Observing the Scribe at Work: Scribal Practice in the Ancient World (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 301) 904294286X, 9789042942868

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O R I E N TA L I A L OVA N I E N S I A A N A L E C TA Observing the Scribe at Work Scribal Practice in the Ancient World

edited by RODNEY AST, MALCOLM CHOAT, JENNIFER CROMWELL, JULIA LOUGOVAYA and RACHEL YUEN-COLLINGRIDGE

P E E T ERS

OBSERVING THE SCRIBE AT WORK

ORIENTALIA LOVANIENSIA ANALECTA ————— 301 —————

OBSERVING THE SCRIBE AT WORK Scribal Practice in the Ancient World

edited by

RODNEY AST, MALCOLM CHOAT, JENNIFER CROMWELL, JULIA LOUGOVAYA and RACHEL YUEN-COLLINGRIDGE

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT 2021

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. © 2021, Peeters Publishers, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven/Louvain (Belgium) All rights reserved, including the rights to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form. ISBN 978-90-429-4286-8 eISBN 978-90-429-4287-5 D/2021/0602/76

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Nick WYATT Ilimilku of Ugarit, l’homme et l’œuvre: An Enquiry into a Scribe’s Authorial Role . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Gareth WEARNE The Role of the Scribe in the Composition of Written Correspondence in Israel and Judah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Daniel SOLIMAN Two Groups of Deir el-Medina Ostraca Recording Duty Rosters and Daily Deliveries Composed with Identity Marks . . . . . . .

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Valeria TEZZON How Many Scribes in P.Berol. 13270? New Considerations about the Handwriting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Rodney AST Compositional Practice and Contractual Authority in the Patermouthis Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Rachel YUEN-COLLINGRIDGE Observing the Scribe at Work

Marja VIERROS Scribes and Other Writers in the Petra Papyri

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Jennifer CROMWELL The Problems of Anonymous Scribes at Wadi Sarga .

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Ken PARRY Theodore the Stoudite and the Stoudios Scriptorium in Ninth-Century Byzantium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Norman UNDERWOOD Mirroring Byzantium: Scribes, Dukes, and Leadership in Pre-Norman Southern Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

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Jacob LAUINGER Observing Neo-Assyrian Scribes at Work .

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Anthony SPALINGER and Tasha DOBBIN-BENNETT Wenamun: Directions in Palaeography and Structure. A Preliminary Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Julia LOUGOVAYA Inscriptional Copies from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Period . . 219 Elena MARTÍN GONZÁLEZ Professional Scribes and Letter-Cutters in Archaic Greece

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Francesca SCHIRONI Saving the Ivory Tower from Oblivion: The Role of Scribes in Preserving Alexandrian Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Marie-Pierre CHAUFREY Accounts and Scribal Practice in Dime in the Roman Period .

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Malcolm CHOAT Text and Paratext in Documentary Papyri from Roman Egypt .

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Korshi DOSOO The Use of Abbreviations in Duplicate Documents from Roman Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Gregg SCHWENDNER Scribal Process and Cognitive Philology in Didymus the Blind’s Lectures on Psalms (Tura Codex V) . . . . . . . . . . 325

ABBREVIATIONS

Publications of papyri (in the broad sense) are abbreviated as in the Checklist of Editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic, and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca, and Tablets, online at http:// www.papyri.info/docs/checklist. BHG BL LDAB PG TM

Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca, Brussels, 1895– F. PREISIGKE et al. (eds.), Berichtigungsliste der griechischen Papyrusurkunden aus Ägypten, 1922– Leuven Database of Ancient Books, https://www.trismegistos.org/ldab/ Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.-P. MIGNE. Trismegistos, www.trismegistos.org

PREFACE

This volume collects a set of papers which arose from work on three related research projects: the Australian Research Council Discovery Project ‘Knowledge transfer and administrative professionalism in a pre-typographic society: observing the scribe at work in Roman and early Islamic Egypt’ (DP120103738), based at Macquarie University and worked on by Choat, Cromwell, and YuenCollingridge; Ast and Lougovaya’s subprojects within the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft’s Sonderforschungsbereich 933, ‘Materiale Textkulturen: Materialität und Präsenz des Geschriebenen in non-typographischen Gesellschaften’, based at the University of Heidelberg; and Cromwell’s Macquarie University Research Fellowship project, ‘Scribal Control in Early Islamic Egypt: Integration and Effect of the Administration of a New Regime’. These projects were part of a global trend during the 2010s visible across a wide range of disciplines, not only to investigate scribal practice, but to explicitly position scribes themselves at the centre of this analysis, and to return to them the agency that had been taken by a focus on the textual content and larger trends. Choat and Yuen-Collingridge’s contact with Ast in 2012 inaugurated a fruitful partnership, with research visits and academic meetings in both Heidelberg and Sydney in the ensuing years. The present volume grew out of this overlap in research aims and interests. A number of the chapters arose from papers delivered at a conference held under the auspices of the ARC Discovery Project, ‘Observing the Scribe at Work’ and Cromwell’s MQRF project, which took place at Macquarie University in September 2013. Further papers were first presented at a workshop of SFB 933 at Heidelberg in December 2014 (‘Creating Authority: Documents as Artifacts in the Greco-Roman World’); others were commissioned for the volume. All the papers in this volume were double-blind refereed. For funding which made this volume possible, the editors wish to thank the Australian Research Council, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Macquarie University, the Faculty of Arts at Macquarie University, and the Macquarie University Ancient Cultures Research Centre. They would also like to thank Natalie Mylonas, Vanessa Mawby, Lauren Dundler, and Kai RileyMcPhee for assistance with the formatting and preparation of the manuscript. Rodney AST, Malcolm CHOAT, Jennifer CROMWELL, Julia LOUGOVAYA, and Rachel YUEN-COLLINGRIDGE Heidelberg, Sydney, and Manchester, March 2020.

CONTRIBUTORS RODNEY AST is Senior Research and Teaching Associate in the Institute for Papyrology at the University of Heidelberg. His areas of interest include Greek and Latin papyrology and palaeography; the cultural and social history of GraecoRoman Egypt; Egyptian archaeology; Digital Humanities. He participates in fieldwork at the Red Sea coastal site of Berenike and in the Dakhla Oasis. MARIE-PIERRE CHAUFRAY is a researcher in papyrology at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), assigned to the laboratory Ausonius (UMR 5607) at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne (Bordeaux), where she researches issues related to multiculturalism and the economic and social history of Egypt during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. She is currently leading two research projects: an ERC StG project (GESHAEM) on bilingual administrative archives from the Ptolemaic period kept at the Sorbonne (‘Administration du Fayoum au IIIe s. av. J.-C.’). and an ANR/DFG project (DimeData) on the accounting rolls of the temple of Soknopaios in Roman Dime. She is also a member of the French archaeological mission of the Eastern Desert (MAFDO) since 2014. MALCOLM CHOAT, FAHA, is a Professor in the Department of Ancient History at Macquarie University in Sydney, where he teaches Coptic and the religions and history of Graeco-Roman Egypt. His research focuses on papyrology and scribal practice, monasticism and Christianity in Egypt, and more recently forgery and authenticity. He has published Belief and Cult in Fourth-Century Papyri (Turnhout 2006), A Handbook of Ritual Power in the Macquarie Collection (P.Macq. I 1, with Iain Gardner) (Turnhout 2013), and co-edited Writing and Communication in Early Egyptian Monasticism (Leiden 2017) with Maria Chiara Giorda. JENNIFER CROMWELL is lecturer in Ancient History at Manchester Metropolitan University. Previously, she held research positions at the University of Oxford, Macquarie University, and Copenhagen University. Her work focuses primarily on Coptic papyrology, Egyptian monasticism, and early Islamic history. ELENA MARTÍN GONZÁLEZ obtained her doctoral degree in Classical Studies in 2011 at the University of Valladolid. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (Athens, Greece), where she is responsible for the archive of Macedonian inscriptions of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquity, with an appointment from the Agnes and Michael Sakellariou Foundation.

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TASHA DOBBIN-BENNETT received her PhD from Yale University in 2014, and is Assistant Professor of Art History and Studio Art at Oxford College, Emory University. Her research interests include art history, Egyptology, forensic anthropology, and public history, as well as the ethics of museum collecting and repatriation, identification of fakes and forgeries, and museum and gallery curation. KORSHI DOSOO received his doctorate in Ancient History from Macquarie University in 2015 after completing his thesis, which examined the material features of the Greek and Demotic magical papyri from Roman Egypt, and the divination rituals contained within them. He has worked as a doctoral researcher on the project ‘Scribal Practice in Duplicate Documents on Papyrus from GraecoRoman Egypt’ (Macquarie University, Sydney), as a postdoctoral researcher on the project ‘Les mots de la paix’ (Labex RESMED, Paris), and as a lecturer at the University of Strasbourg. He is currently junior team leader of the project ‘The Coptic Magical Papyri: Vernacular Religion in Late Roman and Early Islamic Egypt’ at the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg. JACOB LAUINGER is Associate Professor of Assyriology at Johns Hopkins University. His research focuses on the social, legal, and economic history of the ancient Near East and, in particular, on approaching cuneiform tablets from both philological and archaeological perspectives in order to better define the social contexts in which they were written, used, and stored. He serves as the epigrapher for three archaeological excavations, Koç University’s Tell Atchana (Alalah) Excavations, the University of Toronto’s Tayinat Archaeological Project, and the Sirwan Regional Project’s Khani Masi Excavations. His first book (Following the Man of Yamhad, Leiden 2015) explored questions of land tenure and political territoriality at Middle Bronze Age Alalah, while his current book project focuses on the Statue of Idrimi from Late Bronze Age Alalah. KEN PARRY is Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Ancient History at Macquarie University, Sydney. He researches and publishes in the fields of Late Antiquity, Byzantines Studies, and Eastern Christianity. He is the author of Depicting the Word: Byzantine Iconophile Thought of the Eighth and Ninth Centuries (Leiden 1996), founding editor of the Brill series Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity, and has edited The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity (1999), The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity (2007), and The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Patristics (2015). JULIA LOUGOVAYA is a research and teaching fellow in Ancient History and Papyrology at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg since 2010. She works mainly in the area of Greek epigraphy and papyrology, and her current research is concerned with material aspects of writing practices in the ancient world.

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FRANCESCA SCHIRONI is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan. She has published extensively on Hellenistic scholarship in scholia and papyri, including lexica (with From Alexandria to Babylon. Near Eastern Languages and Hellenistic Erudition in the Oxyrhynchus Glossary (P.Oxy. 1802 + 4812), Berlin-New York 2009). Among her most recent publications is a book on the methodology of Aristarchus of Samothrace (The Best of the Grammarians: Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad, Ann Arbor 2018). She is now interested in Hellenistic astronomy and is preparing an edition with translation and commentary of Hipparchus’ Commentary on Aratus. DANIEL SOLIMAN is a curator in the Egyptian department of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. He obtained his PhD at the University of Leiden in 2016, and was a Postdoc at the University of Copenhagen and the British Museum. GREGG SCHWENDNER is a papyrologist who teaches Latin and writes about palaeography in Wichita KS. Most recently, he has published Didymus the Blind’s Commentary on Psalms 26:10-29:2 and 36:1-3 (P.BYU I; Turnhout 2019) with Lincoln Blumell. ANTHONY SPALINGER (PhD Yale University, Near Eastern Languages and Literatures) is Professor of Ancient History (Egyptology) and the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is a specialist in Ancient Near Eastern interconnections; ancient warfare; ancient Egyptian calendrics; and ancient chronology. His recent works include Leadership under Fire: The Pressures of Warfare in Ancient Egypt (Paris: Éditions Soleb 2020); The Persistence of Memory in Kush. Pianchy and his Temple (Prague: Faculty of Arts, Charles University 2019); Feasts and Fights: Essays on Time in Ancient Egypt (New Haven: Yale Egyptological Studies 2018); and Icons of Power: A Strategy of Reinterpretation (Prague: Charles University, Faculty of Arts 2011). VALERIA TEZZON teaches in the Humanities Department at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, having graduated in classical philology at the University of Bologna, then completing her PhD in Greek Studies at the Humboldt Universität in Berlin. The focus of her research encompasses philology, papyrology, ancient music theories, and neurohumanities. NORMAN UNDERWOOD holds a joint PhD in Ancient History and Medieval Studies from UC Berkeley. He has taught at NYU in the Department of History since 2017. His research focuses on the social and economic history of the later Roman Empire. He has published on various topics including the employment of barbarian troops, the cost of healthcare in antiquity, and patterns of manuscript exchange. His current book project investigates the occupational backgrounds of

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the late Roman clergy and the influence that ordained professionals (lawyers, bureaucrats, physicians, merchants, artisans, etc.) had on the development of ecclesiastical institutions. He is also in the early stages of a project on the Roman importation and consumption of Asian goods during the High and Late Empire with a particular focus on under-utilized papyrus evidence. MARJA VIERROS is Associate Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Helsinki and the Principal Investigator of the ERC project ‘Digital Grammar of Greek Documentary Papyri’ (2018–2023). She received her PhD in 2011 and published the book Bilingual Notaries in Hellenistic Egypt. A Study of Greek as a Second Language in 2012. She has been a long-time member in the Finnish team editing and publishing the dossier of carbonized early Byzantine papyri found in Petra, Jordan. She has worked as a Visiting Research Scholar at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (New York University) and as a postdoctoral scholar in two projects funded by the Academy of Finland. GARETH WEARNE completed his PhD at Macquarie University and is now a lecturer in Biblical Studies at the Australian Catholic University. His research interests include the social history of reading and writing in ancient Israel and Judah. He is currently revising his doctoral dissertation on the plaster texts from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and Deir ‘Alla for publication as a monograph. NICK WYATT is emeritus Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Religions in the University of Edinburgh. He taught in the Universities of Glasgow, Stirling, Ibadan and Edinburgh. His main research interests are Ugaritic literature, its interface with biblical compositions, mythology and royal ideology. His books include Myths of Power (1996), Religious Texts from Ugarit (1998/2002) and four collections of essays. He is also co-editor of Ugarit-Forschungen. RACHEL YUEN-COLLINGRIDGE received her doctorate for the thesis ‘Historical Lexicology and the Origins of Philosophy: Herodotus’ use of φιλοσοφέειν, σοφιστής, and cognates’ at Macquarie University in 2013, and is currently postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Ancient History at Macquarie University, where she carries out research on scribal practice and magic in the papyri, cognitive history, the history of the disciplines, cultural heritage, the reception of the ancient world, and forgery.

OBSERVING THE SCRIBE AT WORK Rachel YUEN-COLLINGRIDGE

The figure of the scribe in the ancient world has long been haunted by its medieval counterpart. This situation owes much to the relative paucity in antiquity of direct testimony from scribes about their activities and lives. In place of the rich colophons of the medieval period1 and early modern diatribes in defence of scribal practice like that penned by Johannes Trithemius2, the ancient scribe appears to us indirectly and rarely in his – or indeed her3 – own words.4 Subsumed into the backdrop of literary and epistolary accounts, scribes are most notable when they betray the contract of their service – to create copies which are ‘pure from addition or omission’ (καθαρὸν ἀπὸ ἐπιγραφῆς καὶ ἀλειφάδος).5 Ancient authors were well aware of the vulnerability of texts to scribal error (even at the hands of an emperor6). A diagnosis of scribal error could even be induced to support the integrity of an author, as seems to have been the case for Galen’s assessment of a passage in Hippocrates’ Epidemics (1.36). Rather than admit a clumsy and confused repetition on the part of his hero, Galen supposed instead that an alternate version of the passage had been inserted into the text from the margin in which it stood, having been added there when the scribe’s model was collated against another manuscript.7 The dangers of an incompetent 1 To be compared with their cuneiform counterparts, on which see H. HUNGER, Babylonische und Assyrische Kolophone, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1968. 2 De laude scriptorum (1492), edited by K. ARNOLD, Johannes Trithemius. In Praise of Scribes (De laude scriptorum), Lawrence, Kans., 1974. 3 See K. HAINES-EITZEN’s chapter, “Girls Trained for Beautiful Writing”: Female Scribes in Roman Antiquity and Early Christianity, in Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature, Oxford, 2000, p. 41–52. 4 The comment in the lower margin of a papyrus codex copy of Origen’s Commentary on Romans (Cairo, Egyptian Museum JdE 88747 + 88748, p. 8) is a notable exception. See J. SCHÉRER, Le commentaire d’Origène sur Rom. III.5–V.7, Cairo, 1957, p. 3–5. 5 See, e.g. BGU II 578 (14 July 189, Arsinoite), ll. 14–15. See too Rufinus’ preface to his translation of Origen’s De principiis, M. SIMONETTI, Tyrannii Rufini opera, Turnhout, 1961, p. 247 (ne addat … ne auferat, ne inserat, ne immutet). 6 Transpositions and omissions are common to all according to Suetonius’s account of Augustus’s orthographic peculiarities (Aug. 88). 7 ὁ πρῶτος μεταγράφων τὸ βιβλίον ἀμφότερα (sc. versions of the text) ἔγραψεν, εἶτα μὴ προσσχόντων ἡμῶν τοῖς γεγονόσι μηδ᾿ ἐπανορθωσαμένων τὸ σφάλμα, διαδοθὲν εἰς πολλοὺς τὸ βιβλίον ἀνεπανόρθωτον ἔμεινεν. Galen, In Hipp. Epid. I comment. 1.36 (17a.80K.) = Corpus Medicorum Graecorum V.10.1 Wenkebach. See the discussion of this passage and Galen’s principles in I. SLUITER, Textual Therapy. On the Relationship Between Medicine and Grammar in Galen, in M. HORSTMANSHOFF (ed.) with C. VAN TILBURG, Hippocrates and Medical Education. Selected Papers Presented at the XIIth International Hippocrates Colloquium, Universiteit Leiden, 24–26 August

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amanuensis extended beyond the text to the development and coherence of ideas in the first place, according to Quintillian.8 But it is with Biblical text that innocuous and banal errors take on a sinister feel: But that those who use the arts of unbelievers for their heretical opinions and adulterate the simple faith of the divine scriptures by the craft of the godless, are far from the faith, what need is there to say? They have laid their hands boldly upon the divine scriptures, alleging that they have corrected them. That I am not speaking falsely of them in this matter, whoever wishes may learn. For if anyone will collect their respective copies, and compare them one with another, he will find that they differ greatly. Those of Asclepiades, for example, do not agree with those of Theodotus. And many of these can be obtained, because their disciples have assiduously written the corrections (κατωρθωμένα), as they call them, that is the corruptions (τοῦτ’ ἐστὶν ἠφανισμένα), of each of them.9

This same perfidy of the heretic scribe is signalled by the Bishop of Durham, Richard de Bury, in his 1340 treatise in praise of books, the Philobiblion. There in chapter IV Books personified complains about the ‘worthless compilers, translators, and transformers’ (per pravos compilatores, translators et transformatores) who compromise textual transmission.10 For the theologian as textual critic, the incompetence or insidious intervention of scribes stood as cipher for man’s fallibility when confronted by the majesty of God’s message. Conversely, the transparency and invisibility of the perfect scribe was the only thing that could safeguard our access to the divine. The scribe is the weakest link and most vital conduit in our communion with the past and through it with our eternal future. These stakes account for the peculiarly flattened history of the scribe and the privileging of an anonymised, synchronic portrait of his activities and agency in which ancient and medieval are blended together to supplement each other and account for the perverse infidelity of the profession.11 Potentially positive interventions made by learned scribes for the good of the text are, in this context, downplayed.12 Julia Lougovaya’s analysis of copying from Greek inscriptions from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period provides a valuable corrective to this overwhelmingly 2005, Leiden, 2010, p. 25–52, at p. 38–39. Other mindless corruptions of the text are noted in Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5.30.1. 8 Inst. Or. 10.2.20. 9 Eusebius, HE, 5.28.15–19, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Series 2 trans. A.C. McGiffert. 10 Discussed in the introduction to M. AMSLER, Affective Literacies: Writing and Multilingualism in the Late Middle Ages, Turnhout, 2011. 11 As well as being exemplified in the opening paragraphs of this introduction, the tendency for synchronic flattening can be seen in most manuals for textual criticism and even in seminal portraits of the scribe like that of Alfonse DAIN, Les manuscrits, Paris, 1975, which is in other respects admirable for its historically nuanced guide to textual criticism. 12 Such activity is presumed for Tiro when Aulus Gellius remarks with surprise on the persistence of an error in Cicero’s work On Glory in which Ajax is mistaken for Hector in a quotation of Iliad 7.89. For scribes as editors see M. MÜLKE, Der Autor und sein Text: Die Verfälschung des Originals im Urteil antiker Autoren, Berlin, 2008.

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pessimistic vision of scribal participation in the transmission of texts. Here the quality of divergences from the Urtext and the procedures which supported the reproduction of texts demonstrate the degree to which scribes aspired to purity in transmission – in the essential content if not orthographic exactitude. Such purity in transmission, however, seems not to have excluded accommodations made to content in light of local tastes and priorities. At the other end of the chronological spectrum, Ken Parry’s discussion of the 9th century Stoudios Scriptorium from Byzantium demonstrates how a devotional conception of copying instantiated in regulations about the production of copies both demands purity in transmission and at the same time admits multiple divergences from this ideal. The absence of discrete and consistent terms in antiquity for the symbolically overwrought figure of the scribe seems to have only further enabled the retrojection of later models. Overlapping and poorly distinguished ancient participants in the broadly defined category of ‘scribe’ have rendered the group even less visible. In addition to public sector ‘scribes’ whose duties extended far beyond the production of texts,13 private sector ‘scribes’ – often slaves – operated as amanuenses or offered their skills to illiterate members of the public.14 These distinct patterns of professional operation seem to be expressed in the papyrological record at Petra as described by Marja Vierros. There, differences in the style of handwriting, the frequency of ligaturing, the overall format of the text, and the orthographical regularity appear to map loosely onto spheres of operation and the educational levels implied therein. At Petra as in the Hebrew letters from Tel Arad and Tell ed-Duweir discussed by Gareth Wearne or the Deir el-Medina ostraca analysed by Daniel Soliman what appears to be evident is a spectrum of literary proficiency in which both extreme and mixed examples caution against a too rigid vision of exclusive spheres of operation. Just as with the term φιλόσοφος in the papyri, the term ‘scribe’ in some contexts and languages appears to have been used to mark out a special status rather than a particular occupation.15 However in other contexts working as a E.g. the komogrammateis, on which see T. DERDA, The Arsinoite komogrammateis and their komogrammateiai in the Roman Period, in M. CAPASSO & P. DAVOLI (eds), New Archaeological and Papyrological Researches on the Fayum: Proceedings of the International Meeting of Egyptology and Papyrology, Lecce, June 8th – 10th 2005, Lecce, 2007, p. 125–134, and the basilikoi grammateis, on which see T. KRUSE, Der königliche Schreiber und die Gauverwaltung. Untersuchungen zur Verwaltungsgeschichte Ägyptens in der Zeit von Augustus bis Philippus Arabs (30 v.Chr. – 245 n.Chr.), Munich, 2002. Sometimes the duties of such ‘scribes’ could not even have embraced the proficient production of extensive texts, as in the case of the village scribe Petaus, on whom see H.C. YOUTIE, Pétaus, fils de Pétaus, ou le scribe qui ne savait pas écrire, in Chronique d’Egypte 41 (1966), p. 127–143. 14 See Aristotle, Rh. 1409a; Pliny, Ep. 9.34; Diogenes Laertius 7.36; Eusebius, HE, 6.23.1. On those who helped the illiterate, see H.C. YOUTIE, Because They Do Not Know Letters, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 19 (1975), p. 101–108. 15 The term dub.sar, for example, appearing in the seal inscriptions from the Third Dynasty of Ur, denotes a level of education rather than an occupation. See on this W. SALLABERGER and A. WESTENHOLZ, Akkade-Zeit und Ur III-Zeit, Göttingen, 1999, p. 229. 13

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scribe was taken to limit the reach of one’s professional aspiration, as in the case of Gnaeus Flavius.16 This confusion of categories in the ancient source record further erodes any handle on diachronic specificity in the face of the monolithic medieval scribe. In contrast to the historiographically fraught landscape in which the ancient scribe appears ready-dressed in his medieval garb, the world of the ancient manuscript or inscription stands now revivified and independent of this shadow. Efforts to view the materiality of text as a participant in the transmission and reception of its content have restored historical nuance to the flattening effect of the traditional textual critical approach. By allowing for the influence of material constraints on the choices made by scribes for the rendering and preservation of content, the abstract world of transmission becomes bounded by the human. As Jacob Lauinger has shown in his analysis of multiple copies of Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty the medium of transmission is as much a constraint on the form of the text as the text is on the form of the medium. In addition to medium, the format of texts – their paratextual framing – likewise participates in the reception and regulation of content. The contribution made by paratextual features in documentary papyri from Roman Egypt goes beyond the provision of aids for reading. Instead, these features can be used to construct the authority of the copy, signalling the authenticity and quality of the text, as Malcolm Choat’s contribution to this volume has argued. The irreducibility of the text as historical artefact, amplified by peculiar choices and inconsistencies, blindsides any attempt to create a singular, monolithic narrative of scribal practice. The intellectual framework in which our conception of the ancient scribe has been caged depends on a series of dichotomies which – when confronted by the realia of textual artefacts – fail to satisfy and in doing so demand different approaches and categories. Chief among the dichotomies for reconsideration is the distinction between author and scribe which does not allow for the rich spectrum of intervention represented in the evidence. In this variety we observe the scribe as compiler, composer, editor, and corrector of text. The figures of Landolfus Sagax and Ilimilku of Ugarit, discussed below by Norman Underwood and Nicolas Wyatt respectively, illuminate how porous the boundary between author and scribe really was in antiquity. By characterising the nature of the transmission and (re)production of Alexandrian scholarship as ‘open source’ Francesca Schironi highlights how unsatisfactory these simple binaries can be when it comes to capturing the participation of scribes in the shape of the tradition, that is in ‘knowledge transfer’. It is against such a backdrop that we should view the coordination of scribal practice with content in the Wenamun papyrus investigated by Anthony Spalinger and Tasha Dobbin-Bennet. 16

Lucius Piso, Annales ap. Aulus Gellius, AN 7.9.2, according to which Flavius’ election to aedile was blocked on account of his being employed as a scribe.

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How do we, in light of this complexity, construct a maximally inclusive definition of the scribe without falling into the absurdity of inviting every act of authorship into the mix? If we however maintain a traditional view of the scribe as best unseen and unheard, we will obscure interesting questions about the social function of the scribe and whether even the very use of a scribe might act as a marker of elite social standing. We will also fail to consider how scribes were invested in the construction and advertisement of their own social value and how the production of a text as devotional act might alter the way a scribe could think about his or her value as an agent of cultural and spiritual transmission. Fundamental to the traditional view of the scribe in antiquity is a division between professional and non-professional activities. This distinction, grafted loosely on the public-private binary, fails to adequately map onto the evidence a convincing interplay between the characteristics and circumstances of professionalism.17 At one end of the spectrum we may point to emerging expertise signalled by the development of special signs and processes and the repeated use of specific scribes as suggested by Marie-Pierre Chaufray for an assemblage of temple accounts in Demotic from Soknopaiou Nesos in the Roman period. We may also point to the visual abstraction of the authenticating function of signature clauses in documents from the Patermouthis archive discussed by Rodney Ast. Through a deliberate differentiation in layout and script, these signature clauses visually reinforce and signal the authority of individual notaries. The capacity for such manipulations of style to capture and convey something distinctive about the individual raises questions about the degree to which scholars are prepared to tolerate “the spectrum of variation allowed a single individual”.18 The capacity of individuals to use a multiplicity of styles and exhibit considerable orthographic variation in antiquity challenges the certainties with which scribal identifications are made, as Jenny Cromwell’s piece on the scribes at Wadi Sarga demonstrates. Variations in the execution of a script which had previously been used to suggest the presence of multiple scribes at work on a single papyrus may simply reflect changes in a writing implement over time. Thus for Valeria Tezzon a change in ductus rather than scribe is responsible for the variations seen in P.Berol. 13270. Indeed, where the context is controlled enough to observe individual scribes confronting the production and reproduction of similar materials, the contribution of individual preference to the form of the text is clear. Korshi Dosoo’s examination of the use of abbreviations across duplicate documents from Roman Egypt illustrates the degree to which habits of abbreviation respond both to individual habit and the physical constraints of the manuscript. The complexity of variation, tracking at the same time individual choice, expression, training, as well as local trends, technologies and techniques, and error in 17 18

p. 98.

As the spectrums described by Vierros, Wearne, and Soliman suggest. Ast, Compositional practice and contractual authority in the Patermouthis archive, below,

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the epigraphic sphere is just as apparent, as Elena Martin González’s discussion proves. What emerges from the difficulties of confronting the multiplicity of factors contributing to the shape and content of a text is the individual as medium for orchestrating all these competing contexts. Gregg Schwendner’s cognitive approach to copies of Didymus the Blind’s lectures on Psalms offers a richer framework for understanding how these factors interact. Our concept of professionalism, signalled by the regularity of production, may itself be an act of retrojection, applying the standards and preoccupations of typographic, digital capabilities to a pre-typographic world with its near inescapable presence of exceptions-to-the-rule. Rather than let the exceptions contribute to sustaining a prevailing and anachronistic discourse of scribal incompetence, of the corruption and enervation of an intended text, it might be better to observe tendencies towards an ideal practice in order to gauge the aspiration of a textual artefact and to seek out the limits of capability, the best in what has been done, to guide our assessment of where aspiration is directed. This would be to re-sensitise our analysis to aesthetic standards and principles which may not correspond to our own19 and investigate anew the number and range of influences which limit or extend scribal proficiency, such as the format of the written surface, the tools available for the production and modification of the text, the training required for each type of text, the amount of ink a nib can hold, and the life span of each textual artefact. Crucially, it is to relegate to the hypothetical, to the status of frameworks awaiting proof, those medieval mainstays of our portrait of scribal activity, until such time as the varied patterns of ancient evidence taken directly from the textual artefacts demand it. Nowhere more pointedly has the medieval framework imposed its schema on the ancient evidence than in the translation of the scriptorium into the ancient world20 and with it, too, models of transmission that insist upon the primacy of dictation in lieu of silent reading and visual copying.21 The latter case is especially insensitive to the range of cognitive activities involved in both practises and the overlap between them when, say, a scribe rehearses through internal dictation words seen but not heard or imagines the look of a word on a page as they hear it.

