The Palaeography of Ptolemaic Inscriptions from Egypt

This chapter is concerned with the formal characteristics of Greek inscribed writing and their variety and evolution in the multicultural context of Ptolemaic Egypt. The palaeography of Ptolemaic inscriptions is considered in relation both to indigenous written traditions and to the development of documentary scripts in the papyri. The development of lettering styles in decrees and dedications is traced over the course of the Hellenistic period. The particular case of the lengthy multilingual decrees of Egyptian priestly synods is examined separately. Two concluding sections consider, respectively, a small number of inscriptions, for the dating of which palaeographical considerations may provide clarification, and the possibility of identifying individual stonecutters’ hands within the Corpus of Ptolemaic Inscriptions.

Soldiers in the Epigraphy of Ptolemaic Egypt

Soldiers are heavily represented within the corpus of Greek inscriptions from Egypt, sometimes acting individually—especially officers—and sometimes as a group. The most common types of documents are dedications, along with signatures and proskynemata (acts of adoration)—generally simply graffiti. Smaller in number are the funerary inscriptions (mostly from Alexandria), and finally a few honorific decrees and petitions involving soldiers. The aim of this chapter is more generally to explain why there were so many inscriptions concerning soldiers and why their number increased over time, through the analysis of their content, form, and functions. Dedicatory inscriptions offer the clearest evidence for investigating this increase and therefore are the focus of the chapter, though some of the new habits are also reflected in other types of inscriptions. A number of inscriptions set up by members of the military were also preserved in hieroglyphs and Demotic Egyptian on statues and stelai and sometimes concern individuals who are also known from the Greek documentation.

Foundation Deposits from Third-Century BC Egypt

The chapter discusses inscribed bilingual dedicatory plaques made of metal, glass, and clay which were deposited as part of the foundation ritual of temples in Alexandria and elsewhere. It offers analysis of the traditions from which they came, the nature of the plaques themselves—their number, the materials of which they were formed, the writing and scripts that they bore—and the more general historical significance of the dedicatory practice in which they were involved. Plaques so far discovered are from a limited period in the second half of the third century BC; the dedications they record are royal dedications of temples, shrines, and other related structures, made to a variety of local gods; although the majority of examples are from Alexandria and immediately neighbouring areas, it is notable that this was not a phenomenon confined to the capital (examples survive from elsewhere in Egypt—from Taposiris Magna, along the coast to the west of Alexandria, and from Koussai in Middle Egypt).

Epigraphic Habits of Private Associations in the Ptolemaic Chora

This chapter illustrates the ways in which Greek epigraphic habits developed in, or were adapted to, the local communities of Egypt, focusing in particular on the habits of associations in Ptolemaic Egypt, groups of private individuals who gathered—more or less of their own accord—for a variety of purposes and communal activities. The epigraphy of associations provides a wide range of text typologies and formats, illustrating the full potential of epigraphic practices. The discussion focuses on habits of associations in the chora of Ptolemaic Egypt, particularly the villages—that is to say, in places other than the three cities of Alexandria, Naukratis, and Ptolemais in the Thebaid. Consideration of the typology and format of inscriptions by associations in the chora will raise the question of socio-geographical differentiation and local variation, as well as the possible models (civic or not) for rural epigraphy. Furthermore, the impact that associations had on their local communities through their epigraphic habits, in particular on the visual landscape, is highlighted.

Imaging Inscriptions

The granite obelisk with inscriptions in Hieroglyphic and Greek which was transported by W. J. Bankes from Philae in Egypt to his home at Kingston Lacy in Dorset in 1829 played an important role in the story of the decipherment of hieroglyphs by Young and Champollion. Coinciding with the launch of the Rosetta Spacecraft mission in 2014, new digital images of the inscriptions on the base of the obelisk were made by a team from the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, University of Oxford, using the technique of Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) and allowed improved versions of the texts to be corrected and verified.

