report was published by Hans Wolfgang Müller in 1980–82. The Aramaic, and some Greek, papyri were well published, but most of the demotic, hieratic, and Coptic texts were not. The Demotic and Greek papyri were found early on. The first Aramaic papyri were discovered on New Year's Day, 1907 in the rubble of a room at the northern edge of the mound, 0.5m beneath the surface; this was found to be part of an "Aramaic quarter”, a housing complex which yielded numerous Aramaic papyri. The three most significant of these Aramaic documents were published in 1907 by Eduard Sachau. Many of these discoveries are now in the Berlin State Museums; however, between 1907 and 1912 ten Greek and demotic pieces, and many further Aramaic papyri, were transferred to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
  • Late 1906 until 1911: following the German successes, the French were assigned to excavate the eastern side of the mound. There were four campaigns, the first two under Charles Clermont-Ganneau, the third under Joseph Étienne Gautier, and the fourth under Jean Clédat. Daily records were kept; these were deposited in the Académie de Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in the Institut de France in Paris and some parts have been published. The excavations discovered hundreds of Aramaic, demotic, Greek, Coptic and Arabic ostraca; these are now held at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris. It also discovered five Greek papyri, and a hieratic papyrus now at the Louvre.
  • 1907: The Byzantine "Patermouthis archive" of approximately 30 documents was acquired in two halves: Robert de Rustafjaell acquired half in Luxor for the British Museum in 1907, and Friedrich Zucker acquired half in Cairo for the Bavarian State Library in Munich in 1908. Coptic papyri acquired by Rustafjaell at the same time are now in the British Library.
  • 1910–11: A batch of Arabic papyri were acquired by the State Library of Hamburg
  • 1926: Bernard P. Grenfell and Francis W. Kelsey acquired seventy-seven Greek papyri, including one from Elephantine, for the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
  • 1945: Sami Gabri discovered the Hermopolis Aramaic papyri in Tuna el-Gebel : eight Aramaic letters which were deposited in the Department of Archaeology of the University of Cairo.

    Individual finds attributed to Elephantine

Numerous smaller finds have been attributed to Elephantine:
  • 1815–1819: a number of Aramaic letters and a demotic letter were presented by Giovanni Belzoni to the Musei Civici di Padova in 1819.
  • 1817–1818: Papyrus Bibliothèque Nationale: Bibliothèque Nationale, Butehamun correspondence letter bought by Frédéric Cailliaud.
  • 1819 Papyrus Edmonstone: A Greek manumission document was acquired in 1819 by Sir Archibald Edmonstone and is still in the hands of a private collector.
  • 1821: Papyrus Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, a Greek conveyance document from a traveler named Casati.
  • 1824: Turin Aramaic Papyrus: acquired by Bernardino Drovetti and donated to the new Museo Egizio in Turin in 1824, a hieratic charge sheet against the Elephantine Khnum priests. Donated together with two other hieratic letters from the Butehamun correspondence probably sent from Elephantine.
  • 1828: Papyrus Leiden: Giovanni Anastasi acquired, allegedly at Philae but presumably at Elephantine, on behalf of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, a 5th-century Greek petition to Emperor Theodosius.
  • 1862: Papyrus Valençay: A Ramesside hieratic letter from the collection of the Duke of Valençay, now in the private collection of Jean Morel in the Château de Fins, Dun-le-Poëlier. It may have been originally purchased in 1862–63 by Count Eustachy Tyszkiewicz.
  • 1881: Papyrus Dodgson: In January, 1881 Elkanah Armitage acquired a demotic papyrus on Elephantine which he presented to Aquila Dodgson; it was subsequently passed in 1932 to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
  • 1887: The Dream ostracon is brought back from Elephantine by Adolf Erman.
  • 1896: three 6th dynasty hieratic papyri were acquired at Luxor for the Berlin State Museums.
  • 1898: The hieratic Semna Despatches discovered by James Quibell in Thebes included one sent from Elephantine.
  • 1909: The Pushkin Museum acquired a demotic papyrus from the collection of Vladimir Golenishchev.
  • 1914: Sayce gave the Bodleian Library a Coptic ostracon.
  • 1920: James Henry Breasted purchased from Mohareb Todrous at Luxor for the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago an Arabic reddish brown leather parchment.
  • 1927: Papyrus Lob: Spiegelberg acquired for the Staatliche Sammlung Agyptischer Kunst in Munich a demotic papyrus which became known by the name of the benefactor Dr. James Lob.
  • 1930: The Bristol Museum and Art Gallery acquired a Coptic ostracon from Francis Fox Tuckett.
  • Early 1930s: Berlin State Museums acquired a unique hieratic leather document.