19 A key example of such an aesthetic ideal might be seen in the deliberate production of socalled ‘leaning columns’. See W.A. JOHNSON, Bookrolls and Scribes of Oxyrhynchus, Toronto, 2004, p. 92–99. 20 For a discussion of this problem see HAINES-EITZEN, p. 78–79, 83–91, and A. MUGRIDGE, Copying Early Christian Texts: A Study of Scribal Practice, Tübingen, 2016, p. 15–16. See the persistence of this shibboleth in S.D. CHARLESWORTH, Early Christian Gospels: Their Production and Transmission, Florence, 2016 among others. 21 In spite of B.N. KNOX, Silent Reading in Antiquity, in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 9 (1968), p. 421–435. See for a discussion of this problem, Malcolm Choat’s contribution in this volume.

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The essays found within this volume provide temporally and geographically fixed case studies which illuminate the unsatisfactory state of this landscape of sharp dichotomy. These papers chart specific moments in the historical and historiographical development of the category of scribe, drawing a picture of scribal behaviour from textual artefacts themselves. As such these treatments seek to begin their interpretation sensitively with technical descriptions of textual phenomena which do not foreclose the circumstances of production or aspiration, they apply diverse and interdisciplinary approaches to capturing and analysing data, and do not shirk from letting the unusual case stand alone. By uniting in a single volume these distinctive engagements with the problem of scribal practice we hope to begin the task of sketching out an independent ancient counterpart in all its complexity and variety to its medieval horizon and thus to contribute to understanding technological development as more than just a teleology of the Western imagination. Bibliography M. AMSLER, Affective Literacies: Writing and Multilingualism in the Late Middle Ages, Turnhout, 2011. K. ARNOLD, Johannes Trithemius. In Praise of Scribes (De laude scriptorum), Lawrence, Kans., 1974. A. DAIN, Les manuscrits, Paris, 1975. T. DERDA, The Arsinoite komogrammateis and Their komogrammateiai in the Roman Period, in M. CAPASSO & P. DAVOLI (eds), New Archaeological and Papyrological Researches on the Fayum: Proceedings of the International Meeting of Egyptology and Papyrology, Lecce, June 8th – 10th 2005, Lecce, 2007, p. 125–134. S.D. CHARLESWORTH, Early Christian Gospels: Their Production and Transmission, Florence, 2016. K. HAINES-EITZEN, Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature, Oxford, 2000. H. HUNGER, Babylonische und Assyrische Kolophone, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1968. W.A. JOHNSON, Bookrolls and Scribes of Oxyrhynchus, Toronto, 2004. B.N. KNOX, Silent Reading in Antiquity, in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 9 (1968), p. 421–435. T. KRUSE, Der königliche Schreiber und die Gauverwaltung. Untersuchungen zur Verwaltungsgeschichte Ägyptens in der Zeit von Augustus bis Philippus Arabs (30 v.Chr. – 245 n.Chr.), Munich, 2002. A. MUGRIDGE, Copying Early Christian Texts: A Study of Scribal Practice, Tübingen, 2016. M. MÜLKE, Der Autor und sein Text: Die Verfälschung des Originals im Urteil antiker Autoren, Berlin, 2008. I. SLUITER, Textual Therapy. On the Relationship Between Medicine and Grammar in Galen, in M. HORSTMANSHOFF (ed.) with C. VAN TILBURG, Hippocrates and Medical Education. Selected Papers read at the XIIth International Hippocrates Colloquium, Universiteit Leiden, 24–26 August 2005, Leiden, 2010, p. 25–52. W. SALLABERGER and A. WESTENHOLZ, Akkade-Zeit und Ur III-Zeit, Göttingen, 1999. J. SCHÉRER, Le commentaire d’Origène sur Rom. III.5–V.7, Cairo, 1957.

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M. SIMONETTI, Tyrannii Rufini opera, Turnhout, 1961. H.C. YOUTIE, Pétaus, fils de Pétaus, ou le scribe qui ne savait pas écrire, in Chronique d’Egypte 41 (1966), p. 127–143. H.C. YOUTIE, Because They Do Not Know Letters, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 19 (1975), p. 101–108.

ILIMILKU OF UGARIT, L’HOMME ET L’ŒUVRE: AN ENQUIRY INTO A SCRIBE’S AUTHORIAL ROLE Nicolas WYATT

Tell Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit), eleven kilometres north of Latakia, has provided over many years of excavation a wealth of information concerning life in Late Bronze Age Syria.1 The scribe Ilimilku from the city has generated a considerable literature among scholars. He left four colophons on literary works (KTU 1.4 viii edge, 1.6 vi 54-58, 1.16 vi edge, 1.17 vi edge), and a fifth on KTU 1.179.40, while other tablets (the other Baal, Kirta and Aqhat tablets, KTU 1.10, and the Rapiuma texts KTU 1.20–1.22) are recognisably or arguably in his ductus, but have no surviving colophons, giving the number of literary and religious tablets possibly to be credited to him as 17. In addition, we have a royal letter scribed by him, to which he also added a message of his own (KTU 2.88).2 This most recent discovery provided evidence for reassessing his floruit from the mid-14th century BC (reign of Niqmaddu II), as originally estimated, to the end of the 13th (reign of Niqmaddu IV). The colophon written at the end of the Baal cycle (KTU 1.6 vi) (Fig. 1) gives the most information3:

1 Delivered at the Macquarie Conference on 27 September 2013 as ‘Ilimilku the Elusive’. The 5,000 word limit set for contributions to the present volume meant that the full text of my original paper read at the Macquarie conference in September 2013 could not be incorporated here. With the agreement of the editors of both the present volume and of Ugarit-Forschungen (Münster), readers may find the full text in N. WYATT, The Evidence of the Colophons in the Assessment of Ilimilku’s Scribal and Authorial Role, in Ugarit-Forschungen 46 (2015), p. 399–466. Much of the finer detail of my argument, together with the references covering current discussion, will be found there. I have taken the opportunity afforded by changing plans to update the shorter discussion here and incorporate some material previously not covered. 2 WYATT, The Evidence of the Colophons, p. 424–425 (Appendix 1). Dennis Pardee opined that “I also consider it highly unlikely, for purely epigraphic reasons, that Ilimilku inscribed the second letter on RS 94.2406, though he may, of course, have dictated it” (personal communication). This does not directly affect the judgment I pass below on the historical significance of the tablet for assessing Ilimilku’s rank, since he seems to have scribed the first letter. This point is not in fact certain, but ll. 35–36, 35 wht ank rgm! 36 lpn.mlkt.lik?, “so now I am sending a word in/from the presence of the queen”, indicate that he is at least in the service of the queen, functioning as her vizier or adviser, if not as her scribe. 3 The colophon at KTU 1.4 viii edge is to be restored in line with the wording of this (though it is shorter): M.S. SMITH and W.T. PITARD, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle vol. II. Introduction with Text, Translation and Commentary of KTU/CAT 1.3–1.4 (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 114), Leiden – Boston, 2009, p. 706; 725–26; WYATT, The Evidence of the Colophons, p. 411.

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spr.ilmlk šbny yrgb.bcl.ṯrmn

54

55

lmd.atn.prln.rb

56

khnm rb.nqdm

57

ṯcy.nqmd.mlk ugrt

58

adn.

document of /the scribe/ wrote (this) Ilimilku the Shubbanite, the student of Attēnu the diviner, chief of the priests, chief of the temple herdsmen, sacrificer of Niqmaddu king of Ugarit, Lord of Yargubu and Ruler of Sharrumanu.

The precise historical significance of this has been much debated. In my longer paper (see n. 1) I identified three possible ways of construing it, and opted for the second or the third (both cited here). Option Two document of ILIMILKU 1) the Shubbanite, (who is) 2) the student of Attēnu, 3) 4) 5) 6)

diviner, chief of the priests chief of the temple herdsmen, sacrificer/vizier of NIQMADDU (who is) 1) king of Ugarit, 2) Lord of Yargubu and 3) Ruler of Tharrumanu.

Option Three document of ILIMILKU (who is) 1) the Shubbanite, 2) the student of ATTĒNU (who is) 1) the diviner, 2) chief of the priests, 3) chief of the temple herdsmen, 4) sacrificer/vizier of NIQMADDU (who is) 1) king of Ugarit, 2) Lord of Yargubu and 3) Ruler of Tharrumanu.

Whichever reading is preferred, it must, in my estimation, be with the proviso that the colophon be read ‘retrospectively’, that is as a statement of Ilimilku’s overall biography to date, and not of his present circumstances. That is, Ilimilku was (in the past), Attēnu’s student, but has now moved on in his career. I am myself inclined to option three,4 in which Attēnu, his former teacher, is at the top of his profession (himself no longer as teacher, but a sacrificer or vizier [or perhaps both: the term ṯcy can mean either] to the king), while Ilimilku is probably now a fairly senior priest (and in the Kirta colophon, KTU 1.16 vi lower 4 WYATT, The Evidence of the Colophons, p. 417. Dennis Pardee (personal communication, email 26 October 2015) felt that I had misrepresented his view (D. PARDEE, The Ugaritic Texts and the Origins of West Semitic Literary Composition [Schweich Lectures 2007], London, 2012) on p. 419: in fact he “emphatically [did] not espouse” my second option. Mea culpa. His account may be read at PARDEE, The Ugaritic Texts, p. 42–50, particularly p. 42–44, where from the layout of the lines of the main colophon however it appeared, and still appears, to me that he was saying what I thought he said. The crucial issue was that he seems to have taken ṯcy nqmd, ‘ṯaccā-official of Niqmaddu’ in 1.6 vi as referring to Ilimilku, not Attēnu. An important difference between him and me regarding Ilimilku’s status is his reading (PARDEE, The Ugaritic Texts, 43) of the colophon of KTU 1.4 viii edge. He took this to identify Ilimilku as ‘[… ṯa]ccā-official of Niqmaddu king of Ugarit’ (sic, p. 43), thus having the two colophons in agreement. But see n. 3 above, with its references to the different approach of Smith – Pitard and myself. See further discussion below with regard to D. PARDEE, L’autorité littéraire au XIIIe siècle av. J.-C.? ’Ilimilku d’Ougarit: scribe/ auteur?, in M. GOREA and M. TARDIEU (eds), Autorité des auteurs antiques: entre anonymat, masque et l’authenticité (Homo Religious 13), Turnhout, 2014, p. 35–57.

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edge, himself a sacrificer or vizier, but not yet of the king: ṯcy mlk, ṯcy nqmd, being presumably a higher office). If the same Ilimilku is the scribe of KTU 2.88 (RS 94.2406), as I suggested – though Dennis Pardee demurs on this with regard to the second letter on the tablet (see n. 2) – then he may have become the queen’s scribe. The point of the concern to arrive at a proper assessment of Ilimilku’s professional status is to provide a sound basis for evaluating the originality of his scribal role in the long religious poems which bear his colophons, Baal, Kirta and Aqhat. If he was advanced in his professional life, it is unlikely that he served in these compositions as a mere amanuensis, mechanically copying out traditional, received materials, or new if derivative work composed by others. Following earlier discussions by Johannes de Moor, Marjo Korpel, Adrian Curtis and Dennis Pardee,5 it may be argued that while he took traditional materials, notably, for instance, the long-standing, traditional theomachy trope which underlies the conflict between Baal and Yam in KTU 1.1–2,6 he himself probably played a significant part in reshaping it into its present form. Korpel put it in a nutshell: “such a man will rather have been an editing author of religious tradition than a mere copyist.”7 The same is probably true for the Kirta and Aqhat compositions. While neither of these has any known congener, the Kirta story may well derive originally from a Mitannian epic, since the name of the hero, Kirta, is the same as that of the first Mitannian king,8 to be explained, as with all the Mitannian royal names, 5 J.C. DE MOOR, The Seasonal Pattern in the Ugaritic Poem of Baclu According to the Version of Ilimilku (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 16), Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1971; M. KORPEL, Exegesis in the work of Ilimilku of Ugarit, in J.C. DE MOOR (ed.), Intertextuality in Ugarit and Israel. Papers read at the tenth joint meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study and Het Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap in Nederland en België held at Oxford, 1997 (Old Testament Studies 40), Leiden, 1998, p. 86–111; A.D.H. CURTIS, Ilimilku of Ugarit: copyist or creator?, in P.R. DAVIES and T. RÖMER (eds), Writing the Bible: Scribes, Scribalism and Script, Durham, 2013, p. 10–22; PARDEE, The Ugaritic Texts. 6 On the antiquity of the theme, traceable back to at least the mid-3rd millennium BC, and possibly further, N. WYATT, Arms and the king: the earliest allusions to the Chaoskampf motif and their implications for the interpretation of the Ugaritic and biblical traditions, in M. DIETRICH and I. KOTTSIEPER (eds), ‘ Und Mose schrieb dieses Lied auf...’. Studien zum Alten Testament und zum Alten Orient. Festschrift für O. Loretz zur Vollendung seines 70. Lebensjahres mit Beiträgen von Freunden, Schülern und Kollegen (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 250), Münster, 1998, p. 833– 852, reprinted in N. WYATT, ‘There’s Such Divinity Doth Hedge a King’: Selected Essays of Nicolas Wyatt on Royal Ideology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature (Society for Old Testament Study), London, 2005, p. 151–189; N. WYATT, ‘ Water, Water Everywhere…’: Musings on the Aqueous Myths of the Near East, in D.A. GONZÁLEZ BLANCO, J.P. VITA and J.A. ZAMORA (eds), De la Tablilla a la Inteligencia Artificial. Homenaje al Prof. Jesús Luis Cunchillos en su 65 aniversario, Zaragoza, 2003, p. 211–257, reprinted in N. WYATT, The Mythic Mind: Essays on Cosmology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature, London, 2005, p. 189–237. 7 KORPEL, Exegesis in the Work of Ilimilku, p. 90. 8 J. FREU, Histoire du Mitanni (Collection Kubaba, Antiquité III), Paris, 2003, p. 40. He is to be dated in the mid-16th century. There is no reason to link Kirta with the royal dynasty of Ugarit, as some scholars think. He does not appear in the king-list of KTU 1.113. The narrative is set in

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which are of Indo-Āryan formation, on the basis of Sanskrit (in this case kṛta: ‘made’, ‘completed’, a suitable form for a hypocoristicon). The later episodes of the Baal cycle, the building of a temple for Baal (KTU 1.3–1.4 vii 42), and his conflict with Mot (KTU 1.4 vii 43–viii 47, 1.5– 1.6), have no literary parallels. This does perhaps seem to be a strange place for the one narrative to give way to the other. But the division is for analytical convenience, rather than constituting a real break.9 In the temple narrative 1.4 vii 42 states that yṯb bcl lbbth: ‘Baal took up residence (yṯb = sit, dwell, be enthroned) in his house’, or ‘returned to’ it (yṯb/ṯ[w]b = return). The house is his temple: the term bt frequently denotes a temple in Northwest Semitic usage. Thus ends the narrative of temple-construction and dedication. The next line, 1.4 vii 43, following on without a break, is best construed either as Baal exerting his royal authority, or as Mot issuing an immediate challenge to it (lines 47–5210). This suggests that the two episodes originally formed one continuous composition, a supposition reinforced by the episodic transition occurring mid-column. So if Ilimilku is to be credited with the authorship of one, it follows that he also wrote the other. The Baal-Mot episode is evidently modelled on the earlier Baal-Yam conflict,11 while I have suggested that the temple episode was composed, very probably by Ilimilku himself, to mark the (re)construction of the Baal temple at Ugarit,12 probably as a work commissioned for the occasion. Obviously such a proposition is beyond proof, but it seems to be a very reasonable construction to put on Ilimilku’s evident authority as a senior scribe. This is not to deny in principle the generally cumulative nature of an ancient tradition, with its slow modification over time, and small-scale augmentation by any number of copyists and scribes (clear in the case of the conflict trope), but rather to insist that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the author we know, Ilimilku, should receive due recognition. part in the Khabur region of Eastern Syria (KTU 1.15 iv 6–9), ancient Mitanni, though naturalised into local terms (e.g. the Ugaritian pantheon figures, and Kirta invokes Athirat of Tyre and Sidon, KTU 1.14 iv 32–43, in a campaign directed presumably against the Levant, with a vow that is to be his undoing, 1.15 iii 25–31). This likely origin is not surprising, given the significant Hurrian population of Ugarit. See further N. WYATT, All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men: Reflections on Kirta, in V. JULOUX and R.W. YOUNKER (eds), A Study of Violence in the Ancient Near East and Its Neighbors, Leiden, forthcoming. 9 See SMITH and PITARD, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, p. 9, on the natural breaks between the main sections of the Baal cycle occurring not at the ends of tablets, but within them. “This situation”, they remarked, “is strong support for understanding the tablets as an organic unity…” 10 N. WYATT, Religious Texts from Ugarit (The Biblical Seminar 53), London, 20022, p. 111. 11 D.L. PETERSON and M. WOODWARD, Northwest Semitic Religion: A Study of Relational Structures, in Ugarit Forschungen 9 (1977), p. 237–243. See further now N. WYATT, National Memory, Seismic Activity at Ras Shamra and the Composition of the Baal Cycle, in Ugarit-Forschungen 48 (2017), p. 551-591. 12 WYATT, National Memory; N. WYATT, War in Heaven: The Ugaritian Ideology of Warfare as Reflected in the Composition of Ilimilku’s Baal Cycle, paper delivered at ASOR/EPHE-PSL European Symposium, Paris, Sept. 4–6, 2018, forthcoming.

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Korpel’s analysis of his distinctive style is very telling here: the consistency of style, vocabulary and use of the same formulaic clichés across the three poetic compositions (Baal, Kirta, Aqhat) would be implausible unless the same mind was at work in their construction. Committees and scribal workshops are seldom so consistent, and are usually devoid of any poetic sensitivity! The similarities are not simply expressions of a common cultural substrate; rather, they indicate an individual mind at work composing the material, with his own distinctive vocabulary-signature and tendencies in poetic construction. Among the features Korpel listed and treated were the following: each composition begins with the same labelling system identifying its contents (lb cl – surviving only at KTU 1.6 i 113), lkrt (KTU 1.14 i 1, 1.16 i 1 – beginning of 1.15 i missing), and laqht (1.19 i 1 – others missing); there is also homogeneity of style; thematic homogeneity; cross-citation (intertextuality); identical or similar formulaic passages occur in more than one composition (see further below); there is a common distinctive vocabulary and a penchant for recherché foreign terms; and distinctive theological and political features.14 Some common elements between the compositions which Korpel identified are quite remarkable. Thus the sequences a) emotional response to a crisis: KTU 1.6 ii 6, 28 (Baal) and 1.15 i 5–6 (Kirta), b) preparing a donkey to carry Athirat, KTU 1.4 iv 2–15 (Baal) and Danil, 1.19 ii 1–11 (Aqhat), and c) a moment of relaxation for El: KTU 1.4 iv 28–29 || 1.6 iii 15–16 (Baal) and for Danil: 1.17 ii 10–11 (Aqhat), are substantially identical apart from adaptation to their immediate context. As Korpel noted (she was dealing with minor differences; I have adapted her to my point15), In Old Testament scholarship such [passages] … would be interpreted as the result of redactional activity by two different hands transmitting the same original passage. In this case, however, we know for certain that it was the same hand which wrote these lines. In view of the lack of parallels elsewhere [admittedly, an argument from silence] it is unlikely that Ilimilku took over the passage from a different source…16

On the principle of Occam’s razor, it is a more economic argument to see Ilimilku citing his own phrase than to appeal constantly to a hypothetical third party as his source. His own constant repetition on a significant scale of his own 13 The beginnings of other Baal tablets are destroyed, with the exception of 1.5 i 1, which perhaps surprisingly carries no heading. Perhaps not too much should be made of this feature (see my earlier comments, WYATT, The Evidence of the Colophons, p. 418, n. 55), but it does remain a feature of the long poetic compositions, and does provide cumulative evidence with the other distinctive features of the text of individual input into the record. 14 KORPEL, Exegesis in the Work of Ilimilku, p. 96–105; summarised in WYATT, The Evidence of the Colophons, p. 418. 15 Her point was the differences within these passages; adapted, as here, her observation deals equally well with the sameness exhibited by them. 16 KORPEL, Exegesis in the Work of Ilimilku, p. 95–96.

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lines within each composition also makes the cross-referencing noted here less remarkable (that is, more likely). Further evidence of common material Korpel noted are d) Anat’s implacability: KTU 1.3 v 27–28 (Baal) and 1.18 i 16–17, (Aqhat), e) an emotional reaction to a dangerous moment of uncertainty: KTU 1.3 iii 32–35 (Anat) and 1.4 ii 16–20 (Athirat) (both Baal) and 1.19 ii 44–47 (Danil) (Aqhat), f) divine travel over vast distances: KTU 1.4 ii 13–16 (Anat) (Baal) and 1.17 v 9–10 (Kothar) = 1.18 i 21 (Anat) (Aqhat), g) a sacrificial formula in epic terms: KTU 1.4 vi 55–59 = 1.5 iv 12–22 (Baal) and 1.17 vi 1–9 (Aqhat), and h) Anat’s threatening language to El: KTU 1.3 v 19–25 (Baal) and 1.18 i 6–12 (Aqhat). She also noted further allusive links between the texts. We thus see the same author recycling his materials, rather as Handel recycled some of his best tunes.17 A point she did not discuss was Ilimilku’s distinctive trait in reusing extended passages – not just tunes, but whole arias! – to great literary effect within individual compositions. This stylistic trait over three main compositions is very typical of Ilimilku, and I know of no parallels elsewhere. I have discussed some of these with regard to his characteristic mistakes,18 which are themselves very revealing. But they are also useful for appreciation of the way his very distinctive poetic technique operates, and all this leads to an enhancement in our understanding of his individual input into the compositions before us. The point of all the features of the separate compositions identified here is that it would be quite implausible to see them as anything less than overwhelming evidence for the presence of one individual mind at work in their construction. The common representation of traditional materials handed down by anonymous tradents, each adding a little bit here, misreading a text there, cannot account for the presence of these features across the three compositions, because they 17 “During his journeyman period Handel recycled his best tunes at new venues without hesitation: the same thematic material may turn up in different musical contexts in operas written for Hamburg, Florence, Venice and London…,” D. BURROWS, Handel (The Master Musicians), New York, 20122, p. 62. 18 WYATT, The Evidence of the Colophons, p. 425–430 regarding the duties of the pious son in Aqhat , repeated four times (KTU 1.17 i 25–33; 1.17 i 42–47 + [8 cola]; 1.17 ii [ 3 cola] + 1–8; 1.17 ii 14–23). See also N. WYATT, Making Sense of the Senseless: Correcting Scribal Errors in Ugaritic, in Ugarit-Forschungen 39 (2007), p. 757–772, regarding the repeated mourning formula in Kirta (KTU 1.15 vi [end]–1.16 i 11, 1.16 i 14–23 and 1.16 ii 36–49) and the accounts of Anat’s treatment of Mot (KTU 1.6 ii 30–35 and 1.6 v 11–19). One interesting case discussed WYATT, Making Sense, p. 759–760, is the blessing formula occurring in Kirta (1.15 ii 16–20) and Aqhat (1.17 i 34–‹–›–36), where the former can be used to correct the latter, and bring sense to its present nonsense. Of general interest in Ilimilku’s use of formulae, and for the value of his technique for restoration of damaged text, see my treatment of the extended blessing oracle in Kirta (KTU 1.15 ii 16–iii 16) in N. WYATT, Word of Tree and Whisper of Stone: El’s Oracle to King Keret (Kirta), and the Problem of the Mechanics of Its Utterance, in Vetus Testamentum 57 (2007) p. 483–510, reprinted in N. WYATT, Word of Tree and Whisper of Stone, and Other Papers on Ugaritian Thought (Gorgias Ugaritic Series 1), Piscataway N J, 2007, p. 167–192. As I remarked in the latter (p. 491), “I am not asserting [the complex analysis of the passage] as a means of implying a long prehistory of the text. For all we know, the ratiocination may have gone on in the head of Ilimilku.”

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are not random, but the same traits. They demonstrate the authorial role of some individual, and this is most reasonably seen as Ilimilku. The only other serious candidate for this role would be Attēnu, and I think that my analysis of the major colophon and adoption of the third option for its assessment makes Ilimilku the preferable candidate. He had the skills, the authority, the opportunity and no doubt the motivation to produce three narrative poems – incorporating conventional motifs and elements of traditional form, to be sure – which in their different ways all serve to promote the interests and ideology of the Ugaritian monarchy. One final argument concerning the problem raised by Pitard’s analysis19 and the problem of where Ilimilku began to write (was it the first column of KTU 1.4?) is that on my analysis there is a gap of many lines preceding his putative start. If this were the place, would that not suggest that we are still faced with a(n equally hypothetical) gap at the end of 1.3 vi, if tablet 1.3 was a ‘prequel’? But in the case of the shift from part 2 to part 3 of the overall narrative, which we saw above forms a seamless joint between 1.4 viii 42 and the following line, we would expect a run-on in this case too. In the absence of a complete text at the point of transition, this of course remains an imponderable. The views of Korpel, Pardee and myself were the subject of discussion by Smith and Pitard.20 They were sceptical of the individual input attributed to Ilimilku. With regard to my work, they found no evidence supporting my interpretation of 2002.21 In this I proposed that it may have been a royal wedding that provided the motivation to compose the Baal cycle. This was a hypothesis, and I have more recently suggested an alternative, in the context of a broader discussion of the evolution of the Chaoskampf trope in ancient Near Eastern literature at large, that it was composed to celebrate reconstruction of or repairs to the Baal temple on the city acropolis.22 This too remains hypothetical. But 19 W.T. PITARD, Watch That Margin! Understanding the Scribal Peculiarities of CAT 1.4 Obverse, in Maarav 15 (2009), p. 27–37; discussed in WYATT, The Evidence of the Colophons, p. 409–410. 20 SMITH and PITARD, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, p. 10–14. 21 N. WYATT, Ilimilku the Theologian: The Ideological Roles of Athtar and Baal in KTU 1.1 and 1.6, in O. LORETZ, K. METZLER and H. SCHAUDIG (eds), Ex Mesopotamia et Syria Lux. Festschrift f ür Manfried Dietrich zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 6.11.2000 (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 281), Münster, 2002, p. 845–856, reprinted in N. WYATT, ‘There’s Such Divinity Doth Hedge a King’: Selected Essays of Nicolas Wyatt on Royal Ideology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature (Society for Old Testament Study), London, 2005, p. 221–230. 22 N. WYATT, Distinguishing Wood and Trees in the Waters: Creation in Biblical Thought, in R. WATSON and A.H.W. CURTIS (eds), Conversations on Canaanite and Biblical Themes: Creation, Chaos and Monotheism, Berlin – New York, forthcoming. See O. CALLOT, Les sanctuaires de l’acropole d’Ougarit. Les temples de Baal et de Dagan (Ras Shamra-Ougarit XIX), Lyon, 2011, p. 61, for reference to Late Bronze construction work on the Baal temple, “[p]our ce qui est de la superstructure du temple dont nous voyons les vestiges aujourd’hui, elle appartient à une seconde phase de la fin du Bronze Récent…” There was an earthquake ca. 1250, after which, Callot noted, “[c]omme le temple a été entièrement reconstruit, il est difficile d’évaluer l’étendue des dégâts occasionnés par cette catastrophe…” These events, earthquake and (re)construction, took place

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it seems to me that we should ask questions and suggest scenarios of this kind. They remain unprovable, but attempt an explanation of the particular form the story has been given, always supposing that there has been significant individual input by Ilimilku. His poetic œuvre as a whole is certainly to be judged as broadly motivated by a concern to promote the royal ideology of the kingdom of Ugarit, and there is an epic dimension to these poems.23 It is not unreasonable to posit specific triggers, such as important state events, as the context in which a new version of a tale might be told. The rebuilding of the chief city temple certainly qualifies as sufficiently significant. Dennis Pardee has recently published a further study of Ilimilku24, which reached me only after completion of my earlier paper. He also accepted the royal ideological dimension of his poems, and supplemented his earlier views on the role of Ilimilku thus: If it was a matter of the first reduction of these ancient poems to writing, this very fact, as ’Ilîmilku presents it, constitutes a claim to literary authority. In writing down these narratives, until then (only) oral, ’Ilîmilku the poet gave them a concrete form which they had not hitherto had. He created an indisputable milestone for the future of his poems, which for once did not now vanish at the moment of recitation, but remained engraved as though on stone to be consulted by anyone capable of doing it. He made no claim that his version was the only one with any value; but in investing a great effort into their compilation in a material which would become hard and durable, he gave to his version a permanence unequalled for his period. We know that he did not do this unconsciously, because he boasts of having accomplished it.25

Nor, Pardee argued, was the importance of Ilimilku’s works due merely to their being composed on royal authority, but also to the beauty of their poetic expression, the classic medium of religious communication between the divine and human worlds. He was making theological claims, he suggested, adding, with a nice touch, “The word became clay.”26 precisely at the time of Ilimilku’s floruit. This argument was carried further in WYATT, National Memory, and WYATT, War in Heaven. 23 N. WYATT, Epic in Ugaritic Literature, in J. M. FOLEY (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Ancient Epic, Oxford, 2005, p. 246–254, reprinted in WYATT, Papers on Ugaritian Thought, p. 143–153. 24 PARDEE, ’Ilimilku d’Ougarit. 25 PARDEE, ’Ilimilku d’Ougarit, p. 52. Original: “S’il s’agissait de la première mise par écrit de ces anciens poèmes, ce fait même, tel que ’Ilîmilku le présente, constitue une revendication d’une autorité littéraire. En mettant par écrit ces récits jusque là oraux, ’Ilîmilku poète leur a donné une forme concrète qu’ils n’avaient pas auparavant, il posait des jalons incontournables pour l’avenir de ses poèmes qui, pour au moins une fois, ne se dissipaient pas au moment du récit, qui restaient gravés comme sur de la pierre pour être consultés par n’importe qui était capable de le faire. Il ne prétendait pas que sa version était la seule qui valût; mais, en investissant un énorme travail dans leur rédaction dans une matière qui deviendrait dure et durable, il donnait à sa version une permanence sans égal pour son époque. On est certain qu’il ne le faisait pas inconsciemment car il se vante de l’avoir accompli.” 26 PARDEE, ’Ilimilku d’Ougarit, p. 53. Original: “Le verbe s’est fait argile.”