Religious Life in Ptolemaic Alexandria under the Royal Aegis

A large proportion of the inscriptional evidence from Alexandria illustrates the key role of religious institutions and activities, under direct or indirect royal patronage, in the formation of a diverse and flexible cultural environment affording multiple permutations. As part of this environment, religion became the vehicle for the promotion of an ideological programme, appropriate for communicating the dual (i.e. Macedonian and Egyptian) character of the Ptolemaic monarchy in which the individual rulers have both human and divine characteristics. This chapter provides an updated chronological overview of the relevant epigraphic evidence, focusing on the roles and relationships of the Ptolemies and their courtiers as well as of other prominent individuals involved in the Alexandrian cults and temples. The discussion takes into account other types of material evidence for comparison, where possible, in order to provide as ‘panoramic’ a view as possible of the religious landscape.

The Epigraphy of the ‘Greek Cities’

The inscriptions of the Ptolemaic period from the three ‘Greek cities’ of Naukratis and Alexandria in the Delta and Ptolemais in Upper Egypt illustrate the distinctive character of these foundations which contrasts with the indigenous towns of the Delta and the Nile Valley. They show some of the major instruments of Hellenization being introduced quite deliberately and explicitly in the form of civic administrative and governmental institutions. In particular, there is the opportunity in the epigraphic record to juxtapose these civic institutions with the progress of Hellenization and urbanization in the other Egyptian towns. There is also a significant number of important papyri which substantively complement the picture to be drawn from the epigraphic sources. This chapter discusses the evidence for the institutions of each of the three cities separately; the existence of citizen assemblies, councils, magistrates, and religious cults of Greek deities illuminates the broader picture of institutional Hellenization in the Ptolemaic period.

Beyond Rosetta

The discovery and collection of multilingual inscriptions through excavation and the antiquities trade in the nineteenth century played a crucial role in the decipherment of Egyptian scripts. The history of the modern ownership of inscriptions now located in Egypt, Europe, and North America and their role in the development of Egyptology are closely linked. The chapter traces the history of scholarship on several Greek-Egyptian texts, including an unpublished inscription from the Delta, a decree in honour of a member of a prominent family from Upper Egypt, foundation plaques from a temple of Hathor-Aphrodite, and a sphinx from Koptos. The reassembly of stones which were often dispersed and broken into separate pieces through circumstances of excavation or the antiquities market allows us to establish equivalences between Egyptian and Greek concepts, people, and places, and sheds light on the sociolinguistic situation in individual communities, and in Egypt as a whole.

The Corpus of Ptolemaic Inscriptions

The chapter discusses the content and significance of approximately fifty inscribed metrical texts, most of them funerary epigrams, which come from dispersed sites in the Delta and the Nile Valley. Most are in elegiac couplets or other mixtures of hexameters and pentameters; two are in iambics. They are a mix of dedications and epitaphs; epitaphs preponderate. There are also four long hymns to Isis from the Fayum. The Paneion or sanctuary to Pan in the Thebaid (modern Resedieh) provides some dedicatory thank-offerings, mostly short, but one long and elaborate. Of the thirty-six epitaphs, a depressing total of five are for young women who died in childbirth, a common theme in epitaphs and a common event in life. The second half of the chapter consists of a discussion of three of the longer poems, comprising four epigrams, chosen for their historical and/or literary interest.

Hellenistic Sacred Dedications

Dedications of physical objects placed in a sanctuary or some other space sacred to the gods were very common in all places and at all times in the Graeco-Roman world. While a number of these dedications were not inscribed, many dedicators chose to make a written record of their act of dedication, usually upon the object itself. This chapter sets out the typical formats employed in Greek sacred dedicatory inscriptions during the Hellenistic period. It then discusses in detail a pair of documents: an inscribed marble plaque from Alexandria dated to the mid-third century BC and an inscribed limestone stele from Krokodilopolis (Arsinoe) in the Fayum, dated to the mid-second to mid-first century BC It shows that although both inscriptions are part of a wider Hellenistic epigraphic koine, they exhibit features that are peculiar to the sacred dedications of Hellenistic Egypt and arose due to particular social processes at work there.