Egypt after the Pharaohs – Monday 3rd October 2022 – 11am – Week 2 Lecture 1

A multicultural and multilingual society

• Egyptian.
• Greek.
• Latin: minor role.
Very minority in Egypt for documentary texts.
Top officials and small number of immigrants.
Normally people connected to the army – private letters
Some in 1st cent ce
Administrative language remained Greek
Some sources in Latin – few documentary texts
Literary texts in Latin were needed for high up roles
Some bilingual documents
• Rise in literary texts from 3rd to 5th century.
• Increase in Latin loan words in Greek texts from 4th to 6th century.

The Egyptian language

• Earlier Egyptian: 3000–1300 BCE

Old Egyptian (3000–2000 BCE).

Pyramid texts
Tomb biographies
 Egypt after the Pharaohs – Monday 3rd October 2022 – 11am – Week 2 Lecture 1

Middle Egyptian (2000–1300 BCE).

Classical literary texts

Belle letter
Religious texts
Restricted access – only for the educated and higher classes

Traditional Middle Egyptian (Égyptien de tradition). / Neo = more conservative so

last to change

Akhenaten’s time – incorporation of language that is spoken in Late Egyptian –

specific move to look more approachable

Why separation?
Change from Middle to Late Egyptian
Switch to a different dialect – north and south different dialect – a papyri
saying that a man from the Delta wouldn’t understand a man from the
south
Change in capital means a change in dialect – A region that wasn’t visible
because the location of the capital dictates the dialect you write in

• Later Egyptian: 1300 BCE–1300 CE

Late Egyptian (1300–700 BCE).

Demotic (7th century BCE–5th century CE).

Coptic (4th century CE–14th century CE)

Appears in 1st century but not established until 4th century
Still used as the liturgical language in the Coptic church in Egypt

The Egyptian scripts

• Hieroglyphic script (ἱερογλυφικὰ γράμματα):

• First examples: ca. 3100 BCE – names of the script by Greeks

• Last inscription: 394 CE – Temple of Isis on Philae

• Hieratic script (ἱερατικὰ γράμματα):

• Already in the 1st Dynasty.

Hieroglyphics is not a practical language especially for the everyday so Hieratic develops
 Egypt after the Pharaohs – Monday 3rd October 2022 – 11am – Week 2 Lecture 1

• It stops being used as administrative script around the 7th century BCE, replaced
by demotic.

Hieratic in Greek means the script or letters of the priests

Was restricted to the Priests for a long time.
Becomes only used by the priests after Demotic replaces – becomes the religious
documentation text

• Demotic script (δημοτικὰ γράμματα):

• Evolves from hieratic and starts to be used in the 7th century BCE.

Language of the everyday people

• Last inscription: 452 CE

Also the Temple of Isis at Philae

• Coptic script (1st century BCE–14th century CE)

Greek alphabet and 6 or 7 letters that come from Demotic

First time E written with a foreign language formally for the first time

Types of Egyptian sources

• Monumental (generally hieroglyphic).

• Temple texts. Huge source! All walls of all temples 100s of 100s of sqm
Particular texts are in particular places for specific reasons

• Religious and intellectual aspects.

• Also political.
 Alchemical, astronomical – scientific texts

• Stelae.

• Ptolemaic priestly decrees. E.g. Rosetta Stone but many others

• Stelae belonging to individuals. Place in tomb or local temple

e.g. Stela of Taimhotep 42 BCE – stela of a woman - life story and needs of people - 2 texts
from her one here and another in demotic – written post-mortem

• Papyrological sources: main sources

• Different supports: papyrus, ostraca, wood, etc.

 Egypt after the Pharaohs – Monday 3rd October 2022 – 11am – Week 2 Lecture 1

• Egyptian authors writing in Greek:

• Manetho, Chaeremon- tutor of Nero before Seneca, Horapollo…
Hieroglyphica – 5th cent – more folk etymology about why certain hieroglyphs
looked certain ways

Demotic texts: literary and paraliterary

Cycle stories, epic narratives modelled after Homer,

Setne II (son of Ramesses II, goes to the underworld with his child
reminiscent of Orpheus

Tale of the Harper/Harper’s Songs

• Literary texts:
• Narratives.
• Mythological texts.
• Ritual texts, hymns, and invocations.
• Invectives, satires, parodies.
• Prophecies.
• Instructions.

• Scientific texts and reference handbooks:

• Mathematical texts.
• Astronomical texts.

Tables of mathematical

• Divination handbooks. Had ones for men and women

Book of the Gecko

• Magical texts. Until the end

• Medical texts.

Text in demotic but spoken parts in hieratic!