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Bibliography O. CALLOT, Les sanctuaires de l’acropole d’Ougarit. Les temples de Baal et de Dagan (Ras Shamra-Ougarit XIX), Lyon, 2011. A.D.H. CURTIS, Ilimilku of Ugarit: Copyist or Creator?, in P.R. DAVIES and T. RÖMER (eds), Writing the Bible: Scribes, Scribalism and Script, Durham, 2013, p. 10–22. D. BURROWS, Handel (The Master Musicians), New York, 20122. J. FREU, Histoire du Mitanni (Collection Kubaba, Antiquité III), Paris, 2003. M. KORPEL, Exegesis in the Work of Ilimilku of Ugarit, in J.C. DE MOOR (ed.), Intertextuality in Ugarit and Israel. Papers Read at the Tenth Joint Meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study and Het Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap in Nederland en België held at Oxford, 1997 (Old Testament Studies 40), Leiden, 1998, p. 86–111. J.C. DE MOOR, The Seasonal Pattern in the Ugaritic Poem of Baclu According to the Version of Ilimilku (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 16), Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1971. D. PARDEE, The Ugaritic Texts and the Origins of West Semitic Literary Composition (Schweich Lectures 2007), London, 2012. D. PARDEE, L’autorité littéraire au XIIIe siècle av. J.-C.? ’Ilimilku d’Ougarit: scribe/ auteur?, in M. GOREA and M. TARDIEU (eds), Autorité des auteurs antiques: entre anonymat, masque et l’authenticité (Homo Religious 13), Turnhout, 2014, p. 35–57. D.L. PETERSON and M. WOODWARD, Northwest Semitic Religion: A Study of Relational Structures, in Ugarit Forschungen 9 (1977), p. 237–243. W.T. PITARD, Watch That Margin! Understanding the Scribal Peculiarities of CAT 1.4 Obverse, in Maarav 15 (2009), p. 27–37. M.S. SMITH and W.T. PITARD, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle vol. II. Introduction with Text, Translation and Commentary of KTU/CAT 1.3–1.4 (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 114), Leiden – Boston, 2009. N. WYATT, Arms and the king: the earliest allusions to the Chaoskampf motif and their implications for the interpretation of the Ugaritic and biblical traditions, in M. DIETRICH and I. KOTTSIEPER (eds), ‘Und Mose schrieb dieses Lied auf...’. Studien zum Alten Testament und zum Alten Orient. Festschrift für O. Loretz zur Vollendung seines 70. Lebensjahres mit Beiträgen von Freunden, Schülern und Kollegen (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 250), Münster, 1998, p. 833–852, reprinted in N. WYATT, ‘ There’s Such Divinity Doth Hedge a King’: Selected Essays of Nicolas Wyatt on Royal Ideology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature (Society for Old Testament Study), London, 2005, p. 151–189. N. WYATT, Religious Texts from Ugarit (The Biblical Seminar 53), London, 20022. N. WYATT, Ilimilku the Theologian: The Ideological Roles of Athtar and Baal in KTU 1.1 and 1.6, in O. LORETZ, K. METZLER and H. SCHAUDIG (eds), Ex Mesopotamia et Syria Lux. Festschrift für Manfried Dietrich zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 6.11.2000 (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 281), Münster, 2002, p. 845–856, reprinted in N. WYATT, ‘There’s Such Divinity Doth Hedge a King’: Selected Essays of Nicolas Wyatt on Royal Ideology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature (Society for Old Testament Study), London, 2005, p. 221–230. N. WYATT, ‘Water, Water Everywhere…’: Musings on the Aqueous Myths of the Near East, in D.A. GONZÁLEZ BLANCO, J.P. VITA and J.A. ZAMORA (eds), De la Tablilla a la Inteligencia Artificial. Homenaje al Prof. Jesús Luis Cunchillos en su 65 aniversario, Zaragoza, 2003, p. 211–257, reprinted in N. WYATT, The Mythic Mind: Essays on Cosmology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature, London, 2005, p. 189–237.

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N. WYATT, ‘There’s Such Divinity Doth Hedge a King’: Selected Essays of Nicolas Wyatt on Royal Ideology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature (Society for Old Testament Study), London, 2005. N. WYATT, The Mythic Mind: Essays on Cosmology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature, London, 2005. N. WYATT, Epic in Ugaritic Literature, in J.M. FOLEY (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Ancient Epic, Oxford, 2005, p. 246–254, reprinted in N. WYATT, Word of Tree and Whisper of Stone, and Other Papers on Ugaritian Thought (Gorgias Ugaritic Series 1), Piscataway NJ, 2007, p. 143–153. N. WYATT, Making Sense of the Senseless: Correcting Scribal Errors in Ugaritic, in Ugarit-Forschungen 39 (2007), p. 757–772. N. WYATT, Word of Tree and Whisper of Stone: El’s Oracle to King Keret (Kirta), and the Problem of the Mechanics of Its Utterance, in Vetus Testamentum 57 (2007), p. 483–510, reprinted in N. WYATT, Word of Tree and Whisper of Stone, and Other Papers on Ugaritian Thought (Gorgias Ugaritic Series 1), Piscataway NJ, 2007, p. 167–192. N. WYATT, Word of Tree and Whisper of Stone, and Other Papers on Ugaritian Thought (Gorgias Ugaritic Series 1), Piscataway NJ, 2007. N. WYATT, The Evidence of the Colophons in the Assessment of Ilimilku’s Scribal and Authorial role, in Ugarit-Forschungen 46 (2015), p. 399–466. N. WYATT, National Memory, Seismic Activity at Ras Shamra and the Composition of the Baal Cycle, in Ugarit-Forschungen 48 (2017), p. 551–591. N. WYATT, Distinguishing Wood and Trees in the Waters: Creation in Biblical Thought, in R. WATSON and A.H.W. CURTIS (eds), Conversations on Canaanite and Biblical Themes: Creation, Chaos and Monotheism, Berlin – New York, forthcoming. N. WYATT, All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men: Reflections on Kirta, in V. JULOUX and R.W. YOUNKER (eds), A Study of Violence in the Ancient Near East and Its Neighbors, Leiden, forthcoming. N. WYATT, War in Heaven: The Ugaritian Ideology of Warfare as Reflected in the Composition of Ilimilku’s Baal Cycle, paper delivered at ASOR/EPHE-PSL European Symposium, Paris, Sept. 4–6, 2018, forthcoming.

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Fig. 1. KTU 1.6 reverse (right to left, cols. iv, v and vi) the colophon is the last five lines of the left-hand column Acknowledgement (courtesy Wayne Pitard and the West Semitic Research Project).

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THE ROLE OF THE SCRIBE IN THE COMPOSITION OF WRITTEN CORRESPONDENCE IN ISRAEL AND JUDAH Gareth WEARNE

Because the Hebrew Bible is a composite work with a rich and complex transmission history, biblical scholars have a long-standing fascination with the scribal institutions from which it emerged.1 As observed by Karel van der Toorn: If we are to understand the making of the Hebrew Bible, we must familiarize ourselves with the scribal culture that produced it. That culture was the culture of the literate elite. The scribes who manufactured the Bible were professional writers affiliated with the temple of Jerusalem. They practiced their craft in a time in which there was neither a trade in books nor a reading public of any substance. Scribes wrote for scribes.2

This focus on scribal culture in the context of literary text production has yielded valuable insights into the history of the biblical text, but it has also had an unintended flattening effect, often reflecting an a priori assumption that trained scribes were primarily to be found in the civil and cultic bureaucracies attached to major royal or religious centres. Yet scribal activity in ancient Israel was not limited to the production of biblical literature, and documentary evidence suggests that Hebrew scribes could be encountered in a wide array of situations and performed a range of duties. 1 A sample of comparatively recent monograph-length studies devoted to the study of scribal culture in ancient Israel includes such titles as: R. PERSON, The Deuteronomic School: History, Social Setting, and Literature, Leiden, 2002; R. PERSON, The Deuteronomic History and the Book of Chronicles: Scribal Works in an Oral World, Atlanta, 2010; K. VAN DER TOORN, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible, Cambridge Mass., 2007; D. CARR, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart, Oxford, 2005; C. ROLLSTON, Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel, Atlanta, 2010; and D. JEMIESON-DRAKE, Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah: A SocioArchaeological Approach, Sheffield, 20112. Notable shorter studies include, inter alia, N. SACHER FOX, In the Service of the King: Officialdom in Ancient Israel and Judah, Cincinnati, 2000, esp. p. 96-100; C. ROLLSTON, The Social Context of Alphabetic Writing in the First Millennium BCE, in A. YASUR-LANDAU, E. CLINE and R. YORKE (eds), The Social Archaeology of the Levant: From Prehistory through the Ottoman Period, Cambridge, 2017, p. 371–389, with extensive references; particular reference should also be made to ROLLSTON’s earlier, Scribal Education in Ancient Israel: The Old Hebrew Epigraphic Evidence, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 344 (2006), p. 47–74, which formed the basis of his monograph. William Schniedewind has also made significant and ongoing contributions to the study of Israelite scribal culture, e.g. W. SCHNIEDEWIND, Understanding Scribal Education in Ancient Israel: A View from Kuntillet ῾Ajrud, in Maarav 21 (2014), p. 271–293; and W. SCHNIEDEWIND, The Finger of the Scribe, New York, forthcoming. 2 VAN DER TOORN, Scribal Culture, p. 1–2.

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Admittedly, the evidence for scribal institutions in ancient Israel and Judah is relatively poor, especially when compared to the better documented societies of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and this has tempted many to begin at the level of comparative analysis.3 Nevertheless, the epigraphic corpus from the southern Levant is continually growing, and increasingly it is becoming possible to draw cautious syntheses without resorting to analogy.4 One under-examined area of research is letter writing. The following discussion will be limited to evidence pertaining to the Iron Age II (ca. 1000–586 BCE). This demarcation is justified on the grounds that in subsequent periods the conventions of Hebrew letter writing increasingly came under the influence of first Aramaic, and then Greco-Roman linguistic and cultural spheres.5 Evidence for this change lies in (a) the fact that the letters of the 5th century BCE Jewish community at Elephantine were written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew, and (b) that the Hebrew letters from the Christian era (notably the Wadi Muraba῾ât and Naḥal Ḥever letters) reflect Aramaic conventions previously unattested in the Hebrew tradition: most conspicuously in their use of the formula mn PN1 l+PN2 (or the semantically equivalent mn PN1 ᾿l PN2) ‘from PN1, to PN2’.6 At present, 40 provenanced Iron Age II Hebrew letters and letter portions have been published.7 To these might be added three fragmentary texts, written in the 3 This tendency is attested most clearly in discussions of scribal education, e.g. the comparative approach adopted in CARR, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart. 4 See, for example, the essays by André Lemaire, Nadav Na’aman, Christopher Rollston, Brian Schmidt, and Jessica Whisenant in B.B. SCHMIDT (ed.), Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, Atlanta, 2015. 5 The rise of Aramaic as a prestige language and international lingua franca can be traced at least to the expansion of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BC; cf. W. SCHNIEDEWIND, Aramaic, the Death of Written Hebrew, and Language Shift in the Persian Period, in S. SANDERS (ed.), Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures, Chicago, 2007, p. 135–152, at p. 141–151. It is in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which describe the return of exiles to Jerusalem in the Persian period (ca. 538 BC), that we begin to see evidence of the influence of Imperial Aramaic in Hebrew contexts. Signs of this change include the fact that the letters reproduced in these books, which are ostensibly copies of actual correspondence with the Persian authorities, are written in Aramaic (note that these letters were intended to reflect sociolinguistic reality, and, as such, the question of their authenticity does not bear on the present discussion). It is also noteworthy that Ezra himself is described as a scribe (sōpēr/sāpēr), who presumably received his training in the Persian chanceries (see also Daniel 1:3–7). 6 Cf. D. PARDEE, Handbook of Hebrew Letters, Chico, 1982, p. 161–162; J. FITZMYER, Some Notes on Aramaic Epistolography, in Journal of Biblical Literature 93 (1974), p. 201–225, at p. 211–212. 7 Cf. PARDEE, Handbook; J. LINDENBERGER, Ancient Aramaic and Hebrew Letters, Atlanta, 2003. This figure includes an ostracon from Meṣad Ḥashavyahu (Yavneh Yam), late 7th century; Arad ostraca, 1–14, 16–18, 21, 24, 26 and 111, early late 7th–6th century; Arad ostracon 40, which was not found in a stratified context and has been dated on palaeographic grounds somewhere between late 8th–early 7th century; Lachish ostraca 2–6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16–18, early 6th century; a papyrus palimpsest from Wadi Muraba῾ât (papMur18a), for which palaeography suggests a probable early 7th century date. Extensive bibliographic details can be found for each of these texts in PARDEE’s Handbook. In addition to the texts surveyed by Pardee are two 8th century letter drafts from Kuntillet ῾Ajrud, recently published as inscriptions 3.1 and 3.6 in Z. MESHEL, Kuntillet ῾Ajrud (Ḥorvat

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closely related Ammonite, Edomite, and Phoenician dialects, which, on the basis of formulae shared with the Hebrew letters, can be shown to belong to a common epistolary tradition.8 These 43 letters come from eight sites located throughout the southern Levant, but they are mainly concentrated in the arid and semiarid zones in the south and the east.9 Of these, 34 (approximately 79%) come from just two sites in the south of Judah: Tel Arad and Tell ed-Duweir (Lachish). Many of the letters appear to have been part of a regular exchange of military communication. These typically assume prior knowledge of the identities of the senders and or recipients, employing a simple prepositional address formula (l+PN, ‘to PN’), which obscures any possible scribal input in the letter writing process. To complicate matters further, there is only one seemingly explicit reference to the involvement a scribe in the context of sending or receiving a letter (Lachish 3), and even that is uncertain (see below). Yet, the situation is not as dire as it first appears and there is much that can be inferred about the role of scribes on the basis of the remaining documents. The biblical evidence Before turning to the epigraphic data it is helpful to consider what the Hebrew Bible reveals about the social function of scribes and their role in the letter writing process. The most common Hebrew term for a scribe is sōpēr, literally ‘writer, counter, recorder’, a deverbal noun derived from sāpar ‘to write, count, retell’.10 This semantically broad term was evidently used to denote anything Teman): An Iron Age II Religious Site on the Judah-Sinai Border, Jerusalem, 2012, and two unprovenanced ostraca (Moussaïeff Hebrew ostraca 1 and 2). The authenticity of the latter two has been questioned, and as they do not bear directly on questions of scribal practice – although the contents of ostracon 2 are comparable to the Meṣad Ḥashavyahu ostracon – they will not be considered here. I also omit three unprovenanced ostraca – one of them a palimpsest – ostensibly from Makkedah, which were published in S. AḤITUV, Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical World, Jerusalem, 2008, p. 194–207. Although the contents of these ostraca bear certain similarities to the other private letters discussed below, their lack of provenance means they contribute little new information. 8 These are an Ammonite ostracon from Tell el-Mazār; an Edomite ostracon from Ḥorvat ῾Uza, and a Phoenician papyrus from Saqqara (KAI 50). For transcriptions and bibliographic details see LINDENBERGER, Ancient Aramaic and Hebrew Letters. I omit the so-called Aḥiqam ostracon from Ḥorvat ῾Uza on the grounds that a) it lacks the customary epistolary formulae; and b) it is too fragmentary to provide meaningful insight into its nature and purpose; cf. A. MENDEL, Who Wrote the Aḥiqam Ostracon from Ḥorvat ῾Uza?, in Israel Exploration Journal 61 (2011), p. 54–67. 9 See the maps in LINDENBERGER, Ancient Aramaic and Hebrew Letters, p. xviii, and the comprehensive survey of inscriptions from the 8th to early 6th centuries BC in N. NA’AMAN, Literacy in the Negev of the Late Monarchical Period, in SCHMIDT (ed.), Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings, p. 47–70. In large part, this accident of preservation can be explained by the dryer conditions in those zones, which are comparatively favourable for the preservation of perishable writing materials (such as inks and papyrus). 10 In Biblical Aramaic the nominalisation sāpēr is attested six times: Ezra 4:8, 9, 17, 23; 7:12, 21. The deverbal noun kotbān ‘writer, copyist’ (from kātab ‘to write’) is also attested once in the much later Qohelet Rabbah (first printed edition 1519).

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from a basic record keeper to a high ranking official.11 Even so, the duties of the sōpēr seem to have been intrinsically related to the production of written documents, including letters, as is indicated by the etymologically related noun sēper, denoting a ‘document, record, letter’. Within the biblical tradition scribes (sōpērîm) are described as both reading and writing on behalf of others.12 Furthermore, it has been argued on the basis of biblical and comparative evidence that the sōpēr might also have functioned as a messenger, charged with conveying a written message and, where necessary, relaying it in oral form.13 When we consider the biblical evidence for the role of scribes in the process of sending and receiving written correspondence the picture is ambiguous. Several individuals are described as ‘writing’ a letter: King David (2 Samuel 11:14, 15); Jezebel, queen of Israel (1 Kings 21:8, 9, 11); Jehu, king of Judah (2 Kings 10:1, 6); Hezekiah, king of Judah (2 Chronicles 30:1); Sennacherib, king of Assyria (2 Chronicles 32:17); and, in the Persian period, the leaders of the remnant in the territories of Samaria and Palestine (including Shimshai the scribe, Ezra 4:7, 8).14 Similarly, a number of individuals are described as ‘reading’ a letter: Joram, king of Israel (2 Kings 5:7); Hezekiah, king of Judah (2 Kings 19:14; Isaiah 37:14); and Zephaniah, the priest (Jeremiah 29:29). In each case, however, it is unclear whether the verbs qārā᾿ and kātab mean, respectively, ‘to read’ and ‘to write’, or ‘to have something read’ and ‘to have something written’.15 In addition, these verses should be balanced against explicit references from the Persian period to individuals or groups having a letter read to them (Ezra 4:18, 23), and one instance in which scribes (sōprê-hammelek, ‘the scribes of the king’) are specifically 11 References to high officials include: 2 Samuel 8:17; 20:25; 1 Kings 4:3; 2 Kings 12:10; 18:18, 37; 19:2; 22:3, 8, 9, 10, 12: 25:19; 1 Chronicles 2:55; 18:16; 24:6; Nehemiah 8:1, 4, 9, 13; 12:26, 36; 13:13; more general references include: Psalms 45:1 (Heb. 2); Isa 36:3, 22; 37:2; Jeremiah 8:8; 36:10, 12, 20, 21, 26, 32; 37:15, 20; 52:25; Nahum 3:17; Esther 3:12; 8:9. There is also some evidence for trained scribes attached to the priestly caste: 2 Chronicles 24:11; 26:11; 34:13, 15, 18, 20. 12 Cf. the discussion in I. YOUNG, Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence: Part I, in Vetus Testamentum 48 (1998), p. 239–253, esp. p. 245, 247. 13 Crown argued that in the Tell El-Amarna correspondence this same duty is associated with the functionary known as mâr-šipri, leading him to posit an etymological relationship between the two titles; cf. A. CROWN, Messengers and Scribes: The ‫ ספר‬and ‫ מלאך‬in the Old Testament, in Vetus Testamentum 24 (1974), p. 366–370. The possibility that the roles of writer, messenger, and reader were combined in a single individual might also be reflected in the common epistolary formula, ᾿mr PN1 ᾿mr l+PN2 ‘Message of PN1, say to PN2’, which bears a superficial resemblance to the prophetic messenger formula of the Hebrew Bible: kh ᾿mr yhwh ‘Thus says YHWH’ (e.g. Isaiah 7:7). Furthermore, despite the connotations of writing which are typically associated with the nouns sēper and sōpēr, there are many instances in which the verb sāpar unequivocally denotes a spoken act (e.g. Genesis 37:9, 10; 40:8, 9; 41:8, 12; Judges 7:13; 1 Samuel 11:5). 14 In addition to the above, 2 Chronicles 21 refers to a letter sent by the prophet Elijah; however, the text contains no indication as to whether the letter was written by Elijah himself; cf. YOUNG, Israelite Literacy: Part I, p. 251–252. 15 Cf. YOUNG, Israelite Literacy: Part I, p. 248–250; I. YOUNG, Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence: Part II, in Vetus Testamentum 48 (1998), p. 408–422, at p. 408–409.

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said to write a letter on behalf of another (Esther 8:9–10). In addition, Jeremiah 29 refers to a letter sent by the prophet. The passage is silent as to the identity of the writer at this point, but elsewhere there are references to the scribe Baruch writing from Jeremiah’s dictation (Jeremiah 36:4, 18, 27, 32; 45:1; cf. 51:60). Lachish 3: The plea of a literate soldier Turning to the evidence of the letters themselves, the only (possible) explicit reference to the involvement a scribe in the context of sending or receiving a letter occurs on an ostracon (Lachish 3), discovered amid a cache of military correspondence in a room of the gate complex at Lachish.16 The Lachish letters can be dated on archaeological and historical grounds to the period shortly before Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Judah in 586 BC and, for the most part, seem to be official communications sent to the city from one or more nearby military outpost(s).17 In three of the letters (2, 3 and 6) the recipient, Ya᾿ush, is named, but only one letter (3) gives the sender’s name, Hosha῾yahu. The palaeography suggests that the letters were written by different individuals, but five of the ostraca (2, 6, 7, 8 and 18) – each inscribed in a different hand – apparently came from a single vessel, suggesting that those letters, at least, were probably produced over a comparatively short period at a single site.18 Notably, the hand attested in Lachish 3 does not appear on any of the other ostraca (observe, especially, the distinctive mêm and qôp), which admits the possibility that it was Hosha῾yahu himself who inscribed the sherd (see below).19 Yet, assuming a single explanation should be sought to account for the origin of the ostraca – as is perhaps implied by the common origin of 2, 6, 7, 8 and 18 – then the reference to the fire signals of Lachish in letter 4 suggests that the ostraca – or at least some of them – are most likely local copies of documents that had been sent to the site (see further below).20 Indeed, the size and strategic importance 16

See the general introductions in PARDEE, Handbook, p. 77–78; F.W. DOBBS-ALLSOPP et al., Hebrew Inscriptions Texts from the Biblical Period of the Monarchy with Concordance, New Haven, 2005, p. 299–303, with references. 17 Ostracon 4 includes the remark that the sender was watching for the fire signals of Lachish, but was no longer able to see the fire signals from Azekah, suggesting the author was located somewhere north of Lachish, between the two cities. 18 On the question of authorship see S. BIRNBAUM, The Lachish Ostraca, in Palestine Exploration Quarterly 71 (1939), p. 20–28, at p. 20–23; on the common origin of ostraca 2, 6, 7, 8 and 18 see H. TORCZYNER, The Lachish Letters, Oxford, 1938, p. 184, and most recently, A. ZAMMIT, The Lachish Letters: A Reappraisal of the Ostraca Discovered in 1935 and 1938 at Tell ed-Duweir, PhD Diss., University of Oxford, 2016, p. 228–237. 19 Torczyner remarked that the hands of Lachish 3 and 6 resembled one another, but BIRNBAUM has persuasively argued that they were the work of different individuals, BIRNBAUM, Lachish Ostraca, p. 20–23. 20 Cf. Y. YADIN, The Lachish Letters: Originals or Copies and Drafts?, in H. SHANKS and A. FINKELSTEIN (eds), Recent Archaeology in the Land of Israel, Washington, 1984, p. 179–186;

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of Lachish offers a ready explanation for the presence of multiple literate individuals there.21 The letter reads: ῾bdk . hwš῾yhw .šlḥ . lhgd 22 . l᾿dny . y᾿ ẘš . yšm῾ . yhwh ᾿ t ῾dny . šm῾ t . šlm w šm῾ t . ṭb . [.] w῾ t . hpqḥ 5. n ̊᾿ [.] ᾿ t ᾿ zn [.] ῾ bdk . lspr . ᾿ šr . šlḥth [.] ᾿ l ῾ bdk . ᾿ mš . ky . lb ῾ bdk dwh . m᾿ z .šlḥk . ᾿ l . ῾ bdk [.] wky . [.] ᾿ mr . ᾿ dny . l᾿ . yd῾ th . qr᾿ spr ḥyhwh . ᾿ m . nsh . ᾿ 10. yš .lqr᾿ ly . spr lnṣḥ . wgm . kl spr [.] ᾿ šr yb᾿ . ᾿ ly [.] ᾿ m . qr᾿ ty . ᾿ th w῾ ẘd . ᾿ tnnhw ᾿ l . m᾿ wmh wl῾ bdk . hgd . l᾿mr . yrd śr . hṣb᾿ 15. knyhw bn ᾿ lntn lb᾿ . mṣrymh . w᾿ t Reverse hwdwyhw bn ᾿ ḥyhw w᾿nšh šlḥ lqḥt. mzh wspr . ṭbyhw ῾ bd . hmlk . hb᾿ 20. ᾿l . šlm . bn yd῾ . m᾿ t . hnb᾿ . l᾿ mr . hšmr . šlḥh . ῾ b{d}k . ᾿ l . ᾿ dny Your servant Hosha῾yahu (hereby) sends to report to my lord Ya᾿ush. May YHWH cause my lord to hear tidings of peace and to hear good tidings. And now, please 5. explain to your servant23 the letter W. SCHNIEDEWIND, Sociolinguistic Reflections on the Letter of a ‘Literate’ Soldier (Lachish 3), in Zeitschrift für Althebraistik 13 (2000), p. 157–166, at p. 163. Nadav Na’aman has demonstrated on the basis of explicit references to forwarding written correspondence in the Lachish letters that local Judahite officials were accustomed to share letters that they received with neighbouring colleagues, which might have led to the production of local copies on ostraca, see N. NA’AMAN, The Distribution of Messages in the Kingdom of Judah in Light of the Lachish Ostraca, in Vetus Testamentum 53 (2003), p. 169–180; cf. ZAMMIT, Lachish Letters, p. 228–237. 21 BIRNBAUM, Lachish Ostraca, p. 23; contrast Schniedewind’s inference that the diversity of the handwriting attests widespread literacy, SCHNIEDEWIND, Sociolinguistic Reflections, p. 163. 22 Following standard Northwest Semitic epigraphic practice the symbol ˚ above a letter indicates a probable reading. The following transcriptions are adapted from LINDENBERGER, Ancient Aramaic and Hebrew Letters. 23 Lit. ‘open the ear of your servant’. This reading is now widely accepted; however, see H.L. GINSBERG, Lachish Notes, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 71 (1938), p. 24–27, at p. 25–26. In biblical Hebrew the more usual expression is pqḥ ᾿t ῾yn, ‘open the eyes’ (cf. Genesis 3:5, 7; 21:19; 2 Kings 4:35; 6:17, 20; 19:16 = Isaiah 37:19; Job 14:3; 27:19;

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you sent to your servant yesterday evening. For the heart of your servant has been sick from the time of your sending to your servant, because my lord said, ‘You did not understand it. Summon a scribe’. As YHWH lives! No one has ever attempted 10. to read to me before. And, furthermore, every letter that comes to me, if I read it, after, I can repeat it to the smallest detail.24 Now it has been reported to your servant that the commander of the army 15. Konyahu son of Elnatan has moved south in order to enter Egypt. And he Reverse has sent25 to take Hoduyahu son of Aḥiyahu and his men from here. As for the letter of Tobyahu, the servant of the king, that was sent 20. to Shallum son of Yada from the prophet, saying ‘Beware!’, your servant is sending it to my lord.

What is remarkable about this letter is the sender’s impassioned response (lines 4–13) to a suggestion that he is not able to read or understand a letter. Sociohistorical discussions of the ostracon have tended to focus on the question of literacy rates in Iron Age Israel but, more important for the present purposes is the incidental evidence these lines provide for the role of scribes in official correspondence.26 Much depends on the interpretation of the quotation in lines 8–9; however, the Hebrew presents several difficulties. First, the -h termination on yd῾th in line 8 may be interpreted either as a resumptive pronominal suffix, or as a vowel-marker (mater lectionis) indicating the final /ā/ of the 2.m.s. afformative of the (perfective) suffix conjugation (i.e. yāda῾tā). In other words, l᾿ yd῾th may equally be translated ‘you did not understand it (viz. an earlier correspondence)’, or ‘you do not know (how to read)’. Against the former possibility, it has been objected that if -h is a resumptive pronoun it has no antecedent.27 But, since yd῾th occurs in a quotation from an earlier document, it is possible that the subject of the pronoun was specified in the Vorlage, without necessarily being repeated in the recitation in 3:8. Such verbatim repetition would be consistent with Hosha῾yahu’s protestations in Proverbs 20:13; Isaiah 35:5; 42:7; Jeremiah 32:19; Zechariah 12:4; Daniel 9:18). However, the verb pqḥ is paired with ᾿zn in Isaiah 42:20. Andre Lemaire has also drawn attention to the cognate Akkadian expression uznā puttū, A. LEMAIRE, Inscriptions hébraïques I. Les ostraca, Paris, 1977, p. 102. The distinction between these visual/aural metaphors has potentially significant implications regarding Hosha῾yahu’s claims to be able to read for himself (line 9–13). However, the text at this point is severely damaged, and it is impossible to confirm either reading. 24 Lit. ‘to anything’. 25 Presumably ‘he has sent (a letter)’; cf. the use of šlḥ with that sense in line 1. 26 See, for example, W. SCHNIEDEWIND, How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel, Cambridge, 2004, p. 101–103. 27 So SCHNIEDEWIND, Sociolinguistic Reflections, p. 160.

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lines 11–13 that he is able to repeat the contents of any letter he receives ‘to the smallest detail’ (assuming that reading is correct). Furthermore, indirect support for reading -h as a resumptive pronoun can be found in the analogous pronominal suffix in šlḥh (3:21), where -h unambiguously refers to the letter (sēper) mentioned in line 19. Then again, with regard to the possibility that -h should be understood as a mater lectionis, it may be noted that the same form (yd῾th) also occurs in ostracon 2:6, while the analogous form šlḥth ‘you sent’ or ‘you sent it’ occurs in 3:6; but, because the syntax of both clauses admits the same ambiguity, neither form is useful for clarifying yd῾th in 3:8. Second, the verb qr᾿ (line 9) can be interpreted either as an infinitive (qārō᾿ ) ‘how to read (lit.: you do not know reading)’, or as an imperative (qĕrā᾿ ) ‘call, summon’. Third, it is unclear whether the noun spr should be vocalised sōpēr, ‘a scribe’, or sēper, ‘a letter’. That is, it is unclear whether the superior, Ya᾿ush, has said to Hosha῾yahu ‘you do not understand it. Call a scribe (sōpēr)’, or, ‘you do not know how to read a letter (sēper)’. Fourth, the illocutionary force of the Ya᾿ush’s remark is uncertain: it may be construed either as a question ‘do you not understand?’ or else as an allegation, ‘you do not understand!’ Accordingly, there are several possible interpretations of lines 8–9: ‘You did not understand (it). Call a scribe!’ ‘Did you not understand (it)? Call a scribe!’ ‘You do not know how to read a letter.’28 ‘Do you not know how to read a letter?’

Ultimately the decision about how to translate these lines falls to the individual interpreter, but in any case the implication is clear: evidently the superior Ya᾿ush accused Hosha῾yahu of failing to understand or appropriately act on earlier correspondence, and implied or recommended that he use the services of a (professional) reader. It has also been suggested that lines 9–13 might contain an additional reference to the use of a scribe. Thus, Frank Moore Cross proposed the translation: “and furthermore, any scribe (sôpēr) who might have come to me, I did not summon him and, further, I would pay him nothing!”29 The principal difficulty in these lines lies in the problematic verb ᾿tnnhw (line 12), which may be translated at least three ways, none of which is entirely satisfactory: (1) ᾿tnnhw might be derived from the root nātan ‘to give’; however, in this case the reduplicated 28

Citing Isaiah 29:11–12, Ian Young has proposed the starker ‘You are illiterate!’ (lit. ‘You do not know book’), see YOUNG, Israelite Literacy: Part II, p. 410. 29 F.M. CROSS, A Literate Soldier: Lachish Letter III, in A. KORT and S. MORCHAUSER (eds), Biblical and Related Studies Presented to Samuel Iwry, Winona Lake, 1985, p. 41–47, at p. 45; cf. YOUNG, Israelite Literacy: Part II, p. 411; SCHNIEDEWIND, Sociolinguistic Reflections, p. 158 n. 3, 161.

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nûn is difficult to explain (cf. ᾿ettĕnēhû, Ezekiel 31:11; Psalms 89:28).30 (2) ᾿tnnhw might be a variant of the verb šānah ‘to repeat’; however, due to the consonantal merger /ṯ/ > /š/ in Hebrew, the spelling tnh is more reminiscent of Aramaic orthography than Judahite .31 (3) ᾿tnnhw may conjecturally be related to the biblical noun ᾿etnan ‘a (harlot’s) fee’; however, this results in an awkward syntax, and the verb *tnn, ‘to pay a fee’, is unparalleled (contrast ᾿ettēn śākār, ‘to pay a fare/wage’, Jonah 1:3; Exodus 2:9).32 Here, too, the translation of the text falls to individual preference. Yet, whatever the solution, it seems we must accept that the writer of the letter has departed from either the expected orthography or the expected syntax. How is this to be explained? It is interesting to note that ᾿tnnhw is not the only unusual orthographic feature of the letter. William Schniedewind has also drawn attention to the unusual contraction ḥyhwh (3:9; for ḥy yhwh), which suggests a phonological spelling; the defective spelling of ᾿nšh (3:18; for ᾿nšyh); and the omission of dalet in ῾bk (3:21; for ῾bdk). These peculiarities might suggest that the writer, or copyist, of the letter was relatively inexperienced. This impression is supported by the uneven spacing of the lines and somewhat irregular handwriting, especially when compared to the other letters in the collection (e.g. Lachish 4). Furthermore, as Schniedewind observed, in official correspondence of this period it is unusual for the name of the sender to be included in the address formula.33 Consequently, Schniedewind suggested that, in light of the letter’s contents (esp. lines 4–13), the inclusion of the sender’s name may have been intended to explicitly preclude the presumption of scribal assistance in the composition of the letter. In other words, the naming of Hosha῾yahu might effectively signify: ‘Your servant Hosha῾yahu himself sends to inform you.’ If this is correct, then we must assume 30

That is, the nûn might be understood as an unassimilated energic. Otherwise, the nûn might be understood as an unusual graphic representation of the doubling typically associated with the pi῾el (intensive) stem as proposed by LEMAIRE, Inscriptions hébraïques, p. 103. Or, then again, the nûn might be explained as dittography. 31 The analogous forms yĕtannû (Judges 5:11) and lĕtannôt (Judges 11:40) are possible instances of code-switching. In both Judges 5:11 and 11:40, the verb (*nth) is in the pi῾el stem, which is characterised by a reduplication of the middle radical (see the preceding note). 32 While in Biblical Hebrew mĕûmâ with the negative particle can be translated ‘nothing at all’ (e.g. Genesis 30:31), in Lachish 3:13 there is no indication of negation. In 3:9 ᾿ m marks the negative apodosis of the oath ḥyhwh, but in 3:12 it marks the protasis of a conditional statement and the negative force of the oath formula is discontinued. The same difficulty applies if ᾿ tnnhw is derived from ntn. 33 The Arad ostraca typically use the simple prepositional formula ᾿ l + PN, ‘to PN’ (e.g. Arad 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 17, 18; for the few exceptions to this formula at Arad, see below), while the Lachish ostraca use the prepositional formula ᾿ l + epithet, e.g. ‘to my lord Yaush’ (Lachish 2, 6), or a variation on the greeting yšm῾ yhwh ᾿ t ᾿dny ῾ t kym šmt ṭb, ‘may YHWH cause my lord to hear good (tidings) at this time’. It is worth noting, however, that in the Kuntillet ῾Ajrud texts – which also seem to have an official character (see below) – both sender and recipient are named. Consequently, the inclusion or omission of the sender’s name may reveal more about the nature of the communication network, including relative social status, and the practical difficulties of longdistance correspondence, than stylistic preference.

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either that Lachish 3 was written in Hosha῾yahu’s own hand, or that the copyist was remarkably precise, to the point of reproducing idiosyncratic orthography.34 Caution is advisable, however, since the possibility remains that the idiosyncrasies should be attributed to a hurried or inexperienced scribe. It is difficult to know where on the spectrum of literary proficiency Hosha῾yahu should be placed. Certainly, his protestation seems to claim more than the functional literacy required to merely recognise and write his own name. Nor is it clear to what extent his claim to literacy should be considered typical of someone of his social standing; however, Hosha῾yahu’s response to the insinuation that he is unable to read seems to presume that literacy could be taken for granted from of someone in his position.35 It is also worth noting, therefore, that Hosha῾yahu’s letter is unusual among the Lachish ostraca due to its omission of the deferential expression: ‘who is your servant but a dog?’ This may suggest that he enjoyed relative seniority, in which case we should be careful about generalising from Hosh῾ayahu’s letter in order to infer that literacy was widespread among all levels of the military.36 Whatever the case, it is notable that the charge in lines 8–9 seems to be about more than simple illiteracy. Given the unusual vehemence of Hosha῾yahu’s oath in line 9, and noting that comparative evidence paints a picture in which it was normal for even the educated elite to be read to, Ian Young has observed that what Hosha῾yahu is defending against is unlikely to have been the allegation that he was illiterate simply because he had people read to him.37 A more likely suggestion is that Hosha῾yahu may have been allowing confidential information to leak out by using non-professional readers, or else that – for whatever reason – Hosha῾yahu had not been acting on orders that were sent to him.38 In any case, and notwithstanding Hosh῾ayahu’s indignation, Lachish 3 seems to imply that it was normal and acceptable practice to employ a scribe to read military correspondence. Moreover, as Cross observed, there is apparently an 34 This would, of course, imply a highly visual copying process. The possibility remains that Lachish 2, 6, 7, 8 and 18, were produced locally while Lachish 3 was sent to the site from elsewhere. Alternatively, if Hosha῾yahu was the commander at Lachish, then he may have drafted the ostracon in his own hand, before sending it to the gate to be copied and forwarded to Ya᾿ush. 35 Or perhaps it was common knowledge that Hosha῾yahu claimed to be able to read. 36 On the function of such formulae in the letters see E.J. BRIDGE, Polite Language in the Lachish Letters, in Vetus Testamentum 60 (2010), p. 518–534. We simply do not know enough about the nature of the correspondence or the relative social status of the correspondents, to permit confident inferences. It is notable, however, that the self-deprecating formula is predominantly found in letters in which the writer acknowledges receipt of privileged information, suggesting that it was associated in the letters with expressions of gratitude. 37 Cf. YOUNG, Israelite Literacy: Part II, p. 409–411. It should be noted, however, that in such cases the employment of a scribe may have been a sign of social status, without revealing anything about the individual’s ability to read or write. I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for this observation. 38 Cf. LEMAIRE, Inscriptions hébraïques, p. 107.

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underlying assumption by all parties that there was a scribe at hand who could readily be called upon to read the letter.39 Meṣad Ḥashavyahu: A judicial appeal Further, indirect evidence for the role of scribes in the composition of written correspondence comes in the form of a late 7th century petition by an agricultural labourer appealing for the return of a confiscated garment. The ostracon was discovered in 1960 at a small Iron Age fortress (now known as Meṣad Ḥashavyahu) near the port at Yavneh Yam on the Mediterranean coast.40 The labourer is not named in the ostracon and refers to himself only as ῾bdk (῾adbĕkā) ‘your servant’,41 while the addressee is referred to only by the title śr (śar), ‘commander, governor’, a title that can denote a number of official positions depending on the context.42 The ostracon does not contain the expected address formulae of a letter and, as such, its inclusion in a discussion about epistolary practice requires some justification.43 To that end, it may be observed that the omission of the praescriptio can best be explained either on the basis that the ostracon was a rough draft and that the customary formulae were subsequently to be added to the ‘official’ copy, or else that the document was written within a closed context – perhaps at the entrance to the fortress – and was to be relayed directly to the commander.44 The latter scenario is probably to be preferred as there is an implicit assumption in the petition that the relevant parties would be known to the śar – note the anonymity of the harvester throughout the text.45 In either case, insofar as the ostracon serves to communicate information of an occasional nature and apparently stands in lieu of direct personal contact between the communicants it might be said to fulfil the function of a letter.

39

CROSS, Literate Soldier, p. 47. See J. NAVEH, A Hebrew Letter from the Seventh Century B.C., in Israel Exploration Journal 10 (1960), p. 129–139; D. PARDEE, The Judicial Plea from Meṣad Ḥashavyahu (Yavneh-Yam): A New Philological Study, in Maarav 1 (1978), p. 33–66. 41 Depending on whether the participle qôṣēr in line 3 is interpreted as a substantive or as a durative verb, it is possible that the petitioner describes himself as ‘a harvester’; cf. A. RAINEY, Syntax and Rhetorical Analysis in the Hashavyahu Ostracon, in Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Studies 27 (2000), p. 75–79, at p. 76. 42 N. SACHER FOX, In the Service of the King, p. 158–163; W.M. SCHNIEDEWIND, Commander of the Fortress? Understanding an Ancient Israelite Military Title, in Biblical Archaeology Review 45 (2019), p. 39–44, 70. 43 Cf. PARDEE, Judicial Plea, p. 38. 44 It is also theoretically possibly that the ostracon was a written record of an oral transaction spoken directly by the harvester to the commander; however, in that case it is unclear why such a full transcription, and not a simple summary, would be required. 45 Cf. F.W. DOBBS-ALLSOPP, The Genre of the Meṣad Ḥashavyahu Ostracon, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 295 (1994), p. 49–55, at p. 52. 40

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In the petition the labourer claims that a certain Hosha῾yahu ben Shabbay – presumably not the same Hosha῾yahu as in Lachish 3 – has unjustly deprived him of his outer garment as a penalty for not completing the required harvest quota. The harvester asserts his innocence, saying that his fellow labourers will testify on his behalf, and ends by appealing to the governor’s kindness and legal obligation. yšm῾ ᾿ dny . hśr ᾿ t dbr ῾ bdh . ῾ bdk qṣr . hyh . ῾ bdk . bḥṣr᾿ sm . wyqṣr ῾ bdk 5. wykl w᾿ sm kymm . lpny šbt k᾿ šr kl [῾]bdk ᾿ t qṣr w᾿sm kymm wyb᾿ . hwš῾ yhw bn šby . wyqḥ . ᾿ t bgd ῾ bdk k᾿ šr klt ᾿ t qṣry zh ymm lqḥ ᾿ t bgd ῾ bdk 10. wkl ᾿ ḥy . y῾ nw ly hqṣrm ᾿ ty bḥm hšmš ᾿ ḥy . y῾ nw ly ᾿ mn nqty . m᾿[šm hšb n᾿ ᾿ t] bgdy w᾿ m l᾿ . lśr lhš[b ᾿ t bgd] ῾ b[dk wtt]n ᾿ ly . rḥ[mm whš]bt ᾿ t [bgd ῾ ]bdk wl᾿ tdhm […] 15. [……………] May my lord, the commander, hear the plea of his servant. As for your servant, your servant was harvesting in Ḥaṣar᾿Asam;46 and your servant reaped, 5. and he measured,47 and he stored (the grain) according to the quota48 before the sabbath.49 When your [se]rvant had measured the harvest and had stored it according to the quota, Hosha῾yahu ben Shabay, came and he took the cloak of your servant, when I had measured the harvest at that time.50 He took the cloak of your servant! 10. and all my brothers will testify for me – those harvesting in the heat of the sun – my brothers will testify ‘it is so.’ I am inno[cent of (any offence). Please cause my] cloak to be returned, and if you will not (it is still incumbent) on the commander51 to cause [your serv]ant’s cloak [to be returned]. [Pray sho]w compassion to him, [and cause the] cloak of your servant to be returned. You must not remain silent! 15. [……………] 46

Or, ‘Your servant is a harvester; your servant was in Ḥaṣar᾿Asam.’ Following RAINEY, Syntax and Rhetorical Analysis, p. 77–78 in identifying kl with kwl/kyl ‘to measure’, rather than kly ‘to complete, finish’; cf. PARDEE, Handbook, p. 22. 48 Lit. ‘according to the days’. Other interpretations include ‘a few days ago’, PARDEE, Handbook, p. 20, 21–22; and ‘as always’, RAINEY, Syntax and Rhetorical Analysis, p. 76. 49 Or, ‘before stopping’. 50 Or, ‘when I had measured the harvest of those days’; cf. PARDEE, Handbook, p. 22. 51 Following F.M. CROSS, Epigraphic Notes on Hebrew Documents of the Eighth-Sixth Centuries B.C. II. The Murabba῾ât Papyrus and the Letter Found near Yabneh-yam, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 165 (1962), p. 34–46, at p. 45; cf. the discussion in PARDEE, Handbook, p. 22. 47

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The language of the petition is somewhat repetitive and this has been taken by some to suggest that it may have been written at the dictation of the harvester himself.52 Nevertheless, the handwriting is well-formed, suggesting a trained hand, and it seems reasonable to infer that the petition was recorded by a professional scribe, since even the most generous estimates of the extent of literacy in Iron Age Israel do not extend to peasant labourers.53 Consequently, it seems that at least at the fortress at Meṣad Ḥashavyahu there was a scribe attached to the household of the commander, and that even the lowliest could gain access to their services in an official capacity. Moreover, in contrast to the consensus view, Anson Rainey has argued that the petition is carefully crafted, using extraposition and delicately balanced repetition for rhetorical effect.54 If correct, this would seem to imply that the petitioner could rely upon the literary and judicial expertise of the scribe in order to improve the style and substance of their petition. Epistolary formulae and evidence for education in the conventions of letter writing In addition to the direct and indirect evidence of the ostraca from Lachish and Meṣad Ḥashavyahu, it is also possible to adduce evidence for education in the conventions of letter writing. This comes in the form of a pair of letter formulae (KA 3.1 and KA 3.6) written in ink on the sides of two large storage vessels, which were discovered at an isolated eighth-century settlement known as Kuntillet ῾Ajrud. The formulae are accompanied on the sides of the vessels by miscellaneous texts (including abecedaria) and crude line drawings, which individually and collectively are best understood as either practice or educational exercises.55 52 Cf. B. ISSERLIN, Epigraphically Attested Judean Hebrew and the Question of ‘Upper Class’ (Official) and ‘Popular’ Speech Variants in Judea during the 8th-6th Centuries BC, in Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology 2 (1972), p. 197–203, at p. 198. 53 There is an implicit assumption here that the harvester was poor. This is not a necessary supposition based on the ostracon alone; however, protection for the poor seems to have been one of the primary motivations of the biblical proscriptions that inform the sociological and judicial background to this petition (Exodus 22:26; Deuteronomy 24:12–15, 17). 54 RAINEY, Syntax and Rhetorical Analysis, p. 75–79. Rainey’s argument has some force, but it should be noted that the ostracon evinces a relatively inconsistent approach to spelling, particularly with regard to the representation of vowel letters, compare klt (kaltî) ‘I measured’, line 8, and nqty (niqqētî) ‘I am innocent’, line 11, cf. I. YOUNG, The Language of the Judicial Plea from Meṣad Ḥashavyahu, in Palestine Exploration Quarterly 122 (1990), p. 56–58, at p. 56–57. This inconsistency can plausibly be explained as the result of hurried carelessness as the scribe attempted to keep pace with dictation, the informal nature of a draft, or a degree of mediocracy on the part of the scribe – it is difficult to escape the impression that lines 10–11 are somewhat jejune and repetitive. Indeed, it is not necessary to press the point of scribal expertise too far. 55 The finds from Kuntillet ῾Ajrud were recently published in MESHEL, Kuntillet ʻAjrud. For the case that the pithoi inscriptions and drawings from Kuntillet ῾Ajrud were pedagogical exercises, see SCHNIEDEWIND, Understanding Scribal Education in Ancient Israel, p. 271–293. Brian Schmidt has suggested that each of these may plausibly be explained as rough drafts or studies before the production of a master copy and need not be related to an educational context, but there is no evidence that any of the texts or drawings were reproduced elsewhere at the site, B.B. SCHMIDT,

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The small settlement situated on a hilltop in the eastern Sinai desert may have been associated with trade routes passing through the region; however, it is also possible that Kuntillet ῾Ajrud might have had cultic significance, either as a regional shrine or a pilgrim way-station.56 Onomastic, orthographic and archaeological features attested at the site suggest that it was occupied and administered by individuals from the northern kingdom of Israel (note, especially, the probable reference to the northern capital, Samaria, in KA 3.1).57 The inscriptions are variations on a common Northwest Semitic epistolary formula, comprising an imperative verb of address (᾿ĕmōr, ‘say’) followed by a blessing dedicated to the relevant deity (or deities). The formulae read: KA 3.1 ᾿ mr . ᾿ […] r῾. hm[l]k . ᾿ mr . lyhl[y] . wlyw῾ śh . wl[…] brkt . ᾿ tkm lyhwh . šmrn . wl᾿ šrth Message of ᾿A[…] the friend of the ki[n]g,58 say to Yaheli and to Yo῾assah and to […] I have blessed you59 to YHWH of Samaria and to his Asherah.60 KA 3.6

5.

᾿ mr ᾿ mryw ᾿ mr l.᾿ dny hšlm . ᾿ t brktk lyhwh tmn wl᾿ šrth . ybrk wyšmrk wyhy ῾ m ᾿ dny

5.

Message of ᾿Amarayaw, say to my lord, are you well? I have blessed you to YHWH of Teman and to his Asherah. May he bless you, and may he keep you, and may he be with my lord

Kuntillet ῾Ajrud’s Pithoi Inscriptions and Drawings: Graffiti and Scribal-Artisan Drafts?, in Maarav 20, 2013, 52–82. 56 For a recent summary with discussion and references, see J. SMOAK and W. SCHNIEDEWIND, Religion at Kuntillet ῾Ajrud, in Religions 10 (2019), p. 1–18. 57 Evidence for Northern occupation includes the divine epithet yhwh smrn ‘YHWH of (the Northern capital) Samaria’; the frequent occurrence of the Northern theophoric element -yhw in PNN; and the contraction of the ay diphthong in a number of the inscriptions. For a discussion of these matters and an attempt to contextualise the site historically, see G. WEARNE, The Plaster Texts from Kuntillet ῾Ajrud and Deir ῾Alla, p. 123–157, 180–185. 58 Following N. NA’AMAN, The Inscriptions of Kuntillet ῾Ajrud Through the Lens of Historical Research, in Ugarit-Forschungen 43 (2011), p. 299–324, at p. 302–303. Alternatively, ‘Thus says ᾿A[shaya]w, the ki[n]g’; cf. P.K. MCCARTER, Kuntillet ῾Ajrud: Inscribed pithos 1 (2.47A), in W. HALLO (ed.), The Context of Scripture, vol. 2, Leiden, 2003, p. 171, n. 1. 59 Or, ‘I hereby bless you’; cf. D. PARDEE, The “Epistolary Perfect” in Hebrew Letters, in Biblische Notizen 22 (1983), p. 34–40. 60 It is not clear whether ᾿šrth denotes a sanctuary, a cultic installation or the goddess of the same name. The secondary literature devoted to this question is vast. For a summary and discussion see J. HADLEY, The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess (Cambridge Oriental Publications 57), Cambridge, 2000, esp. p. 106–155.

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Several factors suggest that KA 3.1 and 3.6 might have been written as pedagogical exercises. First, the collocation of the formulae with other ostensible practice exercises suggests that the vessels were used as writing supports for scribal training. Second, KA 3.1 and 3.6 terminate neatly after the address and greeting formulae, although there was ample space on each vessel for the scribe to transition to the body of the letter if desired. Third, in KA 3.1 Nadav Na’aman has plausibly restored the title r῾ hmlk, ‘friend of the king’, a high-ranking royal official of the northern capital. As there would have been no immediate reason for a scribe at Kuntillet ῾Ajrud to practice a formula naming a northern official, this may imply that KA 3.1 was a local copy of an actual letter that had been sent to the site.61 Fourth, in KA 3.6 there is a significant, albeit relatively minor, orthographic anomaly, in which the preposition l-, ‘to’, has been separated from the name of the recipient to which it should have been prefixed. According to the conventions of modern English letter writing, this is equivalent to writing Dear, John, rather than Dear John,. The nature of this error seems to suggest that, at the time of transcription, these formulae had been imperfectly learned and were being reproduced from rote memorisation.62 Variations on the verbal formulae In addition to the formulae from Kuntillet ῾Ajrud, variations of the ᾿ĕmōr (‘say’) formula are attested in several further letters, which can be identified on archaeological and linguistic grounds as Hebrew, Phoenecian, Ammonite, and Edomite.63 These letters span a period of more than 200 years, from the late-9th to the early-6th centuries, and suggest that during that period the basic formula was widely used throughout the southern Levant. Each of the letters contains personalised blessings and welfare enquiries, and, with the exception of the Hebrew Muraba῾ât papyrus in which only the praescriptio is preserved, deals principally with the private exchange of goods. As such it seems reasonable to infer that they represent private rather than official correspondence. One of these letters, an Ammonite ostracon from Tell el-Mazār in the central Jordan Valley, is especially noteworthy, owing to an unusual change of grammatical person in the praescriptio. The letter reads:

61 Given that KA 3.1 apparently names the r῾ hmlk and YHWH of Samaria and KA 3.6 names YHWH of Teman, it is possible that two sides of the correspondence between the site and the northern capital are reflected here. 62 More specifically, the division suggests a conceptual error according to which the preposition and the verb of address were conceived as a unit, rather than the preposition together with the name of the recipient. 63 These are, respectively, the Hebrew papyrus from Wadi Muraba῾ât; the Phoenician papyrus from Saqqara; the Ammonite ostracon from Tell el-Mazār; and the Edomite ostracon from Ḥorvat ῾Uza.

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᾿mr plṭ ᾿mr l᾿ḥh l῾bd᾿[l] šlm ᾿t w῾t š῾r{r}t ᾿tn lk š῾rt lšbt . k῾r[bn] w῾ ̊t tn lplṭ ᾿ [ḥk] yšb b᾿

Message of Peleṭ, say to his brother ᾿Ebed-᾿El, are you well? And now, as for the she-goat, I am giving a she-goat64 to you to deposit as a ple[dge]. And now, give to Peleṭ, [your broth]er, who lives in

The use of the third person pronoun when introducing the recipient in this letter is unique.65 Yet, when the body of this letter is reached, the diction reverts to the first and second persons as is usual. It is possible that the ostracon was written by the sender, who, having already named himself in the third person, as is usual in this formula, continued in that mode until the end of the address, or that the formula contained instructions for delivery to a third party; however, the use of the third person pronoun may also be explained as an unconscious slip reflecting the perspective of a third party employed to write the letter on behalf of the sender.66 Consequently, although there is little else to suggest that the individual who drafted the letter was unusually careless or incompetent, here, too, might be indirect evidence for the involvement of a scribe in the composition of written correspondence.67 Evidence for the composition of written correspondence without the aid of a scribe Can we assume that it was standard practice to employ a scribe to write a letter? To do so would go beyond the available evidence. In fact, it might be possible to argue the contrary on the basis of the address formulae, and to suggest that there were times – other than the soldier’s letter from Lachish – when individuals wrote letters in their own hand and did not use the services of a scribe. By far the largest concentration of ancient Hebrew letters (more than 20 ostraca) comes from the citadel at Tel Arad in the northern Negev.68 Most of these ostraca reflect functional military correspondence, containing basic requisition orders with instructions for the provisioning of mercenaries (Kittîm) 64 See K. YASSINE and J. TEIXIDOR, Ammonite and Aramaic Inscriptions from Tell El-Mazār in Jordan, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 264 (1986), p. 45–50, at p. 47. 65 The other ᾿ mr formulae read: ᾿mr […]yhw lk, ‘thus says […]yahu to you’ (papMur18a); ᾿ mr . l᾿ ḥty . ᾿ ršt . ᾿ mr . ᾿ ḥtk . bś᾿, ‘say to my sister Arishut, thus says your sister Basu᾿’ (Phoenician papyrus); and ᾿mr . lmlk . ᾿ mr . lblbl, ‘Message of Lumalek, say to Bulbul’ (Ḥorvat ῾Uza ostracon). 66 I am indebted to Rachel Yuen-Collingridge for the suggestion that the syntax might reflect delivery instructions for a third party. For an analogous feature of Greek letters, see S. LLEWELYN, The εἰς (τὴν) οἰκίαν Formula and the Delivery of Letters to Third Persons or to Their Property, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 101 (1994), p. 71–78. 67 One remarkable feature is the deformed resh in š῾r{r}t in line 2, which was written on a grit, and so was apparently crossed out and rewritten. This is only a minor problem, but it could easily have been avoided, and so perhaps hints at the carelessness or inexperience of the writer. 68 Y. AHARONI, Arad Inscriptions, Jesualem, 1981.

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passing through the site. The majority of these employ a simple address formula consisting of only the preposition ᾿l, ‘to’, followed by the name of the addressee, e.g. Arad 4: ᾿ l ᾿ lyšb tn lktym šmn / wšlḥnw wyyn b \\ tn lhm.

To ᾿Elyashib: Give t the Kittim 1 jar of o-il; seal (it) and send it, and give them 2 baths of wine.