• Embalming ritual.
• Juridical texts.
• Onomastica.
• Exercises.

• Funerary and mortuary texts.

Part of column 3 of Setne II. P BM EA 10822

 Egypt after the Pharaohs – Monday 3rd October 2022 – 11am – Week 2 Lecture 1

Demotic texts: documentary

• Decrees.

• Official documents:
• Rules of cult-guilds.
• Accounts of trials. Testimony of the tomb robbers or the court coups for example
• Proceedings in a sacerdotal conclave. Priests meeting with priests

• Administrative tools:
• Census lists.
• Accounts.
• Inventories.
Temple inventories for example

• Documents issued by institutions to individuals:

• Land allotments.
• Tax receipts.
• Contracts.

• Documents written by individuals for institutions.

• Legal documents (private individuals).

• Marriage settlements, divorce documents, cessions, donations, leases…

• Documents of daily life.

• Oracles, religious expressions, horoscopes.

Dream papyrus

Earliest horoscopes in Demotic

• Letters.

Libraries

• Tebtunis Temple Library:

• Only large-scale temple library preserved to us from ancient Egypt.
• Found in situ, abandoned in early 3rd century CE.
• One of the latest collections of ancient Egyptian literature.
• It may be representative of earlier libraries, since a significant number of the texts are
already attested in much older versions.

Contents of the Tebtunis Temple Library

• Bulk of the material written between 100–150 CE, latest dated papyri are from early third
century CE.
 Egypt after the Pharaohs – Monday 3rd October 2022 – 11am – Week 2 Lecture 1

• Size: fragments preserved and catalogued by Ryholt correspond to around 400 texts.

• Groups: cultic, scientific, narrative.

• Cultic: 60%.

• Scientific: 20%.

• Historical narratives: 20%.

Not just considered as historical literature but is actually history to them
Peoples opinions later on become actual history to them – kept in the historical and
oral records

• Small number of wisdom texts not easily attributed to any of the groups.

• Four scripts:
• Majority (two thirds) are written in demotic: majority of the scientific texts and all
the historical narratives.
• Cultic texts mostly in hieratic.
• Limited number in hieroglyphs.
• Greek.

Temple of Edfu

Other temple libraries (Edfu) – probably not main library – pr mdA – house of books

“The books and the great parchments of pure leather, enabling the beating of the devil; the
repulsion of the crocodile; the favoring of the hour; the preservation of a ship; the
promenade of the great ship;

the book for launching the king on procession;

the book for the conduct of the cult;

... … the book to appease Sekhmet; ... the book for hunting the lion, repelling the crocodiles,
. . . driving off reptiles; … the book of the temple inventory; the book of the capture [of
enemies]; the book of all writings of combat; the book of temple regulations; the books of
guards of the temple; instructions for the decoration of a wall” (Edfu III, 347 and 351.)

Multilingual archives

• Archive of the recluses (katochoi) Ptolemaios and Apollonios, sons of Glaukias, of the
Serapeum (mid 2nd century BCE).

Multiscriptural texts in Egyptian

• Hieratic with demotic commentary:

 Egypt after the Pharaohs – Monday 3rd October 2022 – 11am – Week 2 Lecture 1

• Book of Nut (P. Carlsberg 1).

P. Carlsberg 1, col. 2, lines 20-22 (2,20)

The upper part of this sky is in total darkness (kkw smA.w). The outer part of
the sky exists in darkness, which is closed (2,21).
This is, rtH-qAb.t, which is mentioned in the book Hr, which is the circuit of
the sky. Ra does not go out of it. It has started to tell you its risings.

Roman period documents of sale of property

• Parts (format from Soknopaiou Nesos in the Roman period):

• sX n DbA HD (Geldbezahlungschrift (DG); document concerning money).
• sX n wy (Abstandschrift (DA); cession).
• Greek hypographe (GH).
• Optional: Darlehensurkunde (GD); loans. P. Berlin P 7075 + P 23869 + P. Louvre E 10346 (1)
+ (5) + P. Heidelberg 789h

Mummy Labels
(1) onX by⸗s m-b#H Wsir- (2) ckr nTr o# nb ͗Ibt v#-sn(.t)-sn.wt (3) ta ͗In-|r.t-Hr-r.r=w mwt=s
v#-rmT- ͗Ibt “May her ba live before Osiris-Sokar, great god, lord of Abydos, v#-sn(.t)-sn.wt
she of ͗In- |r.t-Hr-r.r=w, her mother v#-rmT- ͗Ibt” Σεαισονδι Ιαρωτος με\τ/(ρὸς) Τρεμαιβηος
M