Three of the Arad ostraca (16, 21 and 40) stand apart, however, due to their use of an augmented formula, which is characterised by the naming of the sender(s), as in Lachish 3, followed by the expression šlḥ(w) lšlm ‘he/they send greetings’. At present, the augmented formula is unparalleled in provenanced inscriptions outside of Arad.69 These ostraca seem to allude to the completion of orders or instructions and so belong with the other official correspondence in the archive, but they also include extended and personalised blessings, and the senders and recipients are referred to by kinship terms (e.g. bnkm ‘your sons’, bnk ‘your son’, and ᾿ ḥk ‘your brother’, respectively), suggesting a close familial or, more likely, social relationship between the correspondents.70 The basic pattern can be demonstrated by Arad 40: bnkm . gmr[yhw] wnḥYour sons Gemar[yahu] and Neḥemyahu myhw . šlḥ [lšlm] send [for the welfare of] mlkyh brkt [lyhw]h Melekyahu, I bless you [to Yhw]h w῾t . hṭh [῾ ]bdk [l]bh And now, your [se]rvant has inclined his [he]art 5. ᾿ l . ᾿ šr ᾿ m[rt wktbt]y 5. to that which you sa[id, and] I [have written] ᾿ l ᾿ dny [᾿ t kl ᾿ šr r-] to my lord [all that] the man [ ṣh h᾿ yš [ b-] [de]sired [ ᾿ . m᾿ tk . w᾿ yš [l᾿ ntn l-] [ca]me from you, but no-one [gave (it) to] hm . whn yd῾ th [ m-] them. And behold you know [ from] 10. ᾿ dm nttm l᾿ dn[y bṭrm y-] 10. Edom, I gave them to my lor[d before the rd ym . w[᾿ ]s̊ [yh]w ln [bbyty] [e]nd of the day. And [᾿I]sha[yah]u spent the night [in my house] wh᾿ hmktb bqš [wl᾿ ntt-] and he requested the letter [but] I [would not give (it)] y . yd῾ . mlk̊ . yhwd[h ky ᾿y-] Make known to the king of Juda[h that we are nnw yklm lšlḥ ᾿t h[ ] unable to send the [ 15. ᾿t hr῾h . ᾿š[r] ᾿d[m] 15. the evil th[at] the Edo[mites have done 69 Note that while Arad 16 and 21 appear to be contemporary, Arad 40 might be a century older, suggesting this formula was again comparatively widespread; cf. PARDEE, Handbook, p. 28. I am aware of only one other instance of the šlḥ lšlm formula. This occurs in the upper text of an unprovenanced palimpsest, allegedly from Makkedah, which was published by S. AḤITUV and A. YARDENI, Silver Pistachio and Grain: Two Letters of the Seventh-Sixth Centuries BCE, in D. SIVAN, D. TALSHIR and C. COHEN (eds), Zaphenath-Paneah: Linguistic Studies Presented to Elisha Qimron on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, Beer-Sheva, 2009, p. 15–28 (republished in AḤITUV, Echoes from the Past, p. 119–205). The formula reads: ῾bdk yd῾yhw šlḥ lšlm ᾿dny ndbyhw wlšlm bytk brktyk lyhwh, “Your servant Yada῾yahu send for the welfare of my lord, Nadabyahu, and for the welfare of your house, I bless you to Yhwh.” 70 Note that in each case the recipient is different.

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What is especially interesting about these letters is that they dispense with the third person address of the ᾿ĕmōr (‘say’) formula, and instead address the recipients directly in the second person. They, thereby, establish a sense of relative familiarity between the correspondents and – when considered together with the naming of the senders – might imply that the letter was written in the sender’s own hand. Here, too, caution is needed, however, as the augmented formulae might represent nothing more than stylistic preference. Who used scribes and how? It remains to consider what these letters reveal about the social contexts in which scribes might have been encountered. The first observation to be made in this connection is that in most cases it is virtually impossible to know what stage of the composition and delivery process the extant texts represent. With some, such as the ration slips from Arad, it is reasonable to assume that the ostraca were used as tokens and exchanged for the goods named. This explanation is consistent with the fact that all were addressed to the same individual (᾿Elyashib) and were, for the most part, found in a single room of the fortified complex.71 A similar explanation may also be tentatively extended to the Edomite and Ammonite ostraca from Ḥorvat ῾Uza and Tell el-Mazār, both of which deal with the exchange of goods; however, it is also possible that those ostraca are drafts or copies of letters which were written on papyrus. And in fact, we have fragments of two papyrus letters bearing the same address formulae, which date from this period (papMur18a and the Phoenician papyrus KAI 50), as well as hundreds of clay bullae, many of which still bear papyrus impressions on the reverse.72 It would be unwarranted to assume that all of these bullae were used to seal letters, but it seems reasonable to suppose that at least some could have served that purpose. It is also worth noting that the abridged address formulae in the Lachish and Arad ostraca seem to assume a closed delivery context, in which a messenger carried the document directly from point A to point B, so that it was not necessary to explicitly identify the sender. On the other hand, some letters, such as the papyri, seem to have included explicit delivery instructions, in the form of an external address that could be read once the sheet was folded and sealed, suggesting that they were not part of a regular correspondence.73 71 See Y. AHARONI, Arad: Its Inscriptions and Temple, in The Biblical Archaeologist 31 (1968), p. 1–32, at p. 13. 72 The standard reference work on Northwest Semitic seals is N. AVIGAD and B. SASS, Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals, Jerusalem, 1997. 73 For example, the Phoenecian papyrus from Saqqara includes a separate address line on the reverse: i.e. ᾿l ᾿ršt bt ᾿[šm]ny[tn], ‘to ᾿Arishut, daughter of ᾿E[šmu]nya[ten]’, which would have been necessary for the delivery of the letter once it had be folded and sealed.

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In effect this means that we cannot know whether the majority of the extant letter fragments represent the point of departure or the point of arrival, or some intermediary point at which local copies were made before the letter was forwarded to its eventual destination, as may be the case for the Lachish letters. When the findspots of the letters are compared, however, an interesting pattern emerges. The two papyrus letters were in secondary depositions and so cannot be counted, while the settlement at Kuntillet ῾Ajrud is remote and its exact nature is unknown. But the remainder of the letters all come from either fortresses or cities that included a military garrison. What is more, the Lachish letters can be associated specifically with the gate complex of the citadel – at least in terms of their storage – and this might hold general significance, because the city gate was traditionally the place where business was conducted (cf. Deuteronomy 21:18– 21; 22:13–19; 25:7–10; Ruth 4:1–12).74 Consequently, it seems that the scribes involved with the composition and – at the other end of the process – the reading of letters could be encountered at settlements of various sizes, but which can reasonably be supposed to have maintained a fixed military and or civil bureaucracy. In the case of the Meṣad Ḥashavyahu ostracon, it is perhaps not surprising to find evidence of non-military correspondence at a military outpost – after all, the petition is addressed to an official who was probably attached to the fortress; however, the epistolary ostraca from the fortresses at Ḥorvat ῾Uza and Tell el-Mazār appear to be of an entirely personal nature, relating to the transfer of goods and the settling of a debt, and this seems to suggest that, when necessary, even private individuals could obtain the services of a scribe. Accordingly, we might tentatively postulate a scenario in which trained scribes could be encountered at the city gate and employed to write on behalf of unlettered individuals. Further support for this scenario comes from the recent discovery of what appears to be a bench-lined administrative chamber at the gate complex of Lachish.75 Was this perhaps the very place people would go to retain the services of a scribe?76 If so, then the proximity of the guardroom in which the military 74 This now seems to be assured in the case of Lachish following the recent excavation of an administrative bench-room in the gate complex, see S. GANOR and I. KREIMERMAN, An EighthCentury B.C.E. Gate Shrine at Tel Lachish, Israel, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 381 (2019), p. 211–236. In addition, the discovery in secure archaeological contexts of several inscribed objects identified as the ‘weight/measure of the Gate’, seem to support the impression that the gate was the location of commercial administrative activities, cf. I EPH῾AL and J. NAVEH, The Jar of the Gate, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 299 (1993), p. 59–65. A similar custom is attested in Cuneiform sources: many tablets discovered at Nuzi, for example, specify that they were written at a particular city gate, and there is comparable evidence for a system of standardised measures ‘of the gate’; see the discussion in N. POSTGATE, Bronze Age Bureaucracy: Writing and the Practice of Government in Assyria, Cambridge, 2013, p. 349. I am indebted to Jacob Lauinger for the cuneiform examples. 75 S. GANOR and I. KREIMERMAN, An Eighth-Century B.C.E. Gate Shrine at Tel Lachish, Israel, p. 211–236. 76 As noted above, the size and importance of Lachish is sufficient to account for the presence of multiple trained scribes, perhaps suggesting a comparatively busy administrative zone in which

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correspondence was found might indicate that scribes could be employed to perform both military and civic services without any clear distinction between their roles. Conclusions Although there is much that remains unknown about the experience and institutional background of ancient Israelite scribes, the documentary evidence suggests that some part of the scribe’s role had to do with the composition and reading of letters. The evidence of military correspondence is over-represented in the epigraphic record; but, even so, it seems that it was common practice for scribes to be attached to military institutions in an administrative capacity. Yet, despite the uneven nature of the data, the evidence also suggests that trained scribes may have been employed for the composition of private letters. Indeed, the harvester’s letter from Meṣad Ḥashavyahu indicates that in certain circumstances even the poorest strata of society could gain access to scribes in an official capacity. Finally, based on the archaeological contexts of the provenanced private letter fragments, it seems that army scribes might also have been engaged in the composition of private correspondence, and, consequently, we should be hesitant to impose too-rigid a distinction between scribes that were attached to civil and military institutions. Bibliography Y. AHARONI, Arad: Its Inscriptions and Temple, in The Biblical Archaeologist 31 (1968), p. 1–32. Y. AHARONI, Arad Inscriptions, Jesualem, 1981. S. AḤITUV, Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical World, Jerusalem, 2008. S. AḤITUV and A. YARDENI, Silver Pistachio and Grain: Two Letters of the SeventhSixth Centuries BCE, in D. SIVAN, D. TALSHIR and C. COHEN (eds), ZaphenathPaneah: Linguistic Studies Presented to Elisha Qimron n the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, Beer-Sheva, 2009, p. 15–28. N. AVIGAD and B. SASS, Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals, Jerusalem, 1997. S. BIRNBAUM, The Lachish Ostraca, in Palestine Exploration Quarterly 71 (1939), p. 20–28. E.J. BRIDGE, Polite Language in the Lachish Letters, in Vetus Testamentum 60 (2010), p. 518–534. D. CARR, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart, Oxford, 2005. F.M. CROSS, Epigraphic Notes on Hebrew Documents of the Eighth-Sixth Centuries B.C. II. The Murabba῾ât Papyrus and the Letter Found near Yabneh-yam, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 165 (1962), p. 34–46. multiple scribes worked alongside one another. This would certainly be consistent with the large dimensions of the room.

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F.M. CROSS, A Literate Soldier: Lachish Letter III, in A. KORT and S. MORCHAUSER (eds), Biblical and Related Studies Presented to Samuel Iwry, Winona Lake, 1985, p. 41–47. A. CROWN, Messengers and Scribes: The ‫ ספר‬and ‫ מלאך‬in the Old Testament, in Vetus Testamentum 24 (1974), p. 366–370. F.W. DOBBS-ALLSOPP, The Genre of the Meṣad Ḥashavyahu Ostracon, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 295 (1994), p. 49–55. F.W. DOBBS-ALLSOPP, J.J.M. ROBERTS, C.L. SEOW and R.E. WHITAKER, Hebrew Inscriptions Texts from the Biblical Period of the Monarchy with Concordance, New Haven, 2005. I. EPH῾AL and J. NAVEH, The Jar of the Gate, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 299 (1993), p. 59–65. J. FITZMYER, Some Notes on Aramaic Epistolography, in Journal of Biblical Literature 93 (1974), p. 201–225. S. GANOR and I. KREIMERMAN, An Eighth-Century B.C.E. Gate Shrine at Tel Lachish, Israel, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 381 (2019), p. 211– 236. H.L. GINSBERG, Lachish Notes, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 71 (1938), p. 24–27. J. HADLEY, The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess (Cambridge Oriental Publications 57), Cambridge, 2000. B. ISSERLIN, Epigraphically Attested Judean Hebrew and the Question of ‘Upper Class’ (Official) and ‘Popular’ Speech Variants in Judea during the 8th-6th Centuries BC, in Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology 2 (1972), p. 197–203. D. JEMIESON-DRAKE, Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah: A Socio-Archaeological Approach, Sheffield, 20112. A. LEMAIRE, Inscriptions hébraïques I. Les ostraca, Paris, 1977. J. LINDENBERGER, Ancient Aramaic and Hebrew Letters, Atlanta, 2003. S. LLEWELYN, The εἰς (τὴν) οἰκίαν Formula and the Delivery of Letters to Third Persons or to Their Property, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 101 (1994), p. 71–78. P.K. MCCARTER, Kuntillet ῾Ajrud: Inscribed pithos 1 (2.47A), in W. HALLO (ed.), The Context of Scripture, vol. 2, Leiden, 2003, p. 171. A. MENDEL, Who Wrote the Aḥiqam Ostracon from Ḥorvat ῾Uza?, in Israel Exploration Journal 61 (2011), p. 54–67. Z. MESHEL, Kuntillet ῾Ajrud (Ḥorvat Teman): An Iron Age II Religious Site on the JudahSinai Border, Jerusalem, 2012. N. NA’AMAN, The Distribution of Messages in the Kingdom of Judah in Light of the Lachish Ostraca, in Vetus Testamentum 53 (2003), p. 169–180. N. NA’AMAN, The Inscriptions of Kuntillet ῾Ajrud Through the Lens of Historical Research, in Ugarit-Forschungen 43 (2011), p. 299–324. N. NA’AMAN, Literacy in the Negev of the Late Monarchical Period, in B.B. SCHMIDT (ed.), Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production (Ancient Israel and Its Literature 22), Atlanta, 2015, p. 47– 70. J. NAVEH, A Hebrew Letter from the Seventh Century B.C., in Israel Exploration Journal 10 (1960), p. 129–139. D. PARDEE, The Judicial Plea from Meṣad Ḥashavyahu (Yavneh-Yam): A New Philological Study, in Maarav 1 (1978), p. 33–66. D. PARDEE, Handbook of Hebrew Letters, Chico, 1982.

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D. PARDEE, The “Epistolary Perfect” in Hebrew Letters, in Biblische Notizen 22 (1983), p. 34–40. R. PERSON, The Deuteronomic School: History, Social Setting, and Literature, Leiden, 2002. R. PERSON, The Deuteronomic History and the Book of Chronicles: Scribal Works in an Oral World, Atlanta, 2010. N. POSTGATE, Bronze Age Bureaucracy: Writing and the Practice of Government in Assyria, Cambridge, 2013. A. RAINEY, Syntax and Rhetorical Analysis in the Hashavyahu Ostracon, in Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Studies 27 (2000), p. 75–79. C. ROLLSTON, Scribal Education in Ancient Israel: The Old Hebrew Epigraphic Evidence, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 344 (2006), p. 47–74. C. ROLLSTON, Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel, Atlanta, 2010. C. ROLLSTON, The Social Context of Alphabetic Writing in the First Millennium BCE, in A. YASUR-LANDAU, E. CLINE and R. YORKE (eds), The Social Archaeology of the Levant: From Prehistory through the Ottoman Period, Cambridge, 2017, p. 371– 389. N. SACHER FOX, In the Service of the King, Cincinnati, 2000. B.B. SCHMIDT, Kuntillet ῾Ajrud’s Pithoi Inscriptions and Drawings: Graffiti and ScribalArtisan Drafts?, in Maarav 20 (2013), p. 52–82. B.B. SCHMIDT (ed.), Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, Atlanta, 2015. W.M. SCHNIEDEWIND, Sociolinguistic Reflections on the Letter of a ‘Literate’ Soldier (Lachish 3), in Zeitschrift für Althebraistik 13 (2000), p. 157–166. W.M. SCHNIEDEWIND, How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel, Cambridge, 2004. W.M. SCHNIEDEWIND, Aramaic, the Death of Written Hebrew, and Language Shift in the Persian Period, in S. SANDERS (ed.), Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures, Chicago, 2007, p. 135–152. W.M. SCHNIEDEWIND, Understanding Scribal Education in Ancient Israel: A View from Kuntillet ῾Ajrud, in Maarav 21 (2014), p. 271–293. W.M. SCHNIEDEWIND, Commander of the Fortress? Understanding an Ancient Israelite Military Title, in Biblical Archaeology Review 45 (2019), p. 39–44, 70. W.M. SCHNIEDEWIND, The Finger of the Scribe, New York, forthcoming. J. SMOAK and W.M. SCHNIEDEWIND, Religion at Kuntillet ῾Ajrud, in Religions 10 (2019), p. 1–18. K. VAN DER TOORN, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible, Cambridge Mass., 2007. G. WEARNE, The Plaster Texts from Kuntillet ῾Ajrud and Deir ῾Alla: An Inductive Approach to the Emergence of Northwest Semitic Literary Texts in the First Millennium B.C.E., PhD Thesis, Macquarie University, 2015. I. YOUNG, The Language of the Judicial Plea from Meṣad Ḥashavyahu, in Palestine Exploration Quarterly 122 (1990), p. 56–58. I. YOUNG, Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence: Part I, in Vetus Testamentum 48 (1998), p. 239–253. I. YOUNG, Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence: Part II, in Vetus Testamentum 48 (1998), p. 408–422. Y. YADIN, The Lachish Letters: Originals or Copies and Drafts?, in H. SHANKS and A. FINKELSTEIN (eds), Recent Archaeology in the Land of Israel, Washington, 1984, p. 179–186.

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K. YASSINE and J. TEIXIDOR, Ammonite and Aramaic Inscriptions from Tell El-Mazār in Jordan, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 264 (1986), p. 45–50. A. ZAMMIT, The Lachish Letters: A Reappraisal of the Ostraca Discovered in 1935 and 1938 at Tell ed-Duweir, PhD Diss., University of Oxford, 2016.

TWO GROUPS OF DEIR EL-MEDINA OSTRACA RECORDING DUTY ROSTERS AND DAILY DELIVERIES COMPOSED WITH IDENTITY MARKS Daniel SOLIMAN

During the Ramesside Period (ca. 1292–1077 BC), the village of Deir el-Medina was home to a community of royal necropolis workmen with a well-attested scribal tradition.1 The Deir el-Medina scribes have left us an enormous body of documentary and non-documentary texts written in the hieratic script. It is therefore understandable that local scribal practice has been the subject of several studies,2 and it has been argued that the degree of literacy in the community must have been relatively high, compared to the rest of the country. The topics of scribal practice and literacy can also be approached by analysing ostraca from the site that are inscribed with identity marks. These signs refer to individual necropolis workmen and were employed by them to mark personal property. Each member of the crew of workmen seemed to have possessed his own mark, but it was not uncommon to adopt the mark of one’s father or grandfather. As early as the 18th Dynasty (ca. 1539–1292 BC), series of identity marks were also written on ostraca, often in combination with dots and or strokes, to create records of a documentary nature. Although many of the ostraca with identity marks are difficult to interpret, there are several groups that are well understood. Two such groups discussed here, one from the 20th Dynasty (ca. 1190–1077 BC), the other one from the 19th Dynasty (ca. 1292–1191 BC), deal with the organisation and administration of daily deliveries made to the village. In both cases, a single individual seems to have been (in part) responsible for recording these matters, and in both cases this person employed a combination of identity marks, signs from hieratic script, and self-invented signs.

1

I would like to thank Ben Haring and Jennifer Cromwell for their valuable comments on the content and the English of an earlier draft of this paper. 2 See, e.g., J. BAINES and C.J. EYRE, Four Notes on Literacy, in Göttinger Miszellen 61 (1983), p. 86–91; J.J. JANSSEN, Literacy and Letter at Deir el-Medîna, in R.J. DEMARÉE and A. EGBERTS (eds), Villages Voices. Proceedings of the Symposium ‘Texts from Deir el-Medîna and their interpretation’, Leiden, May 31–June 1, 1991 (CNWS Publications 13), Leiden, 1992, p. 81–91; B.J.J. HARING, From Oral Practice to Written Record in Ramesside Deir El-Medina, in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 46.3 (2003), p. 248–272; B.J.J. HARING, Scribes and Scribal Activity at Deir el-Medina, in A. DORN and T. HOFFMANN (eds), Living and Writing in Deir el-Medine: Sociohistorical Embodiment of Deir el-Medine Texts (Aegyptiaca Helvetica 19), Basel, 2006, p. 107– 112.

46

D. SOLIMAN

1. A ‘scribe’ during the first half of the 20th Dynasty The documents of the first group have been scrutinised in a number of studies,3 but a little background information about their function and administrative context is in order.4 The ostraca in question record the so-called wrš duty roster and are concerned with the rations of the necropolis workmen of Deir el-Medina. During the Ramesside Period, the workmen were assigned commodities that were delivered to the village by a pool of external service agents called the smd.t. The external personnel consisted of woodcutters, water carriers, gardeners, and fishermen, and the workmen themselves took turns to await and receive these deliveries at an office called the ḫtm from where they sent them on to the village or the work site.5 These deliveries are well attested on hieratic ostraca and some papyri. In the hieratic records from the first half of the 20th Dynasty, the duty roster is almost exclusively recorded for the so-called right side of the crew.6 During the same period, the duty rosters and deliveries were also recorded on ostraca using identity marks. Although the earliest example may date to year 24 of Ramesses III (reign ca. 1187–1157 BC), most of the preserved ostraca of this kind were created between year 28 of Ramesses III and year 6 of Ramesses IV (reign ca. 1156–1150 BCE). The corpus consists of 80 ostraca, many of which are preserved in a fragmentary state. Such documents usually covered one or two calendar months, which are often explicitly mentioned. A single entry consisted of the hieroglyph s (an abbreviation of the word sw ‘day’) and a hieratic numeral 3 B.J.J. HARING, Towards Decoding the Necropolis Workmen’s Funny Signs, in Göttinger Miszellen 178 (2000), p. 45–58; B.J.J. HARING, Workmen’s Marks on Ostraca from the Theban Necropolis: A Progress Report, in B.J.J. HARING and O.E. KAPER (eds), Pictograms or Pseudo Script? Non-textual Identity Marks in Practical Use in Ancient Egypt and Elsewhere. Proceedings of a Conference in Leiden, 19–20 December 2006 (Egyptologische Uitgaven 25), Leuven – Leiden, 2009, p. 143–167; B.J.J. HARING and D. SOLIMAN, Reading Twentieth Dynasty Ostraca with Workmen’s Marks, in B.J.J HARING, O.E. KAPER and R. VAN WALSEM (eds), The Workman’s Progress. Studies in the Village of Deir el-Medina and Other Documents from Western Thebes in Honour of Rob Demarée (Egyptologische Uitgaven 28), Leuven – Leiden, 2014, p. 73–93; B. HARING, From Single Sign to Pseudo-Script: An Ancient Egyptian System of Workmen’s Identity Marks (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 93), Leiden – Boston, 2018, p. 184–194. 4 For a more detailed discussion of these matters, see D.M. SOLIMAN, Duty Rosters and Delivery Records Composed With Marks and Their Relation to the Written Administration of Deir elMedina, in B.J.J. HARING, K.V.J. VAN DER MOEZEL and D.M. SOLIMAN (eds), Decoding Signs of Identity: Egyptian Workmen’s Marks in Archaeological, Historical, Comparative and Theoretical Perspective. Proceedings of a Conference in Leiden, 13–15 December 2013 (Egyptologische Uitgaven 32), Leuven – Leiden, 2018, p. 155–190. 5 J. ČERNÝ, Datum des Todes Ramses’ III. und der Thronbesteigung Ramses’ IV., in Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 72 (1936), p. 115; G. BURKHARD, Das ḫtm n pꜢ ḫr von Deir el-Medine: Seine Funktion und die Frage seiner Lokalisierung, in A. DORN and T. HOFFMANN (eds), Living and Writing in Deir el-Medine: Socio-historical embodiment of Deir el-Medine texts (Aegyptiaca Helvetica 19), Basel, 2006, p. 35–36. 6 On the division of the crew into two halves, a right and a left side, see, e.g., J. ČERNÝ, A Community of Workmen at Thebes in the Ramesside Period (Bibliothèque d’étude 50), Cairo, 20043, p. 101–103.

TWO GROUPS OF DEIR EL-MEDINA OSTRACA

47

for the day number, followed by an identity mark for the workman on duty, followed by the day’s deliveries. These were noted by a combination of hieratic numerals, hieratic abbreviations, and self-invented signs for commodities, as well as the smd.t agents. The documents composed with marks only record the daily deliveries and no other information, although their most important feature is the duty roster: for those days on which no deliveries were made, the ostraca with marks still record a workman on duty. The palaeography of this group of ostraca with marks, as well as their provenance, the consistency in their subject matter and in their layout suggest that the documents were created by a single individual. This person thus systematically recorded the deliveries for the right side of the crew from the end of the reign of Ramesses III to the beginning of the reign of Ramesses V. He employed several non-standard, self-invented signs in his records that refer to commodities, individuals, months and festivals. Unlike the hieratic administrative texts, his documents do not contain full, grammatically sound sentences, because he did not write out his records. Adding to the overall non-standard nature of his documents is the fact that some of the separate entries within a single document are awkwardly squeezed between other entries. The man who created these ostraca must have been someone who was certainly acquainted with hieratic script and could read and write hieratic numerals and some other hieratic signs, which he used as abbreviations for particular words. Yet, he was not a formally trained scribe who could create full hieratic accounts. This becomes evident from some of his scribal errors as well, such as incorrectly written compound hieratic numbers. I have argued elsewhere7 that the scribe of the 20th Dynasty ostraca in this group may have been a so-called ‘smd.t scribe’, a term used by Benedict Davies for the members of the workmen’s community who were tasked with organising and recording the daily deliveries made by the service personnel to the village. 8 The most plausible candidate would be the man called Pentaweret (iii), who was active in the period in which the ostraca with marks were created. This man certainly was associated with the right side of the crew.9 The ostraca with marks concern precisely those matters that would have been important to a ‘smd.t scribe’ who performed administrative tasks. Yet, although we refer to his position with the word ‘scribe’, there is no evidence that Pentaweret was a professionally trained scribe with a full command of the hieratic script. On the contrary, SOLIMAN, Duty rosters, p. 163–165. B.G. DAVIES, Who’s Who at Deir el-Medina. A Prosopographic Study of the Royal Workmen’s Community (Egyptologische Uitgaven 13), Leiden, 1999, p. 123–124; 125–142. For a recent study of ‘smd.t scribes’, see K. GABLER, Who’s Who Around Deir el-Medina: Untersuchungen zur Organisation, Prosopographie und Entwicklung des Versorgungspersonals für die Arbeitersiedlung und das Tal der Könige (Egyptologische Uitgaven 31), Leuven – Leiden, 2018, p. 412–435. 9 DAVIES, Who’s Who, p. 103, n. 262; GABLER, Who’s Who, p. 424. 7 8

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D. SOLIMAN

there are reasons to believe he composed his administrative documents not in hieratic, but with identity marks and other signs. The contemporaneous hieratic scribe Hori, on the other hand, copied his records onto hieratic documents, and the two administrators collaborated to track the daily deliveries and the deficits of the smd.t agents who made the deliveries.10 It may come as a surprise that someone other than a professional scribe was in part responsible for an entire branch of the Deir el-Medina administration. As odd as it may sound, there could well be an earlier parallel for this situation from the 19th Dynasty. 2. A ‘scribe’ during the second half of the reign of Ramesses II This brings us to our second group of documents composed with identity marks.11 The ostraca in this group are similar in terms of their find spot, layout, handwriting, and a recurring group of identity marks, which leads me to believe that at least a majority of these documents were created by a single individual. Except for ONL 6496, which was probably excavated at the village of Deir elMedina, the group consists of six ostraca found during the excavations of the Amenmesse Tomb Project.12 These pieces belong to a larger group of ostraca with identity marks excavated in a temporary settlement of workmen’s huts in the area of the tomb of Amenmesse (KV 1013) that dates to the middle of the 19th Dynasty. One jar docket from the site was inscribed with the name of Ramesses II.14 It is to this period that the ostraca from the site should be dated. Such a date is suggested by O.APO 579 (unpublished), originally a weight, inscribed with identity marks on one side, and with flawless hieratic on the other: “Year 38, III peret, day 17, weight of four spikes for the left side”, evidently referring to the reign of Ramesses II. In addition, these ostraca with identity marks are related to hieratic ostraca from the same period, as they record a very similar sequence of workmen. In particular, O.APO 722 and O.APO 672 (both unpublished), and O.APO 720 (Fig. 1), display a series of identity marks that compare well to the order of workmen in the famous list of O.BM EA 5634 SOLIMAN, Duty Rosters, p. 165–166. For an introduction to this group of ostraca, see Haring, From Single Sign, p. 177–178. Some of the ostraca discussed in the current article are referred to by Haring as O.Schaden 1 (O.APO 720), O.Schaden 16 (O.APO 722), and O.Schaden 96 (O.APO 579). 12 For the excavations of this project led by Dr Otto Schaden (University of Memphis), see www. kv-10.com. Five of these ostraca are discussed here for the first time, although sadly after the demise of Dr Schaden in 2015. I am much indebted to Ms Carol Schaden for the permission to reproduce images of the ostraca, as well as to Dr George Johnson and the photographer Heather Alexander. A publication of all ostraca found by the Amenmesse Tomb Project is currently in preparation by Dr Rob Demarée. 13 The tombs in the Valley of the Kings are numbered and referred to by the abbreviation KV. 14 O.J. SCHADEN, The Amenmesse Project, Season of 2006, in Annales du service des antiquités de l’Égypte 82 (2008), p. 231–260. 10 11

TWO GROUPS OF DEIR EL-MEDINA OSTRACA

49

Fig. 1. O.APO 720, obverse. Heather Alexander, Estate of Otto Schaden, Carol Schaden Executor.

written in year 40 of Ramesses II.15 The men are listed in an ordered sequence that to some extent reflected the seniority of the workmen. Other such lists are known from hieratic documents from Deir el-Medina,16 and it is now clear that this ordering device was employed in ostraca with identity marks as well. A good example of an ordered sequence of workmen composed with marks is found on the upper part of O.APO 720 (Fig. 1), an important ostracon within our current corpus, which will be examined in more detail below. The ostracon is inscribed with a table consisting of two rows. The cells of the upper row contain a single identity mark each. Careful analysis of the marks indicates that their sequence is to be read from right to left, and that it is very similar to the ordered list of workmen of the left side, as recorded on what is today called the obverse of O.BM EA 5634.17 The identification of the individuals listed on O.BM EA 5634 15 K. DONKER VAN HEEL, Did the Deir el-Medina Scribes Use Drafts in Daily Scribal Practice?, in K. DONKER VAN HEEL and B.J.J. HARING, Writing in a Workmen’s Village. Scribal Practice in Ramesside Deir el-Medina (Egyptologische Uitgaven 16), Leiden, 2003, p. 18–21; J.J. JANSSEN, Absence from Work by the Necropolis Workmen of Thebes, in Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 10 (1980), p. 107–152. 16 See, e.g., M. COLLIER, Dating Late XIXth Dynasty Ostraca (Egyptologische Uitgaven 28), Leiden, 2004, p. 19. 17 JANSSEN, Absence from Work, p. 131–132, was not quite sure which half of the crew was listed on which side of the ostracon. Discussing O.DeM 706, which is inscribed with a very similar hieratic list of workmen, P. GRANDET, Catalogue des ostraca hiératiques non littéraires de Deîr el-Médînéh VIII. Nos. 706-830 (Documents de fouilles de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire 39), Cairo, 2000, p. 1–2, suggested that the column headed by Pendua – listed on the obverse of O.BM EA 5634 – contained a list of the right side. Yet, O.Fitzwilliam EGA 6119.1943 proves beyond any doubt that the obverse of O.BM EA 5634 is a list of the left side of the crew because it contains an almost identical list of workmen, and is headed by the

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D. SOLIMAN

is discussed in Davies’s important prosopographical work, and most of these men are well-known members of the crew of workmen.18 The majority of the workmen to which the marks on O.APO 720 refer can be identified on account of: 1) objects from the Theban necropolis that are inscribed both with the name and the mark of one and the same individual (a limestone seat of Baki (i),19 whose mark ƌ was also used for his son Haremwia (i); ceramic fragments20 inscribed with the name of Neferabet and with mark Ɓ); 2) knowledge of the marks connected to 20th Dynasty workmen who continued to use the marks of their 19th Dynasty ancestors; and 3) connections between the proper names of 19th Dynasty workmen and the phonetic value of the identity marks on O.APO 720. On the basis of the more completely preserved and very similar series of marks on O.APO 722, we are fairly certain that two marks are lost on the right end of O.APO 720. Taking these aspects into account, we can identify the following workmen recorded on O.APO 720: O.APO 720

O.BM EA 5634

… …

1 Pendua (i)

… …

2 Harnefer (i)/(ii)

3 Ľ 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

ƌ Ĺ Ž Ų ǁ ț ȥ

3 Siwadjet (ii) 4 Haremwia (i) 5 Amennakht (x) 6 Wadjmose (i) 7 Nebimentet (i) 8 Hehnakht (ii) 9 Nakhtmin (vi) 10 Pennub (ii)/(iii)

11 12 13 14

ƙ ź ŧ

14 Anuy (ii) 15 Wennefer (ii)

foreman of the left side. For a discussion of the Fitzwilliam ostracon, see F. HAGEN, New Kingdom Ostraca from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 46), Leiden – Boston, 2011, p. 18–20. 18 DAVIES, Who’s Who. 19 B. BRUYÈRE, Rapport sur les fouilles de Deir el Médineh (1934-1935) III (Fouilles de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Cairo 16), Cairo, 1939, 355 and pl. XL. 20 J. VANDIER and J. VANDIER D’ABBADIE, Tombes de Deir el-Médineh. La tombe de Nefer-Abou (Mémoires publiés par les membres de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire 69), Cairo, 1935, p. 54 and fig. 32.

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TWO GROUPS OF DEIR EL-MEDINA OSTRACA

O.APO 720 15 16 17

O.BM EA 5634

ȣ ƈ ŷ

16 Buqentuef (i) 17 Maaninakhtuf (i)

18 …

The other signs in the table of O.APO 720, some of which were erased by the user(s) of the ostracon, reveal more about the meaning of the document, and a schematic rendering of the table is given here: […]

ŷ ƈ ȣ ŧ ź 



ƙ  [ź] [///]

Ǿ ǁ ě

ȥ [ ț] ǁ Ų 



ę ȥ ƙ



Ž Ĺ ƌ [Ľ ]

[///] [///] [///]   



[///] 



[ ]

[///]

ź ŧ The second row of cells contains elements that are known from other ostraca: ę, ƙ, ȥ, ź, ŧ, ǁ, and ě are identity marks for workmen, most of which are also inscribed in the upper row. Mark ě , representing the hieroglyph of an elephants tusk (Gardiner sign F1821) with phonetic value ḥw, is most likely a reference to the first part of the name of a workman of the left side called Huy, listed in position 18 in the list of O.BM EA 5634. The identity behind mark ę cannot be ascertained. During the 20th Dynasty, the same mark was used for a workman called Weserhat (ii), and the relation between the mark – a hieroglyphic sign (Gardiner F12) with the phonetic value wsr – and the name is clear.22 No man of this name is known from the workmen’s list of O.BM EA 5634, but it is possible that the mark is a reference to Weserhat (viii), son of the workman Kel (i), who is attested during the second half of the reign.23 His omission from 21 A. GARDINER, Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, Oxford, 19573, p. 463. 22 M. COLLIER, The Right Side of the Gang in Years 1 to 2 of Ramesses IV, in B.J.J. HARING, O.E. KAPER and R. VAN WALSEM (eds), The Workman’s Progress. Studies in the Village of Deir el-Medina and Other Documents from Western Thebes in Honour of Rob Demarée (Egyptologische Uitgaven 28), Leuven – Leiden, 2014, p. 14; HARING and SOLIMAN, Reading Twentieth Dynasty Ostraca, p. 82. 23 DAVIES, Who’s Who, p. 275.

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D. SOLIMAN

hieratic lists of workmen indicates that he probably was not a full member of the crew of necropolis workmen, but he could nevertheless have been an inhabitant of the village. A number of other signs seem to be references to commodities. This point is most evident for the combination of and , representing nḥḥ oil.24 Sign Ǿ is also a reference to a commodity, known from other 19th Dynasty ostraca, such as the unpublished ostraca ONL 342 and O.IFAO C 391, in which it is mentioned with other commodities. The sign’s exact meaning escapes us, but it could well be a depiction of the receptacle in which the commodity was kept. Signs and are best explained as a vessel filled with water, and rather than taking as a pictograph with a phonetic value it should probably be understood as a depiction of a vessel carried in a net (Gardiner W19). Finally, there is the sign for the word ỉw ‘has come’, occasionally found in both ostraca with identity marks and hieratic lists of workmen from Deir el-Medina,25 where it indicates the presence – not necessarily activity – of particular workmen at the worksite in the Valley of the Kings. The addition of the sign renders it improbable that O.APO 720 records a single event, because that would mean that on that day only the workman Wennefer (ii) was present at the worksite. It seems instead that each column of the table represents a single day. As the upper row is inscribed with workmen’s marks in an ordered sequence, it is tempting to read the document as a duty roster with the upper cell of each column containing the mark of the workman on duty, and in the lower cell the commodities that were delivered on that day. For example, the third column from the left would then have to be read in the following way: on the day of the duty of Maaninakhtuf (i), water was delivered by the workman Huy. On the face of it, such an interpretation is controversial for several reasons. First of all, one would expect a duty roster to contain day numbers and/or a date line, which are lacking in O.APO 720. Instead, the individual days are represented by the wrš duties of the workmen. Although that is perhaps odd, a case can be made that the system of the duty roster was to a far greater extent part of the everyday reality of the necropolis workmen than was the civil calendar.26 24 J.J. JANSSEN, Commodity Prices from the Ramessid Period. An Economic Study of the Village of Necropolis Workmen at Thebes, Leiden, 1975, p. 330; M. MÜLLER, Es werde Licht? Eine kurze Geschichte von Öl & Fett in Deir el-Medina in der 20. Dynastie, in B.J.J. HARING, O.E. KAPER and R. VAN WALSEM (eds), The Workman’s Progress. Studies in the Village of Deir el-Medina and Other Documents from Western Thebes in Honour of Rob Demarée (Egyptologische Uitgaven 28), Leuven – Leiden, 2014, p. 180–181. 25 J.J. JANSSEN, Village Varia. Ten Studies on the History and Administration of Deir el-Medîna (Egyptologische Uitgaven 11), Leiden, 1997, p. 87–98. 26 For similar observations, see B.J.J. HARING, Between Administrative Writing and Work Practice: Marks Ostraca and the Roster of Day Duties of the Royal Necropolis Workmen in the New Kingdom, in J. BUDKA, F. KAMMERZELL and S. RZEPKA (eds), Non-Textual Marking Systems in Ancient Egypt (and Elsewhere) (Lingua Aegyptia. Studia monographica 16), Hamburg, 2015, p. 133–142, particularly p. 138–141.

TWO GROUPS OF DEIR EL-MEDINA OSTRACA

53

It should be pointed out, furthermore, that if O.APO 720 is taken as a duty roster this would mean that the workmen themselves, rather than agents of the smd.t personnel, were at least involved in, if not solely responsible for, the transport of the commodities. This opposes the general opinion that the smd.t agents were solely responsible for the deliveries from the beginning of the 19th Dynasty onwards.27 Recently, however, it was argued that some of the early 19th Dynasty smd.t agents can in fact be identified with necropolis workmen.28 In support of this view, one may advance O.Ashmolean HO 195, an account of water deliveries attributed to the reign of Ramesses II.29 The account consists of a list of workmen who are all said to be bringing (ỉnỉ) jars of water, without mention of the smd.t personnel. Additionally, the lower half of the table of O.APO 720 contains the mark ę, probably for a person who was not a full member of the crew of workmen. More important still is that if O.APO 720 is interpreted as a duty roster, it would be the oldest attestation of the wrš duty system of the necropolis workmen. The earliest known duty rosters recorded in hieratic script date to the second half of the 19th Dynasty.30 The oldest hieratic duty roster seems to be O.BM EA 5635, dating to year 4 of the reign of Merenptah, Seti II, or Amenmesse.31 O.APO 720, probably composed around the middle of the reign of Ramesses II, would thus predate the first hieratic attestation of the wrš duty roster. The same method of recording deliveries is attested on six other ostraca that are less well preserved: O.APO 676 (Figs 2–3); O.APO 670 (Fig. 4); O.APO 675 (Fig. 5); O.APO 525 (Fig. 6); O.APO 630 (unpublished); and ONL 6496 (unpublished). Typical of these documents is the tabular layout that characterises O.APO 720. Moreover, like O.APO 720, four of these ostraca (O.APO 676, O.APO 670, O.APO 675, and O.APO 525) display sections that have been deliberately erased and then reinscribed. The current study is not the place to describe the six ostraca in great detail, but a number of their features do need to be discussed. Implicit, e.g., in A. DORN, Ostraka aus der Regierungszeit Sethos’ I. aus Deir el-Medineh und dem Tal der Köninge: Zur Mannschaft und zur Struktur des Arbeiterdorfes vor dem Bau des Ramesseums, in Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 67 (2011), p. 38; compare S. HÄGGMAN, Directing Deir el-Medina. The External Administration of the Necropolis (Uppsala Studies in Egyptology 4), Uppsala, 2002, p. 94. 28 GABLER, Who’s Who, p. 527–531; compare earlier D. VALBELLE, “Les ouvriers de la tombe”: Deir el-Médineh à l’époque Ramesside (Bibliothèque d’Étude 96), Cairo, 1985, p. 129; 131. 29 K.A. KITCHEN, Ramesside Inscriptions. Historical and Biographical VII, Oxford, 1989, p. 197; DAVIES, Who’s Who, p. 10. 30 M. GUTGESELL, Die Datierung der Ostraka und Papyri aus Deir el-Medineh und ihre ökonomische Interpretation I (Hildesheimer ägyptologische Beiträge 18), Hildesheim, 1983, p. 67. 31 R.J. DÉMAREE, Ramesside Ostraca, London, 2002, p. 18 and pl. 29; DAVIES, Who’s Who, p. 226; HARING, Between Administrative Writing, p. 136, n. 9. The workman Heh in O.BM EA 5635 could be a reference to Hehnakht (ii) who is known from lists of workmen from the second half of the reign of Ramesses II (e.g., O.DeM 706 and O.Fitzwilliam EGA 6119.1943). Nevertheless, the mention of workmen such as Nebsemen, Qen, and Penamun (iii) on O.BM EA 5635, not attested in such lists, is indicative of a later 19th Dynasty date. 27

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D. SOLIMAN

Fig. 2. O.APO 676, obverse. Heather Alexander, Estate of Otto Schaden, Carol Schaden Executor.

Fig. 3. O.APO 676, reverse. Heather Alexander, Estate of Otto Schaden, Carol Schaden Executor.

TWO GROUPS OF DEIR EL-MEDINA OSTRACA

55

To begin, we observe the reoccurrence of the sign . On the obverse of O.APO 676 (Fig. 2), it is written below the identity mark ņ. As on O.APO 720, the sign is accompanied by another identity mark, in this case Ž. The entry should thus be understood as: wrš duty of workman [ņ], who was present at the worksite, therefore substituted by workman [Ž]. A similar construction is found on the obverse of O.APO 675 (Fig. 5), where the workman with mark ņ is substituted by the workman with mark Ȧ. O.APO 676 and O.APO 675 demonstrate that the scribe or scribes of the 19th Dynasty group of ostraca also recorded the deficits of deliveries. The word ‘deficit’ is referred to by means of the hieratic sign t for wḏꜢ.t ‘deficit’, the sign that was also employed by the 20th Dynasty scribe who composed the duty and delivery ostraca from our previous case study.32 In the 19th Dynasty corpus, however, the word occurs in slightly more complete spellings, such as t1, or even t2. On the reverse of O.APO 676, the signs t1 are inscribed above the same kind of vessel used for the water delivery on O.APO 720. We may therefore assume that this particular entry on O.APO 676 records a deficit of water deliveries, and that could be true for the other instances of deficits as well. The documentation of deficits is analogous to hieratic administrative texts from the time of Ramesses II, and a particularly similar record is the account of water deliveries on O.Ashmolean HO 87.33 Most interesting of all are the brief hieratic inscriptions on two of the ostraca. The obverse of O.APO 670 (Fig. 4) displays a short column of hieratic numerals (10, 14, 25, 21) of unclear meaning. Then there is a very short inscription on one side of O.APO 676 (Fig. 3). The signs of the inscription are unmistakeably hieratic, but it is composed with a minimum of signs:

wḥm h 48[…] 11 18 ms.t.y 49 Repeating 48 […] 11 ; 18 sacks 49

The numerals are clear, as is the word wḥm ‘repeating’. The sign h that follows after wḥm might be an abbreviation, but its meaning is uncertain. One is reminded of the abbreviation h for hꜢw ‘expense’, which is attested on an ostracon from the reign of Ramesses II, there in relation to sgnn ‘oil’,34 HARING and SOLIMAN, Reading Twentieth Dynasty Ostraca, p. 93. K.A. KITCHEN, Ramesside Inscriptions. Historical and Biographical III, Oxford, 1980, p. 563. 34 O.Cairo CG 25502. The sign h might have been used for the abbreviation of hꜢb ‘to send’ on O.Clère 1, for a discussion of which, see L. WEISS, Markings on Oracle Ostraca from Deir 32

33

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D. SOLIMAN

Fig. 4. O.APO 670, obverse. Heather Alexander, Estate of Otto Schaden, Carol Schaden Executor.

Fig. 5. O.APO 675, obverse. Heather Alexander, Estate of Otto Schaden, Carol Schaden Executor.

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Fig. 6. O.APO 525, obverse. Heather Alexander, Estate of Otto Schaden, Carol Schaden Executor.

but this translation does not elucidate the meaning of the inscription on O.APO 676. During the 19th Dynasty, the term hꜢw occurs in the hieratic administrative texts of the Theban necropolis mostly in the context of wick accounts,35 but it is attested for wood and grain as well.36 The second line records a quantity of ms.t.y-sacks,37 also written very summarily. As a consequence, the relation to the marks on the same ostracon is not straightforwardly explained. Both the hieratic lines and the marks appear to have been written in the same ink, so it is very plausible that the entire document was created by a single author. The much abbreviated hieratic inscription is interesting, because el-Medina — Conflicting interpretations, in B.J.J. HARING and O.E. KAPER (eds), Pictograms or Pseudo Script? Non-textual Identity Marks in Practical Use in Ancient Egypt and Elsewhere. Proceedings of a Conference in Leiden, 19–20 December 2006 (Egyptologische Uitgaven 25), Leuven – Leiden, 2009, p. 227. The word hꜢb would, however, not be very appropriate in the context of our document. 35 Examples dating and attributed to the reign of Ramesses II are: O.Cairo CG 25540; O.Cairo CG 25631; O.Cairo CG 25813; O.Cairo CG 256816; O.Cairo JE 72458. 36 Examples dating and attributed to the reign of Ramesses II are: O.BM EA 50733+; O.Strasbourg H 110. 37 JANSSEN, Commodity Prices, p. 403–406. The reading of the word ms.t.y was kindly suggested by Dr Rob Demarée. According to JANSSEN, Commodity Prices, p. 458, n. 18, these sacks were used by the necropolis workmen during their construction work on the royal tomb.

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like the use of workmen’s marks it constitutes a non-standardised form of administration.38 On analogy with the 20th Dynasty duty and delivery ostraca composed with marks, it is likely that the ostraca from the 19th Dynasty group were made by a single scribe. The corpus of the 19th Dynasty group is much smaller than that of the 20th Dynasty group and it is unclear how long the 19th Dynasty scribe continued to create this type of document. We are nevertheless able to draw a number of parallels between the two corpora. The scribe of the 19th Dynasty ostraca must also have been an individual with some knowledge of hieratic script, as evidenced by the much abbreviated hieratic inscriptions on O.APO 676 and O.APO 670. Yet, the inscription on O.APO 676 as well as the unconventional method of recording information using identity marks and self-invented signs for commodities indicate that, like the 20th Dynasty scribe, the author of the 19th Dynasty ostraca most probably was not formally trained as a hieratic scribe. The fact that the same scribe likely created several documents of the same type demonstrates that, as in the 20th Dynasty, his lack of formal writing skills did not prevent him from administrating the deliveries of one particular side of the crew of necropolis workmen. Like his 20th Dynasty counterpart, the 19th Dynasty scribe was exclusively concerned with the duty roster, the deliveries, their deficits, and the people responsible for their transport. The 19th Dynasty scribe could therefore have been a ‘smd.t scribe’ as well. If that suspicion is correct, we may once again look for a most likely candidate. Our temporal framework in that endeavour is shaped by the year 38 inscription on O.APO 579, and by the date of O.BM EA 5634 in year 40 of Ramesses II. The ‘smd.t scribe’ for the left side of the crew around this time was a man coincidentally also named Pentaweret, number (ii) in Davies’s Who’s who. Pentaweret (ii) is first attested in the capacity as ‘smd.t scribe’ for the left in year 42 of Ramesses II, but the last attestation of Amenemope (xvi), Pentaweret (ii)’s predecessor, is in year 37.39 Unfortunately we know as little about Pentaweret (ii) as we do about Pentaweret (iii), and it is unclear if the two ‘smd.t scribes’ were related to each other. Summary Two groups of ostraca composed with identity marks record the duty roster and daily deliveries to the Theban royal necropolis workmen. The ostraca from the middle of the reign of Ramesses II provide the earliest evidence for the wrš duty in the community of Deir el-Medina and suggest that the commodities were 38 A number of unpublished ostraca exist from the middle of the 19th Dynasty with very similar abbreviated hieratic inscriptions (but without workmen’s marks) that appear to record deliveries as well: O.APO 721, ONL 335, ONL 6517, O.IFAO C 391 and ONL 6584. They may have been written by the same individual that composed the 19th Dynasty ostraca under discussion here. 39 DAVIES, Who’s Who, p. 125.

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mostly delivered by the workmen themselves. The subject matter of the ostraca renders it plausible that they were created by ‘smd.t scribes’. The ostraca can therefore be advanced to argue that ‘smd.t scribes’ were not necessarily scribes with a formal training in the hieratic script. As such, they provide a very different perspective on a community that is otherwise famous for its scribal practice. It is remarkable to observe that one particular strand of the Deir el-Medina administration depended in part on individuals who were not fully literate. Yet, they may well have collaborated with other scribes. This scenario seems most probable for the 20th Dynasty ‘smd.t scribe’, probably Pentaweret (iii), whose work must have been copied by the hieratic scribe Hori. Although definitive evidence is lacking, it is not too far of a stretch to imagine that the 19th Dynasty ostraca with marks, possibly the work of Pentaweret (ii), were likewise consulted by a trained hieratic scribe to write hieratic accounts of the deliveries and deficits of the commodities. This supposition would explain the purpose of the 19th Dynasty ostraca with marks, which must have been unintelligible to anyone outside of the community of Deir el-Medina. Bibliography J. BAINES and C.J. EYRE, Four Notes on Literacy, in Göttinger Miszellen 61 (1983), p. 86–91. B. BRUYÈRE, Rapport sur les fouilles de Deir el Médineh (1934–1935) III (Fouilles de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire 16), Cairo, 1939. G. BURKHARD, Das ḫtm n pꜢ ḫr von Deir el-Medine: Seine Funktion und die Frage seiner Lokalisierung, in A. DORN and T. HOFFMANN (eds), Living and Writing in Deir el-Medine: Socio-historical Embodiment of Deir el-Medine Texts (Aegyptiaca Helvetica 19), Basel, 2006, p. 31–42. J. ČERNÝ, Datum des Todes Ramses’ III. und der Thronbesteigung Ramses’ IV., in Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 72 (1936), p. 109–118. J. ČERNÝ, A Community of Workmen at Thebes in the Ramesside Period (Bibliothèque d’étude 50), Cairo, 20043. M. COLLIER, Dating Late XIXth Dynasty Ostraca (Egyptologische Uitgaven 28), Leiden, 2004. M. COLLIER, The Right Side of the Gang in Years 1 to 2 of Ramesses IV, in B.J.J. HARING, O.E. KAPER and R. VAN WALSEM (eds), The Workman’s Progress: Studies in the Village of Deir el-Medina and Other Documents from Western Thebes in Honour of Rob Demarée (Egyptologische Uitgaven 28), Leuven – Leiden, 2014, p. 1–20. B.G. DAVIES, Who’s Who at Deir el-Medina: A Prosopographic Study of the Royal Workmen’s Community (Egyptologische Uitgaven 13), Leiden, 1999. R.J. DÉMAREE, Ramesside Ostraca, London, 2002. K. DONKER VAN HEEL, Did the Deir el-Medina Scribes Use Drafts in Daily Scribal Practice?, in K. DONKER VAN HEEL and B.J.J. HARING, Writing in a Workmen’s Village: Scribal Practice in Ramesside Deir el-Medina (Egyptologische Uitgaven 16), Leiden, 2003, p. 1–38. A. DORN, Ostraka aus der Regierungszeit Sethos’ I. aus Deir el-Medineh und dem Tal der Köninge: Zur Mannschaft und zur Struktur des Arbeiterdorfes vor dem Bau

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des Ramesseums, in Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 67 (2011), p. 31–52. K. GABLER, Who’s Who Around Deir el-Medina: Untersuchungen zur Organisation, Prosopographie und Entwicklung des Versorgungspersonals für die Arbeitersiedlung und das Tal der Könige (Egyptologische Uitgaven 31), Leuven – Leiden, 2018. A. GARDINER, Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, Oxford, 19573. P. GRANDET, Catalogue des ostraca hiératiques non littéraires de Deîr el-Médînéh VIII. Nos. 706-830 (Documents de fouilles de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire 39), Cairo, 2000. M. GUTGESELL, Die Datierung der Ostraka und Papyri aus Deir el-Medineh und ihre ökonomische Interpretation I (Hildesheimer ägyptologische Beiträge 18), Hildesheim, 1983. S. HÄGGMAN, Directing Deir el-Medina: The External Administration of the Necropolis (Uppsala Studies in Egyptology 4), Uppsala, 2002. F. HAGEN, New Kingdom Ostraca from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 46), Leiden – Boston, 2011. B.J.J. HARING, Towards Decoding the Necropolis Workmen’s Funny Signs, in Göttinger Miszellen 178 (2000), p. 45–58. B.J.J. HARING, From Oral Practice to Written Record in Ramesside Deir El-Medina, in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 46.3 (2003), p. 248–272. B.J.J. HARING, Scribes and Scribal Activity at Deir el-Medina, in A. DORN and T. HOFFMANN (eds), Living and Writing in Deir el-Medine: Socio-historical Embodiment of Deir el-Medine Texts (Aegyptiaca Helvetica 19), Basel, 2006, p. 107–112. B.J.J. HARING, Workmen’s Marks on Ostraca from the Theban Necropolis: A Progress Report, in B.J.J. HARING and O.E. KAPER (eds.), Pictograms or Pseudo Script? Nontextual Identity Marks in Practical Use in Ancient Egypt and Elsewhere. Proceedings of a Conference in Leiden, 19–20 December 2006 (Egyptologische Uitgaven 25), Leuven – Leiden, 2009, p. 143–167. B.J.J. HARING, Between Administrative Writing and Work Practice: Marks Ostraca and the Roster of Day Duties of the Royal Necropolis Workmen in the New Kingdom, in J. BUDKA, F. KAMMERZELL and S. RZEPKA (eds), Non-Textual Marking Systems in Ancient Egypt (and Elsewhere) (Lingua Aegyptia. Studia monographica 16), Hamburg, 2015, p. 133–142. B.J.J. HARING, From Single Sign to Pseudo-Script: An Ancient Egyptian System of Workmen’s Identity Marks (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 93), Leiden – Boston, 2018. B.J.J. HARING and D. SOLIMAN, Reading Twentieth Dynasty Ostraca with Workmen’s Marks, in B.J.J. HARING, O.E. KAPER and R. VAN WALSEM (eds), The Workman’s Progress: Studies in the Village of Deir el-Medina and Other Documents from Western Thebes in Honour of Rob Demarée (Egyptologische Uitgaven 28), Leuven – Leiden, 2014, p. 73–93. J.J. JANSSEN, Commodity Prices from the Ramessid Period: An Economic Study of the Village of Necropolis Workmen at Thebes, Leiden, 1975. J.J. JANSSEN, Absence from Work by the Necropolis Workmen of Thebes, in Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 10 (1980), p. 107–152. J.J. JANSSEN, Literacy and Letter at Deir el-Medîna, in R.J. DEMARÉE and A. EGBERTS (eds), Villages Voices: Proceedings of the symposium ‘Texts from Deir el-Medîna and Their Interpretation’, Leiden, May 31–June 1, 1991 (CNWS Publications 13), Leiden, 1992, p. 81–91.

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J.J. JANSSEN, Village Varia: Ten Studies on the History and Administration of Deir elMedîna (Egyptologische Uitgaven 11), Leiden, 1997. K.A. KITCHEN, Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Biographical III, Oxford, 1980. K.A. KITCHEN, Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Biographical VII, Oxford, 1989. M. MÜLLER, Es werde Licht? Eine kurze Geschichte von Öl & Fett in Deir el-Medina in der 20. Dynastie, in B.J.J. HARING, O.E. KAPER and R. VAN WALSEM (eds), The Workman’s Progress: Studies in the Village of Deir el-Medina and Other Documents from Western Thebes in Honour of Rob Demarée (Egyptologische Uitgaven 28), Leuven – Leiden, 2014, p. 175–190. O.J. SCHADEN, The Amenmesse Project, Season of 2006, in Annales du service des antiquités de l’Égypte 82 (2008), p. 231–260. D.M. SOLIMAN, Duty Rosters and Delivery Records Composed with Marks and Their Relation to the Written Administration of Deir el-Medina, in B.J.J. HARING, K.V.J. VAN DER MOEZEL and D.M. SOLIMAN (eds), Decoding Signs of Identity: Egyptian Workmen’s Marks in Archaeological, Historical, Comparative and Theoretical Perspective. Proceedings of a Conference in Leiden, 13–15 December 2013 (Egyptologische Uitgaven 32), Leuven – Leiden, 2018, p. 155–190. D. VALBELLE, “Les ouvriers de la tombe”: Deir el-Médineh à l’époque Ramesside (Bibliothèque d’étude 96), Cairo, 1985. J. VANDIER and J. VANDIER D’ABBADIE, Tombes de Deir el-Médineh: La tombe de NeferAbou (Mémoires publiés par le membres de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire 69), Cairo, 1935. L. WEISS, Markings on Oracle Ostraca from Deir el-Medina — Conflicting Interpretations, in B.J.J. HARING and O.E. KAPER (eds), Pictograms or Pseudo Script? Nontextual Identity Marks in Practical Use in Ancient Egypt and Elsewhere: Proceedings of a Conference in Leiden, 19–20 December 2006 (Egyptologische Uitgaven 25), Leuven – Leiden, 2009, p. 221–230.

HOW MANY SCRIBES IN P.BEROL. 13270? NEW CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE HANDWRITING Valeria TEZZON So schob sie ihr manchmal abgeschriebene Federn unter, um sie auf einen freieren Zug der Handschrift zu leiten; aber auch diese waren bald wieder scharf geschnitten. J. W. Goethe, Die Wahlverwandtschaften1

P.Berol. 13270 (LDAB 6927 = TM 65674) preserves a rather short column of Greek lyric poems. The editio princeps published by U. Wilamowitz in 1907 had, predictably, a great influence on most of the later editors.2 Since then, the text has been unanimously ascribed to the sympotic context. However, the riddling diction of the text and its mise en page make the interpretation of the verses far from being easy. Furthermore, how the text was produced and, in particular, how many people were involved in writing it is difficult to understand. The text below follows the edition of the verses provided in my doctoral Thesis.3

5

μουϲ̣αι

[ ̣ ̣ ̣ ]̣ αι θυγάτη[ [ ̣ ]̣ λ̣ ε[ ̣ ]̣ α ϲῖτα φέρων[ [ ]̣ α μοι τεμένη βἠἠ [̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ]̣ ων[ [ἐ]γκέρα[ϲ]ον χαρίτων κρατῆ[ρ]α ἐπιϲτεφ[ ]̣ έα κ [̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ π]ρόπι[ν]ε [λό]γον ϲήμαινε ὅτι παρθέν[ω]ν ἀπε[ί]ροϲι πλέξομεν ὕμνοιϲ [τ]ὰν δοριϲώματι κειραμέναν Τρ[οί]αν καὶ [τ]ὸν παρὰ ναυϲὶν ἀειμνά[ϲ]τοιϲ ἁλόντα νυκτιβάταν ϲκο⟦ ⟧̣ πόν ὦ μοῦϲ’ [ἀ]γανόμματε μᾶτερ ϲυνεπίϲπεο ϲῶν τέκνων [ ̣ ]̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ [̣ ̣ ̣ ]̣ ωι ἄρτι βρύουϲαν ἀοιδάν πρωτοπαγεῖ ϲοφίαι διαποικίλον ἐκφέρομεν

1 “She would sometimes surreptitiously give her worn quills to use, to induce a greater fluency in her handwriting; but before long they were sharpened again,” J.W. VON GOETHE, Elective Affinities, trans. D. Constantine, Oxford, 1999, p. 40. 2 W. SCHUBART and U. WILAMOWITZ-MOELLENDORF, Berliner Klassikertexte, Heft V, Griechische Dichterfragmente, zweite Hälfte, Berlin, 1907, p. 56–63. For an image of the papyrus, see https:// berlpap.smb.museum/00644/ 3 VALERIA TEZZON, The Sympotic Songs of Elephantine (P.Berol. 13270). New Edition, Translation, and Commentary, Humboldt edoc-Server 2019, http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/18452/20568 (DOI: 10.18452/19772), p. 72–73. The following sigla are cited in the apparatus: ed. pr. = SCHUBART and WILAMOWITZ 1907; Powell = POWELL 1925; Manteuffel = MANTEUFFEL 1930; Edmonds = EDMONDS 1940; Diehl = DIEHL 1942; Page1 = PAGE 1950; Page2 = PAGE 1962; Casagrande = CASAGRANDE 1983; Fabbro = FABBRO 1983; Iscra-Marinćić = ISCRA-MARINĆIĆ 1983; Ferrari = FERRARI 1989; Bravo = BRAVO 1997; Pordomingo = PORDOMINGO 2013; Condello = CONDELLO 2016.

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V. TEZZON

ευφωρατ[ ̣ ̣ ]̣ μνημοϲυνη

10

15

20

[ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ]̣ ι τέγξαν Ἀχελώιου δρόϲ[οιϲ ̣ ̣ ]̣ παραπροϊών ὑφίει [π]όδα λῦε ἑανοῦ πτέρυγαϲ τάχοϲ ἵεϲο λεπτολίθων [ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ]̣ :̣ ευ: καθόρα πέλαγοϲ παρὰ γᾶν ἔκφευγε Νότου χαλεπὰν φοβερὰ[ν διαπο]ντοπλανῆ μανίαν ——— χαίρετε ϲυμπόται ἄνδρεϲ ὁμ[ήλικεϲ ἐ]ξ ἀγαθοῦ γάρ ἀρξάμενοϲ τελέω τὸν λόγον εἰϲ ἀγ[αθό]ν χρὴ δ’ ὅταν εἰϲ τοιοῦτο ϲυνέλθωμεν φίλοι ἀνδρεϲ πρᾶγμα γελᾶν παίζειν χρηϲαμένουϲ ἀρετῆι ἥδεϲθαι τε ϲυνόνταϲ ἐϲ ἀλλήλουϲ τε φ[λ]υαρεῖν καὶ ϲκώπτειν τοιαῦτα οἷα γέλωτα φέρειν ἡ δὲ ϲπουδὴ ἑπέϲθω ἀκούωμεν [δέ λε]γόντων ἐμ μέρει ἥδ’ ἀρετὴ ϲυμποϲίου πέλεται τοῦ δὲ ποταρχοῦντοϲ ⟦ ̣ ̣ 〛̣ πειθώμεθα ταῦτα γάρ ἐϲτιν ἔργ’ ἀνδρῶν ἀγαθῶν εὐλογίαν τε φέρειν

1 [ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣]αι θυγάτη[ρ ed. pr.: ]αι θυγάτη[ρ Powell, Page2, Ferrari, Pordomingo || 2 [ ̣]πλε[ ̣]α ϲῖτα Page2: [ ἄ]πλε[τ]α ϲῖτα Powell, Ferrari, Fabbro, Bravo, Pordomingo || 3 α μοι τεμένη ed. pr., Fabbro: [ ἀτ]άλλοτέ μ’ ἐν ἥβῃ Powell: αμοι τεμένη Page2, Ferrari, Pordomingo: [ τ]άμοι τεμένη Bravo || 4 [ἐ]νκέραϲον Χαρίτων κρατῆ[ρ]α ed. pr., Diehl, Page1 et 2, Ferrari, Pordomingo: [ἐ]νκέρα[ϲ]ον Χαρίτων κρατῆ[ρ]α Fabbro, Bravo: ἐγκέραϲον Χαρίτων κρατῆρα Powell, Edmonds | ἐπιϲτ[ε]φέα ed. pr., Page1: ἐπιϲτεφέα Edmonds, Powell: ἐπιϲτεφέα Diehl: ἐπιϲτ[ε]φέα Page2, Fabbro, Pordomingo: ἐπιϲτεφέα Ferrari: ἐπιϲτ[{ ̣}]εφέα Bravo | κρ[ύφιόν τε π]ρόπι[ν]ε ed. pr., Page1: κρ[ύφιόν τε π]ρόπι[ν]ε Diehl: κρ[ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣π]ρόπι[ν]ε Page2: κρ[ύφιόν] τε πρόπινε Edmonds: κρύφιόν τε πρόπινε Powell: κρ[ύφ]ι[όν τε π]ρόπι[ν]ε Ferrari, Pordomingo κρ[ήγυόν τε π]ρόπι[ν]ε Fabbro: κρ[άγ]υ[όν τ]ε πρόπι[ν]ε Bravo || 5 παρθένων ἀπείροϲι ed. pr., Page1: παρθένων ἀπε[ί]ροϲι Bravo: παρθένων ἀπε[ί]ροϲι Page2, Ferrari, Fabbro, Pordomingo: παρθενικῶν Powell, Edmonds || 6 δορὶ ϲώματι ed. pr., Diehl, Page1: δοριϲώματι Manteuffel: δορὸϲ ἥματι Powell, Edmonds: δορὸϲ οἴματι Page2 coni.: δορὶ ϲώματα Ferrari, Fabbro, Bravo, Pordomingo || 7 {ὦ} Μουϲ ἀγανόμματε ed. pr., Page1: ὦ Μουϲ[ᾶν] ἀγανόμματε Powell: ὦ Μουϲ ἀγανόμματε Manteuffel, Diehl, Edmonds, Bravo: ὦ Μοῦϲ’ ἀγανόμματε Page2 dubitanter, Ferrari, Casagrande, Pordomingo || 8 [ἁγν]ῶι [γόν]ωι ed. pr., Powell, Edmonds, Pordomingo: [ἁγν]ῶι [χορ]ῶι Diehl coni. dubitanter: [ἁγν]ῶι [πόν]ωι Manteuffel: [ ̣ ̣ ̣] ωι [ ̣ ̣ ̣]ωι Page1 et 2: [ἁγ]νῶι [ ̣ ̣]ωι Casagrande: [ἁ]γιωι γ[ό]νωι Bravo: [ὕμν]ωι vel [πόν]ωι [καλ]ῶι Ferrari coni. | αωιδαν pap.: ἀοιδάν corr. ed. pr. || 9 νέφη τ]οι fortasse: νῆά τ]οι ed. pr., Diehl, Powell, Edmonds, Page1 et 2, Pordomingo: εἷμά μο]ι Ferrari coni., Bravo: ἦμοϲ τ]οι vel ἐπεί τ]οι vel εἰ δή τ]οι Casagrande | δρόϲ[οι παῦε] edd. pr., Diehl, Powell, Edmonds, Pordomingo: δρόϲ[οι] [παῦε] vel [λῆγε] vel similia exempli gratia Page1 et 2: δρόϲο[ι] [παῦε] Ferrari: δρόϲ[οι] [νῆα] Casagrande: δρόϲ[οι ἤδη παῦε] Bravo | πέρα προϊών ed. pr., Diehl: παραπροϊών Powell, Edmonds, Page1 et 2, Ferrari, Casagrande, Bravo, Pordomingo || 10 [ἐπ’ ἀγῶ]ν ed. pr., Page1, Pordomingo: [ἐπ’ ἀγρῶ]ν Diehl: [ἐπ’ ὄχω]ν Powell dubitanter: [ἐπ’ ἀγᾶ]ν Edmonds: [ψαμαθῶ]ν Page2: [λιμένω]ν Casagrande, Ferrari: [κροκαλᾶ]ν n Bravo || 11 φοβερὰν [διαπο]ντοπλανῆ ed. pr, Powell, Edmonds, Page2: φοβερὰ[ν διαπο]ντοπλανῆ Page1, Ferrari, Casagrande, Bravo, Pordomingo || 12 ὁμ[ήλικεϲ ed.pr.: ὁμ[όφρονεϲ possis Iscra-Marinćić || 17 φέρει ed. pr. || 18 [τε λε]γόντων ed. pr., Condello: δὲ λεγόντων Ferrari, Iscra-Marinćić, Bravo: τε λεγόντων Pordomingo || 21 φέρειν Π, Ferrari: φέρει ed. pr.

In 1924, Ulrich Wilcken4 argued that the text in the papyrus must have been drafted by two people and recognised two distinct kinds of handwriting: one he describes as ‘kräftig, schlicht’ and the other as ‘kleiner, zierlicher’.5 According 4 5

U. WILCKEN, Lückenbüßer, in Archiv für Papyrusforschung 7 (1924), p. 66. WILCKEN, Lückenbüßer, p. 66.

HOW MANY SCRIBES IN P.BEROL. 13270?

65

to him, a hypothetical first writer wrote the text from line 1 until πλέξομεν in line 5. A second writer picked up with ὕμνοις in line 5 and went on until κωπτειν or ωπτειν in line 17, where the first writer got back to work until the end of the column. Wilamowitz imagined the following scenario: “Also saßen da zwei Freunde zusammen, die abwechselnd diese Verse zum Symposion aufschrieben.”6 Subsequently, R. Seider also acknowledged the involvement of two writers in drafting the text.7 B. Bravo then went so far as to see in P.Berol. 13270 a writing exercise and carefully tried to describe the alleged turnover of scribes.8 He postulated a slight and delicate hand, which he called X, and a rather plain, perhaps less skilled one, which he called Y. According to him, X wrote the few traces at line 1; starting from line 2, hand Y would have written the text until the last sequence at line 5, ὕμνοις. At this point, hand X replaced hand Y and continued to write down until line 17. He assumed that the whole text from line 17 until the end of the column was actually written by Y using his usual calamos, except for the first letters, for which he temporarily borrowed a different pen. Despite some variations in the handwriting, a turnover between two different writers, as described by Wilcken and Bravo, appears quite problematic. In fact, a remarkable point is that such a hypothetical turnover of hands does not coincide with any change in the content of the text, nor in its layout, and it is rather unlikely that one scribe would give way to another in the middle of a poem, not to mention in the middle of a single word. Indeed, changes of writers may occur in texts composed in educational contexts, as the lines written by the experienced hand of a teacher are usually meant to guide the student, who has to copy them in order to improve his writing skills.9 The same portion of text might appear to be written twice by two different unskilled hands (two disciples), as in P.L.Bat. XVII 18 (LDAB 976 = TM 59869) which preserves part of the hypothesis of Euripides’ Temenidae written twice. Nevertheless, P.Berol. 13270 does not seem to contain a writing exercise, since the text flows without repetition, and the supposed turnover does not suit any clear educational purpose. For these very reasons, a turnover between two different students might be excluded.10 WILCKEN, Lückenbüßer, p. 66. “Zwei Hände lassen sich deutlich unterscheiden,” R. SEIDER, Paläographie der griechischen Papyri, II, Stuttgart, 1970, p. 38. 8 B. BRAVO, Un ditirambo misconosciuto (P.Berol. 13270) e ancora gli antesteria, in Pannychis e simposio. Feste private notturne di donne e uomini nei testi letterari e nel culto, Pisa – Rome, 1997, p. 43–49, at p. 47–49. 9 Cf. G. ZALATEO, Papiri Scolastici, in Aegyptus 41 (1961), p. 160–235; R. CRIBIORE, Writing, Teachers and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt, Atlanta, 1996, p. 97–118; R. CRIBIORE, Gymnastics of the Mind, Princeton, 2001, p. 39–40, 132–136. 10 Cf. C. PERNIGOTTI and F. MALTOMINI, Morfologie ed Impieghi delle Raccolte Simposiali: lineamenti di storia di una tipologia libraria antica, in Materiali e Discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 49 (2002), p. 53–84, at p. 68–69. 6 7

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In addition to school texts, a turnover of scribes might occur also in literary anthologies or collections of texts, as in P.Köln XI 429 + 430 (LDAB 10253 = TM 68983) or P.Oxy. LIV 3724 (LDAB 213 = TM 59118). Of the three fragmentary texts recorded on the Cologne papyri, the first two are by Sappho; they are written in a hand characterised by older, epigraphic forms, such as squared epsilon and kappa. The third fragment, not Sapphic, is separated from the previous ones by a paragraphos and is written by a second hand, which consistently uses more recent forms of epsilon and kappa.11 The Oxyrhynchus papyrus displays three different hands identified by its editor, Peter Parsons, as A, B and C.12 Two of them, A and C, were involved in the writing of a collection of epigrams recorded on the papyrus.13 Yet, in P.Berol. 13270 the separation between the first section of lyric verses and the elegy, which is indicated by a paragraphos and the employment of indentation, does not correspond to a change of hands, nor does the change of content in the first lines above the paragraphos. Lacking a plausible reason to account for it, the hypothesis of a turnover between writers must be called into question. In order to verify the involvement of two scribes, it might be worth analysing the script in detail. The writing appears roughly bilinear, with verticals of kappa, phi, psi, iota and rho extending beyond both the base and upper line. The space between the lines is mostly regular, with a slight tendency to write each line upwards throughout the column. The ductus of the writer X appears more fluent, whereas Y seems to write quite slowly. At times, some letters such as tau, kappa, iota and rho actually present small little serifs, but not systematically. The most remarkable difference between the two hypothetical scribes pertains to the thickness of the strokes. By closely observing the shape of the letters and the movements that drew them, one might notice that – although overall irregular – most of the letters are written in a very similar way. – alpha is always written in three movements: a diagonal motion that joins a curved stroke and a crossbar:

X l. 6

X l. 12

Y l. 5

Y l. 19

11 Cf. M. GRONEWALD and R.W. DANIEL, Ein neuer Sappho-Papyrus, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 147 (2004), p. 1–8, and M. GRONEWALD and R.W. DANIEL, Nachtrag zum neuen Sappho-papyrus, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 149 (2004), p. 1–4. 12 Cf. also D. YATROMANOLAKIS, Music, Cultural Politics and Hellenistic Anthologies, in Hellenika 58 (2008), p. 248. 13 Only the first column was written by scribe A, whereas the rest of the text was written by scribe C. Scribe B wrote the short central text, which is not pertinent to the collection of poems.

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– both epsilon and sigma are constantly in the half moon form:

X l. 12

X l. 5

X l. 16

X l. 16

Y l. 3

Y l. 18

Y l. 21

Y l. 20

Discrepancies in the shapes of the letters do not constitute good evidence of a change of writer, since they occur within the same line, or in sequences of text ascribed to just one specific hand. The letter nu might just prove the point: both the hypothetical hands indicate a common tendency to shift from a strongly squared form to a more cursive one:

Y l. 3

X l. 6

Y l. 17

Y l. 20

Y l. 21

X l. 16

X l. 13

X l. 15

All things considered, the objective differences in the handwriting might be the result of external factors, such as tools or the scribe’s carefulness. The column could have been drafted by a single scribe, who abandoned a careful writing style in line 5 and sped up, only to slow down again in line 17. Also, changes of ductus and variations in the thickness of the strokes could have been caused by the sharpness of the pen, and by how it was dipped in the ink.14 Variations in the handwriting due to a dull pen are visible in Vienna Nationalbibliothek inv. GHT 6 (LDAB 529 = TM 59430), a wooden tablet containing the largest fragment of Callimachus’s Hecale (fr. 260 Pfeiffer) on the front side and some verses of 14 Cf. W.J. TAIT, Rush and Reed: the Pen of Egyptian and Greek Scribes, in Proceedings of the XVIII International Congress of Papyrology II, Athens, 1988, p. 477–481.

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Euripides’ Phoenissae on the back. The tablet records a writing exercise, and the four columns on the front are, according to Cribiore, “written by one hand (not two, as supposed in the editio princeps) using a badly sharpened pen;”15 on the tablet, we might observe some variations between thin, quicker forms and thick and heavy ones, as in P.Berol. 13270. Although reconstructing the writing process of the text in P.Berol. 13270 with certainty is impossible, I argue that the discrepancies in the handwriting are more likely produced by tools rather than by a turnover between scribes and that only one person was actually involved in the drafting of the text. After the first lines of the papyrus, the style degrades because of wear to the nib, causing the scribe to sharpen his pen. At line 17 he does not feel the urge to sharpen it again, having just a few lines left to write. Editions SCHUBART and WILAMOWITZ 1907 = W. SCHUBART and U. VON WILAMOWITZ-MÖLLENDORFF, Skolien und Elegie, in Berliner Klassikertexte, Heft V, Griechische Dichterfragmente, zweite Hälfte, Berlin, 1907, p. 56–63. POWELL 1925 = J.U. POWELL, Collectanea Alexandrina, Oxford, 1925, p. 190–192. MANTEUFFEL 1930 = G. MANTEUFFEL, De Opusculis Graecis Aegypti e Papyris, Ostracis Lapidibusque collectis, Warsaw, 1930, p. 174–176. EDMONDS 1940 = J.M. EDMONDS, Lyra Graeca III, Cambridge, 1940, p. 580–581. DIEHL 1942 = E. DIEHL, Anthologia Lyrica Graeca, Lipsia, 1942, p. 189–190. PAGE 1950 = D.L. PAGE, Select Papyri, III, Literary Papyri Poetry, Cambridge, 1950, p. 386–390, 444. PAGE 1962 = D.L. PAGE, Poetae Melici Graeci, Oxford, 1962, p. 482. CASAGRANDE 1983 = C. CASAGRANDE, Poesia conviviale in un papiro di Elefantina, in Quaderni di filologia classica 4 (1983), p. 14–17. FABBRO 1983 = E. FABBRO, Poesia conviviale in un papiro di Elefantina, in Quaderni di filologia classica 4 (1983), p. 6–13. ISCRA and MARINÇIÇ 1983 = E. ISCRA and N. MARINÇIÇ, Poesia conviviale in un papiro di Elefantina, in Quaderni di filologia classica 4 (1983), p. 18–21. FERRARI 1989 = F. FERRARI, P. Berol. 13270: i canti di Elefantina, in Studi Classici e Orientali 38 (1989), p. 181–227. BRAVO 1997 = B. BRAVO, Un ditirambo misconosciuto (P.Berol. 13270) e ancora gli antesteria, in Pannychis e simposio. Feste private notturne di donne e uomini nei testi letterari e nel culto, Pisa – Rome, 1997, p. 43–99. PORDOMINGO 2013 = F. PORDOMINGO, Antologías de época helenística en papiro, Florence, 2013, p. 163–168. CONDELLO 2016 = F. CONDELLO, L’elegia di Elefantina (adesp. el. 27 W.2 = adesp. 12 G.-P2) carme unitario o catena simposiale?, in Paideia LXXXI (2016), p. 29– 50.

15 R. CRIBIORE, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt, Atlanta, 1996, p. 247.

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Bibliography R. CRIBIORE, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt, Atlanta, 1996. M. GRONEWALD and R.W. DANIEL, Ein neuer Sappho-Papyrus, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 147 (2004), p. 1–8. M. GRONEWALD and R.W. DANIEL, Nachtrag zum neuen Sappho-papyrus, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 149 (2004), p. 1–4. C. PERNIGOTTI and F. MALTOMINI, Morfologie ed impieghi delle raccolte simposiali: lineamenti di storiadi una tipologia libraria antica, in Materiali e Discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 49 (2002), p. 53–84. W. SEIDER, Paläographie der griechischen Papyri II, Stuttgart, 1970. W.J. TAIT, Rush and Reed: the Pen of Egyptian and Greek Scribes, in Proceedings of the XVIII International Congress of Papyrology II, Athens, 1988, p. 477–481. U. WILCKEN, Lückenbüßer, in Archiv für Papyrusforschung 7 (1924), p. 66–67. D. YATROMANOLAKIS, Music, Cultural Politics and Hellenistic Anthologies, in Hellenika 58 (2008), p. 248. G. ZALATEO, Papiri Scolastici, in Aegyptus 41 (1961), p. 160–235.

COMPOSITIONAL PRACTICE AND CONTRACTUAL AUTHORITY IN THE PATERMOUTHIS ARCHIVE* Rodney AST Since any document of whatever kind is at some point the product of a human or responsible act, it is essential to inform oneself of its circumstances, if one is to view the act that it embodies in all its integrity.1

Scribal, notarial, and witness signatures in Greek contracts preserved on papyrus have been subjected to curious treatment in the past. Early editions not infrequently omitted translations of the signature clauses.2 This was perhaps because procedural information about the people who drew up the contracts was secondary to the legal matter at stake and thus of less interest to the editors; its potential value for studies in social history was not yet grasped. More recently, some studies have taken the opposite interest in the texts by focusing solely on the signatures, a good example being J.M. Diethart and K.A. Worp’s 1986 photo gallery of individual notarial signatures taken from Byzantine documents.3 Their survey offered a very useful guide to notarial practice, especially at a time when relatively few reproductions of signatures were publicly available. Yet, the book was limited to the signatures only, and it purposefully neglected other parts of the documents. As a result, one could not see how signatures related to the contracts they concluded. Somewhat ironically, the signatures were sentenced to a kind of isolation similar to what they experienced in English translations decades earlier. * I am indebted to Jim Keenan and Jean-Luc Fournet for commenting on an early draft of this article and for additional bibliography. Images are courtesy of the University Library in Munich and the British Library in London; I thank the University of Heidelberg’s CRC 933 for paying for the reproductions and for supporting the workshop conducted in the context of Malcolm Choat’s Mercator Fellowship in Fall 2014, and Elke Fuchs for preparing some of the figures. In what follows, the editions of translations published by J. FARBER in B. PORTEN, The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change, Leiden, 1996, are referred to by their D numbers. 1 L.E. BOYLE, Diplomatics, in M. POWELL (ed.), Medieval Studies: An Introduction, Syracuse, N.Y., 19922, p. 82–113, at p. 93. 2 See R. AST, Telling Them by Their Hands: What Palaeography Has to Offer Prosopography, in F.A.J. HOOGENDIJK and S. VAN GOMPEL (eds), The Materiality of Texts from Ancient Egypt. New Approaches to the Study of Textual Material from the Early Pharaonic to the Late Antique Period (Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava 35), Leiden, 2018, p. 27–34, at p. 27–28. 3 J.M. DIETHART and K.A. WORP, Notarunterschriften im byzantinischen Ägypten (MPER NS XVI), Vienna, 1986.

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Over the past five to ten years the situation has changed. Papyrologists and Greek palaeographers have begun taking more interest in the overall appearance of inscribed artifacts. This chapter builds on this interest, by showing how attention to the layout and design of the complete document might shed light on particular aspects of notarial practice and on general bureaucratic behavior.4 It takes as its material a small corpus of texts known collectively as the Patermouthis archive and addresses two main questions: What does a contract’s design (its general layout, the position and execution of its signatures etc.) tell us about late antique notarial and scribal practice in a particular place and about the agents responsible for drafting and authenticating the document? Can we identify any basic rules that might illustrate how such a contract was produced? The Patermouthis archive comprises over fifty mainly Greek but also a few Coptic documents. They were purchased in Egypt in two separate batches in 1907 and 1908 and originated in Syene.5 They span the years 493 to 613 and are mainly legal in nature, for example, deeds of sales of house property, cessions, settlements of inheritance disputes.6 Only a few private documents survive, all in Coptic.7 The archive centers on the affairs of Patermouthis and his wife Kako, the latter’s family being the principal conduit for most of the transactions. While Patermouthis and Kako figure prominently in the documents, they are only a part 4 While papyrologists have been slow to study diplomatic practice in any formal way, medievalists have been engaged in the subject for centuries; for a good overview, see L.E. BOYLE, Diplomatics, in J.M. POWELL (ed.), Medieval Studies: An Introduction, Syracuse, NY, 19922, p. 82–113. More recently, the topic of what might be termed functionality in document design has attracted attention; see, for example, C. BOURNE, Messiness in Manuscript: Literature’s Ongoing State, (Review of D. WAKELIN, Designing English: Early Literature on the Page), Times Literary Supplement (August 3, 2018), p. 32, – I thank Claire Bourne for sending me a copy of her review. Of course, design plays a much smaller role in Greek documents than in many medieval manuscripts, but still it should not be entirely ignored. 5 Detailed information about the archive is available in PORTEN, Elephantine Papyri, p. 389– 406 and K. GEENS, Archive of Flavius Patermouthis, son of Menas (ArchID 37), in W. CLARYSSE and K. VANDORPE (eds), Papyrus Archives in Graeco-Roman Egypt, Leuven, 2005, https://www. trismegistos.org/arch/detail.php?tm=37 (accessed 02.05.2018); acquisition of the two batches, one of which went to the British Museum, the other to the Königliche Hof- und Staatsbibliothek in Munich is described in R. DE RUSTAFJAELL, The Light of Egypt, London, 1909, p. 3–4 and L. WENGER, Vorbericht über die Münchener byzantinischen Papyri, in Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Philologische und Historische Klasse Band 1911, 8. Abh., Munich, 1911, p. 4–5. Geens records 53 certain and 2 uncertain papyri and ostraca, which are listed on the corresponding Trismegistos Archives page, https://www.trismegistos.org/arch/detail. php?tm=37. For a somewhat lower estimate, see J.H.F. DIJKSTRA, Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian Religion. A Regional Study of Religious Transformation (298-642 CE), Leuven, 2008, p. 68. Of the Greek documents, thirteen were only described in P.Lond. V; these are 1846–1850, 1852–1856, 1858, 1859, 1861. The only two contracts that were not drawn up in Syene are P.Münch. I 2, which was drafted in Elephantine, and P.Münch. I 7 + P.Lond. V 1860, which was written in Antinoopolis. 6 For the individual text types, see GEENS, Archive of Flavius Patermouthis, nn. 7–9. 7 GEENS, Archive of Flavius Patermouthis, n. 11. But see also the Coptic legal document from the archive recently published in J.H.F. Dijkstra, A Coptic Papyrus from the Patermouthis Archive in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at Munich, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 216 (2020), p. 243–250.

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of it; the archive spans a larger period than either of their lifetimes. Our interest, however, is less in the parties to the contracts than in the people who performed the bureaucratic procedures of composing, witnessing, and signing them. Among these people are mainly soldiers, but also some members of the clergy, who came almost exclusively from Syene; a number of them (including Patermouthis) were also Nile boatmen. The involvement of soldiers and clergy in the production and authentication of the contracts led J. Keenan to state that Syene was probably home to a record-office that was responsible for supporting not only official business or the business of the soldiers, but also private legal matters of members of the community.8 Being literate, albeit to varying degrees, these men served as signatories and witnesses to formal agreements. Their ability to write, and not their status as soldiers and clergymen, enabled them to perform these functions. Of significance is the fact that they were not professional notaries, of which only two are mentioned in the archive (each referred to as συμβολαιογράφος), both in property settlements, or dialyseis (P.Münch. I 7 + P.Lond. V 1860 and P.Münch. I 14).9 Over half the published Greek documents in the archive are written in the transversa charta format.10 Moreover, nearly all of them follow the cheirographon convention, which was modelled on epistolary practice and shows a distinctive form in the Byzantine period.11 It begins with the issuer (be it an alienor, a debtor, or someone else, depending on the type of document) greeting the addressee (e.g., alienee or creditor etc.) with the formulaic expression NN to J.G. KEENAN, Evidence for the Byzantine Army in the Syene Papyri, in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 27 (1990), p. 146–150, esp. p. 149–150; GEENS, Archive of Flavius Patermouthis, p. 5. 9 The Latin term for such professionals was tabellio; besides συμβολαιογράφος, the notary might be referred to in Greek as νομικός; see T.S. RICHTER, Byzantine Sales. Some Aspects of the Development of Legal Instruments in the Later Roman and Byzantine Period, in J. KEENAN, J.G. MANNING and U. YIFTACH FIRANKO (eds), Law and Legal Practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab Conquest. A Selection of Papyrological Sources in Translation with Introductions and Commentary, Cambridge, 2014, p. 83–95, at p. 86–87. S. KOVARIK offers a good overview of notarial practice and imperial attempts to regulate it in Die byzantinische Tabellionenurkunde in Ägypten, in C. GASTGEBER (ed.), Quellen zur byzantinischen Rechtspraxis, Vienna, 2010, p. 27–37. 10 Among those that are not are P.Lond. V 1719–1721, 1723, P.Münch. I 3 + P.Lond. V 1725, 1728, 1736, 1737; P.Münch. I 2, 10; as Porten and Farber state, all deeds of obligation are written with the fibres, not transversa charta, PORTEN, Elephantine Papyri, p. 11–12 and 391 with n. 33. For general discussion of the transversa charta format, see the still standard work of E.G. TURNER, The Terms Recto and Verso. The Anatomy of the Papyrus Roll, Brussels, 1978, p. 26–53. Jean-Luc Fournet suggests to me (per litt.) that the choice of the format may have depended simply on the length of the text. Documents requiring fewer lines of text, such as deeds of obligations, did not need to be written transversa charta. 11 A brief summary of the cheirographon is available in U. YIFTACH-FIRANKO, Cheirographon, in R.S. BAGNALL et al. (eds), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, Malden, 2013, p. 1446–1447; see too U. YIFTACH-FIRANKO, Evolution of forms of Greek documents of the Ptolemaic, Roman, and Byzantine periods, in J.G. KEENAN, J.G. MANNING and U. YIFTACH-FIRANKO (eds), Law and Legal Practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab Conquest: A Selection of Papyrological Sources in Translation, with Introductions and Commentary, Cambridge, 2014, p. 35–53, at p. 46–49; RICHTER, Byzantine Sales, p. 85; the introduction to P.Münch. I 7. 8

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NN greetings (χαίρειν). The two property settlements (or dialyseis) penned by notaries (P.Münch. I 7 + P.Lond. V 1860 and P.Münch. I 14) are the only documents not written as cheirographa. The texts in the archive show a fairly standard layout (Fig. 1).12 They begin with 1) the dating clause, followed by 2) the identification of the parties to the contract; 3) the greeting formula (χαίρειν); 4) the body of the contract, which includes such elements as the details of the agreement, the assurance of validity etc.; 5) the stipulation clause and subscription of the signatory; 6) the witness signatures, all in their own hands and varied in number;13 7) the ‘notarial’ signature – this is the line in which the person responsible for drafting the document, whether nominally or actually, acknowledges the act of composition using one of five verbal forms: ἐγένετο, ἐγράφη, ἐσωμάτισα, ἐσωματίσθη, ἐτελειώθη14 (it is also referred to as the completion note, Latin completio15); 8) the endorsement on the back.16 In nearly every contract in which witnesses sign, there is a clear zone set off for the witness signatures between the signatory’s subscription (5) and the notarial signature (or completio) (7).17 This last element is similar to what is observed in private letters where the composer of the letter, who is not necessarily the same person as the sender, leaves a blank space between the body and the final greeting (often the verb ἔρρωσο).18 One of the challenges posed by legal documents of the sort found in the Patermouthis archive is determining the sequence in which the various components of the texts were written and the agents behind them. We can imagine that the writer of the contract first penned parts 1–4; the literate representative of the issuer(s) furnished the acknowledgement and signature (5); the person functioning as notary applied the completion note (7);19 only then did the witnesses sign (6). Moreover, crosses and staurograms are consistently used to distinguish 12 This is loosely based on the schema of RICHTER, Byzantine Sales, p. 87; Farber gives a slightly more detailed one in PORTEN, Elephantine Papyri, p. 393. 13 The number of witnesses ranges from 1 in P.Lond. V 1732 = D44 to a maximum of 8 in P.Lond. V 1722 = D22, with 3 being the most common (P.Lond. V 1736 = D51; P.Münch. I 7 + P.Lond. V 1860 = D36; P.Münch. I 12 = D46; P.Lond. V 1737 = D52; P.Lond. V 1723 = D30; P.Münch. I 3 + P.Lond. V 1725 = D33; P.Lond. V 1730 = D41; P.Münch. I 10 = D43). 14 More precisely, one should say that they use one of five forms of four distinct verbs: γίγνομαι, γράφω, σωματίζω, and τελειόω. 15 RICHTER, Byzantine Sales, p. 87. 16 Because I was not able to consult the papyri in person and did not receive images of most of the back sides, I do not take account of these endorsements. 17 A clear exception is P.Münch. I 2, where there are no witnesses, and the speakers’ representative, Fl. Makarios son of Isakos, is the same person who is said to have composed the document. 18 As Antonia Sarri has demonstrated, the gap between the body and the generic ‘farewell’ could then be filled in with a personal greeting of the letter’s actual sender, A. SARRI, Material Aspects of Letter Writing in the Graeco-Roman World, c. 500 BC – c. AD 300 (Materiale Textkulturen 12), Berlin – Boston, 2017, p. 146–192. 19 This is suggested above all by the large gap that appears before the completion note.

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Fig. 1: P.Münch. I 1 with sections of the document labelled

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significant blocks, for example, between the body of the document (4) and the acknowledgement and subscription (5); between individual witness signatures (6); and at the beginning of the completion note (7). In order to understand who was behind the individual parts, it is necessary to study in some detail the relationship between the hands responsible for composing the core sections of the contracts, i.e., the body (1–4) and the completion note (7). But before looking at individual documents, I wish to point out two different questions that inform this analysis: The first one is whether the hand of the signature in the completion note is the same as that of the body, for it is always possible that an assistant wrote the body of the document and the notary signed it. In fact, two of Justinian’s Novellae (44 and 73) make it clear that the practice of engaging substitutes was both employed (and abused) by notaries.20 The second question goes one step further: If the hand of the signer is that of the composer of the body of the text, then is it safe to assume that every contract in the archive that is signed by a certain person was indeed composed by that very individual? The first question has implications for how we view basic procedure in the creation of these contracts, while the second relates to our understanding of unique individual traits. Traditionally, editors have relied on their impression of individual hands appearing in the documents in order to assess the relationship between the two principal parts of the signature and body. “Der Verfasser der Urkunde Markos Apa Diou ist trotz des Ausdrucks εγραφη δι’ εμου … nicht identisch mit dem Schreiber, seine Schrift ist kleiner und runder, einzelne Buchstabenformen weichen ab,” states Heisenberg in a note to P.Münch. I 11.81.21 Bell, however, is for the most part more generous in his assessment of the hands, “This is probably in the same hand as the body of the document, though, as usual in scribal signatures, formed a little differently” (P.Lond. V 1722.60n.). These statements illustrate more than anything what a subjective business the distinguishing of hands really is. In the case of the Patermouthis archive, this subjectivity can easily be compared. Documents from the archive were divided between two collections, the Königliche Hof- und Staatsbibliothek in Munich and the British Museum in London.22 They were then published in P.Monac. (1914)23 and P.Lond. V (1917), respectively. As it happens, these two editions each preserve the same number of signatures – fourteen, which allows us to compare opinions about an even 20 See in particular 44.1.4 and 73.7.1, with the explicit mention of deputies; cf. PORTEN, Elephantine Papyri, p. 473, n. 41. 21 Although P.Münch. I was edited by both A. Heisenberg and L. Wenger, Heisenberg is credited with all commentary related to the palaeography and language of the documents (see the Vorwort, p. VII). 22 See n. 5 above. 23 P.Monac. was reprinted by D. Hagedorn in 1986 as P.Münch. I, which is how it is referred to throughout this article.

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sample set of hands. Bell judges over half the contracts in P.Lond. V (8 out of 14 documents) to be signed by the same person who composed the body. And this is a cautious assessment, because in two cases in which he sees a different hand he admits a good possibility that the hand is the same. If we include those, we would have nearly three quarters of the contracts signed by the same person who wrote the body. Heisenberg is much more conservative. According to him, fewer than a quarter (3 out of 14) of the contracts he edits were written and signed by the same person. What this means is that either chance allotted the two editors very different sets or one of the editors has an inaccurate instinct about the hands. It is unlikely, however, that the allotments were fundamentally different: The selection was completely random and some of the same actors (signers, witnesses, signatories) appear in papyri housed in both Munich and London. Thus, one of the editors must be wrong about the relationship of the signatures to the main body. Anyone dealing with the question of scribal hands in the archive eventually has to study each document closely and form an opinion about the script.24 Prior to that, however, it might be helpful to consider possible rules governing the involvement of scribes. As we are dealing with legal documents, we can start from the premise that the various signatures were important elements of each document and that they ultimately imparted validity. The acknowledgement following the stipulation clause had to be signed either by the person initiating the contract (the first person subject of the cheirographon) or, if this person was illiterate, by an appointed signatory; the witness signatures had to be in the hands of the individual witnesses;25 the completion note had to be by the notary or someone with equivalent authority. P.Münch. I 2 (= D 31), the registration of Patermouthis (the archive’s namesake) as a new recruit, which was composed on October 10, 578 and written in a single hand, is a good document to view these observations against. The entire text, excluding perhaps the endorsement on the verso, is in a single hand. This is clear from the photograph and is accepted also by the original editor.26 Because there are no witnesses to the registration, there are no witness signatures. There are also no crosses indicating any kind of change, except around the Latin farewell, †bene baleas† at the ends of lines 21 and 22.27 24 In doing this, Farber follows Bell in all cases except one, P.Lond. V 1734 (D25), where he sees a single hand, while he disagrees with Heisenberg about two texts, P.Münch. I 8 (D23) and P.Münch. I 3 + P.Lond. V 1725 (D33), in both of which he observes one hand. 25 I am unaware of any study of witness signatures, but a cursory look reinforces the general impression that some form of literacy was expected, if not required, of witnesses. Very few exceptions exist, among them SB XXVIII 16858.22 (Hermopolis, 507? Nov. 25); SB I 5589 = 5276a (Thebes, mid-7th century) – the complete edition is available at http://papyri.info/ddbdp/sb;1;5589; and P.Sta.Xyla I 17.15 (Hermopolite, 548–549), of which the last two come from clearly Coptic contexts. 26 P.Münch. I 2, Tafel III. 27 Wilcken suggested that bene baleas was written in a second hand (W.Chr. 470). The editors of P.Münch. I 2 suppose that, if this is true, then the second hand could be that of a higher official,

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The only statements related to the composition of the document are in lines 20 and 22, and they are made by the same individual, Flavius Makarios Isakios, who acts both as the representative of the illiterate military officials who issued the certificate and as the scribe who composed the document.

20

Φλ(αύιοι) Δῖος Παμινίου σὺν θ(ε)ῷ πριμικ(ήριος) καὶ Γεώργιος Δίου καὶ Πελάγιος Πασμῆτος καὶ Ἰωάννης Σαραπάμωνος καὶ Μακάριος Ἰσακίου καὶ Πάων Θεοφάνου καὶ Δῖος Πα[ο]υῶτος καὶ Δῖος Σερήνου ὀρδινάριοι καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ πρίορες ἀριθμοῦ Ἐλεφαντίνης οἱ προκ(είμενοι) ἐθέμεθα σοὶ ταύτην τὴν ἔγγραφον ἀποχὴν τῆς προβατορίας τῆς σῆς στρατίας καὶ στοιχεῖ ἡμῖν πάντα τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ γεγραμμένα ὡς πρόκ(ειται). Φλ(αύιος) Μακάριος Ἰσακίου ὀρδινάρ(ιος) τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἀριθμοῦ παρακληθεὶς καὶ ἐπιτραπεὶς ἔγραψα ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν γράμματα μὴ εἰδότων † bene baleas (l. valeas) † διʼ ἐμοῦ Φλ(αυίου) Μακαρίου Ἰσακίου ὀρδιναρ(ίου) καὶ ἀδιούτορ(ος) τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἀριθμοῦ ἐγράφη † bene baleas (l. valeas) † Flavii Dios son of Paminios, the primicerius by god’s will, and Georgios son of Dios and Pelagios son of Pasmes and Johannes son of Sarapamon and Makarios son of Isakios and Paon son of Theophanes and Dios son of Paouos and Dios son of Serenos, all ordinarii, and the remaining senior members of the regiment of Elephantine, those mentioned above, we have had this written receipt issued to you as a recruitment certificate (probatoria) of your military service, and all things written on it are agreeable to us, as stated above. I Flavius Makarios son of Isakios, ordinarius of the same regiment, after having been requested and instructed wrote for them because they are illiterate† May you fare well† It was written by me, Flavius Makarios son of Isakios, ordinarius and record keeper of the same regiment† May you fare well†

Had the signature following the acknowledgment in lines 20–21 not been a necessary authenticating component of the document, Flavius Makarios need not have appended it. It was redundant as far as the text itself is concerned: The final signature in line 22 would have been sufficient for him to acknowledge that he had written the complete document. But both the acknowledgement and the composition of the document had to be certified separately. The final, validating signature thus applied to the body of the document and expressly assured that it was Makarios’s handiwork. One could argue that, as pointed out above, a notary might sign and thus notarise deeds written by someone else. We know from legal sources that this indeed happened.28 While deputies were surely employed in official notarial offices, it is hard to imagine them being used in settings such as that of our archive, where most of the writing was performed by soldiers, clergymen and perhaps the dux himself. Nevertheless, the Latin script does not seem very different in terms of its general trajectory along the line and in individual letterforms (cf. ε and ‘e’, and α and ‘a’). The crosses may simply alert one to the change of language. 28 Cf. n. 20 above; see, e.g., RICHTER, Byzantine Sales, p. 86–87, and KOVARIK, Byzantinische Tabellionenurkunde, p. 27–30.

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a handful of other non-professionals whose qualification to do the work was nothing more than the fact they were literate.29 There is nothing else that singles most of these people out as professionals – no notarial title, no especially stylised signatures.30 Thus, it seems more economical to assume that most of them validated documents they themselves composed. Unless we can see obvious signs that a signature was in a different hand, we should presume that we are dealing with a single person. The Patermouthis archive attests twenty different signers, some of whom also act as signatories on behalf of illiterate parties to the agreements and as witnesses. We therefore find their hands in different parts of the documents. Markos son of Apa Dios is encountered most frequently. He is what James Keenan calls “the ‘writingest’ man in the archive”, as he appears in twelve separate documents.31 In eight of them, he adds his signature in the completion note, while in four he signs for illiterate parties.32 The documents span the years 577 to 586. No previous editor has asserted that the hand responsible for Markos’s signature in the completion note is always the same as the one that composed the respective document.33 The following table (Fig. 2) demonstrates the opinions of different editors regarding the relationship between the signatures and their respective documents. Fig. 2. Markos son of Apa Dios: Signature vs. Hand of Main Text Publ.

Bell

Heisenberg

Farber

P.Lond. V 1723 (D30) Same?

Same?

P.Lond. V 1731 (D42) Same?

Same?

P.Lond. V 1728 (D39) Different?

Different?

P.Lond. V 1730 (D41) Different?

Different

Papyrus 1814b34

Notes

Markos signs the bottom of a pittakion in his own hand.

For such ‘occasional scribes’, see RICHTER, Byzantine Sales, p. 87. For reference to two instances of a professional notary in the archive, see above p. 73. Examples of highly stylised professional signatures, which these documents notably lack, are not rare; cf., e.g., P.Heid. IV 330 (Oxyrhynchus, 6th–7th century), P.Lips I 25 (Hermopolis, 7th century), P.Oxy. XVI 1970 (554, June 8); image links to all these texts are available via papyri.info. 31 KEENAN, Evidence for the Byzantine Army, 149. 32 He validates with his signature P.Lond. V 1723 (D30), 1728 (D39), 1730 (D41), 1731 (D42), Papyrus 1814b, P.Münch. I 3 + P.Lond. V 1725 (D33), P.Münch. I 10 (D43), 11 (D45), and signs for others in P.Lond. V 1727 (D38), 1729 (D37), P.Münch. I 4 + 5v + P.Lond. V 1726 (D34), P.Münch. I 9 (D40). See too DIETHART and WORP, Notarunterschriften, p. 93–94. 33 In their catalogue of Byzantine notarial signatures, under the first entry for Markos son of Apa Dios, DIETHART and WORP (Notarunterschriften, p. 93) state simply, ‘Identität mit den folgenden nicht auszuschliessen’, but they do not elaborate on the matter, nor are they concerned with the question of the possible identity of the signer and the composer. 34 This unpublished fragment is in a frame with pieces from P.Lond. V 1855, which belongs to P.Münch. I 15. Bell (comm. ad loc.) apparently thought it too insignificant to publish: “The 29 30

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Publ.

Bell

Heisenberg

Farber

P.Münch. I 3 + P.Lond. V 1725 (D33)

Different

Same?

P.Münch. I 10 (D43)

Different

Different

P.Münch. I 11 (D45)

Different

Different

Notes Signature on the Munich fragment. Farber cites Maehler (private correspondence) against Bell (although this is a mistake for Heisenberg, because Bell never talked about it) for the opinion that the hand of both the signature and the endorsement are the same as that of the main body.

While Heisenberg thinks that the scribe who signs is different from the one who composed the body of the document in all three cases he encounters (P.Münch. I 3 + P.Lond. V 1725, P.Münch. I 10 and 11), Bell believes that two of the four with which he deals might have been different and the other two might have been the same. Farber diverges from these previous editors in two instances, P.Lond. V 1730 (D41) and P.Münch. I 3 + P.Lond. V 1725 (D33): In the former he sees different hands, while in the latter he observes one. Despite these judgements, one can hardly say that the editors show much conviction. In fact, Bell expresses considerable doubt in his note to line 29 of P.Lond. V 1728 (D39): Though described as the 4th hand, this may possibly be the 1st, i.e. that which wrote the document, but it is very difficult to decide. The hand is certainly different in formation from that of the document, but this is not in itself a decisive objection. . . . If all the documents signed by this Mark (1725+Mon. 3; 1730; 1731; Mon. 10; 11) could be taken with certainty as either in different hands or in the same hand the question would be easier to decide; for in the one case it would be clear that Mark did not always write his documents himself, and in the other it would be a little improbable that in all the documents preserved he should have employed a deputy, and that in each case the same person. Unfortunately, however, it is hardly possible to settle the matter with complete certainty. In some cases the hands, at first sight, appear very different, e.g. Mon. 10 and 11, while Mon. 10 may well be the same hand as 1728 and 1730; but there are certain forms remaining two fragments, one of which is from the foot of a πιττάκ(ιον) written δι᾿ ἐμοῦ Μάρκου Ἄπα Δίου, are of no importance.”

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common to all the documents; and, since the same writer may easily vary the style of hand according to the length of the document, it is perhaps a little unsafe to assume a difference of hands.

Bell’s recognition of stylistic differences is important. Recent scholarship has shown that signatures, for example, are prone to be different from other parts of documents. They are personal markers, usually stylised to some degree, that serve to authenticate documents, even non-legal ones such as private letters.35 The problem for editors, however, is that it can be very difficult to prove the identity of two hands if they vary much in style. Before considering whether Markos both signed and composed every document credited to him in the completion note, we should look first for unique traits in his signature. Every writer exhibits individual graphic features or identity markers that, when taken together, constitute that person’s writing profile. It helps to observe each writer’s hand up close and then to compare it with the other hands in the archive. In the case of Markos, the script is defined by its compact, upright, thick and fairly controlled character. There is a certain plumpness to it that makes it easy to pick out. In addition to its compact and thick appearance, one of its most conspicuous elements is the rho-ligature (Fig. 3), which is formed fairly consistently in all the documents that are signed by him: Letters that precede rho, for example, vowels and certain consonants such as chi, gamma, and pi, usually join the descending vertical stroke of the rho from above in a looping fashion. Because the rho-ligature is found in Markos’s very name, it makes sense to look first at instances of his signature. Of the twelve documents Markos is said to have signed, eight (Fig. 3.4 and 3.6–12 below) preserve enough of his name to say that the ligature is similar.36 The alpha, even if it is occasionally more-or-less pointed on top, passes downward into the descender of rho directly from above. This is a unique element of Markos’s script, and to recognise this, one need only contrast it with other examples of the same sequence of letters, in names beginning in Μαρ- and especially in the word μαρτυρῶ, which is ubiquitous in these contracts (see Fig. 4).

35 The word ‘signature’ does not designate only the personalised rendering of one’s name, but can refer to a farewell greeting or personally inserted note in a letter, or to a formulaic expression such as σεσημείωμαι in receipts or other transactions. On the use of signatures in private letters, cf. SARRI, Material Aspects of Letter Writing, p. 146, 176–183; see too R. AST and R.S. BAGNALL, Amheida III. Ostraka from Trimithis, Vol. 2. Greek Texts from the 2008–2013 Seasons, New York, 2016, p. 98–102, and J.-L. FOURNET, Langues, écritures et culture dans les praesidia, in H. CUVIGNY (ed.), La route des Myos Hormos, Cairo, 2003, p. 427–500, at p. 463. 36 See fn. 32 above.

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Fig. 3. Rho-ligature in the signature of Markos son of Apa Dios 3.1 P.Lond. V 1723 (577, Sept. 7). The name Markos is not preserved in the signature. 3.2

P.Münch. I 3 + P.Lond. V 1725 (580, March 6) 3.3

P.Münch. I 4 + 5v + P.Lond. V 1726 (581) 3.4

P.Lond. V 1727 (584, March 12?) 3.5

P.Lond. V 1729 (584, March 12) 3.6

P.Lond. V 1728 (584/5, March 8) 3.7

P.Münch. I 9 (585, May 30) 3.8

P.Lond. V 1730 (585, Aug. 22)

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3.9

P.Lond. V 1731 (585, Sept. 20) 3.10

P.Münch. I 10 (586, Jan. 28) 3.11

P.Münch. I 11 (586, Oct. 7) 3.12

Papyrus 1814b (Date Unknown)

Fig. 4. Examples of the same sequence of letters in different hands 4.1

P.Lond. V 1732.4 (586? Aug. 16) (Μάρκῳ)37 4.2

P.Lond. V 1734.29 (mid-6th c.) (Μάρτιος)

37 In this example, it looks as if only ΜΡ were written, as the alpha is formed in a highly cursive fashion.

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4.3

P.Lond. V 1734.26 (mid-6th c.) (μαρτυρῶ) 4.4

P.Münch. I 1.60 (574, March 11) (μαρτυρῶ)

As seen in Fig. 4, the tendency in other hands is for the tail of alpha to come up from below and join the top of the vertical descender of rho. Taken as a whole, the instances of the rho-ligature in Markos’s signature can be seen as identity markers unique to his signature that signal his hand. Having identified a trait that is characteristic of Markos’s writing style, we turn to the question whether Markos was also responsible for the body of the text. In all but two contracts in his name, the verb that Markos uses for describing his role in the validation of the document is γράφω. The complete signature typically runs: † διʼ ἐμοῦ Μάρκου Ἄπα Δίου ἐγράφη, ‘it was written by me Markos s. of Apa Dios’. In the two exceptions, however, he uses the passive of σωματίζω instead: † διʼ ἐμοῦ Μάρκου Ἄπα Δίου ἐσωματίσθη, ‘the body (of the contract) was written by me’.38 Interestingly, these two examples are the earliest extant contracts that Markos signed. I suspect that at some point he adopted different terminology to describe his involvement. While, in my view, ἐσωματίσθη makes explicit the fact that the signer wrote the body (τὸ σῶμα) of the contract,39 ἐγράφη is less explicit, although there is no linguistic reason the word should not refer to the whole document instead of only the signature. Thus, there is nothing in the wording of the signature to indicate that the signer of the contract was different from the composer of the body of the text. And if we compare hands, in particular the rho-ligatures that present themselves in the body of the eight texts for which Markos signs (Fig. 5), we see striking similarities. 38 P.Lond. V 1723 (577, Sept. 7) and P.Münch. I 3 + P.Lond. V 1725 (580, March 6). In the London papyrus the formula is slightly expanded: [† διʼ ἐμοῦ Μάρ]κου Ἄπ[α] Δίο(υ) στρ(ατιώτου) ἀ[ρ]ιθμοῦ Συήνης ἐ[σ]ωματίσθη, ‘the body (of the contract) was written by me Markos son of Apa Dios, soldier in the regiment of Syene’. This is the first document he is known to have signed and may reflect his youthful earnestness. 39 Contrast Heisenberg’s assertion that the person who signs with σωματίζω need not have written the σῶμα of the document, P.Münch. I 3.21n. He takes the statement in a strict juristic sense: The notary takes responsibility for the body of the contract even if someone else wrote it.

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Fig. 5. Rho-ligatures in the body of documents assigned to Markos son of Apa Dios 5.1

P.Lond. V 1723.840 (577, Sept. 7) 5.2

P.Münch. I 3 + P.Lond. V 1725.7 (580, March 6) 5.3

P.Lond. V 1728.13 (584/5, March 8) 5.4

P.Lond. V 1730.11 (585. Aug. 22) 5.5

P.Lond. V 1731 (585, Sept. 20) 5.6

P.Münch. I 10.7 (586, Jan. 28)

40 Above, we saw that Markos’s name was not preserved well enough in the signature to this document (as well as in P.Münch. I 3 + P.Lond. V 1725.7) to say if the Μαρ- sequence was similar to the other examples, but the ligature shown here is similar to other examples found in the bodies of documents that are said to have been signed by him.

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5.7

P.Münch. I 11.18 (586, Oct. 7) 5.8

Papyrus 1814b.2 (Date Unknown)

Not every rho-ligature is formed exactly the same in documents signed by Markos, and there are cases where the ligature occurs at the head of the rho and not in the descender. Variation, however, is to be expected. What is significant and strongly suggests that the same person wrote all these documents is that each of them exhibits this kind of ligature alongside the similar upright and compact nature. The differences are more easily explained as slight variations within one hand than as two distinct hands. While the rho-ligature cuts across nearly every document signed by Markos, other features that may be considered part of his graphic profile are found in only some papyri. For example, he employs a two-stroke filler after the place name Syene at the end of the dating clause in not all (but nearly all) eight documents that he is said to have composed:

It definitely appears in P.Lond. V 1723.4, 1728.4, 1730.3, 1731.3; P.Münch. I 11.3. In P.Münch. I 10.4, however, only one stroke is obviously present. This could be because the statement ἐν Συήνῃ was written at the right edge of the papyrus where there is little room for the strokes. In two other instances, either not enough of the document survives (this is so with London Papyrus 1814b) or a photo was not available for consultation (as with P.Münch. I 3 + P.Lond. V 1725.541). Another indicator of Markos’s work is the rather indiscriminate use of a tick, or a dot (sometimes two dots running together42), or even a grave-like accent for breathing marks (both the spiritus lenis and asper), as well as his employment of 41 The printed edition, however, shows two strokes after Syene, /—, which suggests that it too had the filler. 42 In Markos’s hand it can be unclear whether the mark is supposed to represent the spiritus asper or the diaeresis; only rarely does one observe clear double dots with upsilon, although they often appear over iota.

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the apostrophe.43 These various marks appear in seven of the eight documents that he signs, the exception being 1814b of which not enough is preserved to show whether they were used there. Most commonly marked are words beginning in upsilon (e.g. ὑπέρ, ὑπογραφή vel sim.), as well as words with final vowel elided, e.g., μεθ᾿, μηδ᾿ and ταῦθ᾿. Finally, the tick is frequently employed with the disjunctive conjunction ἤ. These extra-alphabetic elements are an important constituent of Markos’s scribal profile.44 All things considered, it seems highly probable on the basis of the appearance of the script that in all instances in which Markos is said to have penned the body of the text, he in fact penned it. Any differences that present themselves are either stylistic (the result, e.g., of a flourish in the signature) or accidental (the result of the natural variation in letter shapes and ligatures within a single hand over time). If all twelve of the texts associated with Markos can be attributed to him, what does this mean for the other cases where the editors suspected the involvement of deputies? There are eleven remaining instances where the first editors thought that the signer and composer of the document were different or likely different people (Fig. 6).45 Most of these seem to display stylistic variations between the signatures and bodies of the documents, not real differences. It makes sense to look at them before considering the more challenging examples. Fig. 6. Differentiation of hands by editors Different Hand Bell

– Dios s. Papnouthios: P.Lond. V 1732 = D44 – Lazaros s. Petros: P.Lond. V 1733 = D49

43 For thoughts on Markos’s use of the spiritus asper, see R. AST, Signs of Learning in Greek Documents: The Case of Spiritus Asper, in: G.N. MACEDO and M.C. SCAPPATICCIO (eds), Actes du colloque international “Signes dans les textes, textes sur les signes”, Université de Liège, 6 et 7 septembre 2013, Liège, 2017, p. 143–157, at p. 154–157. At the time of writing that article I did not have images of the relevant London papyri to compare, which is why I limited discussion to the texts in Munich. 44 For examples, see P.Lond. V 1723.20; 1728.22 (here it is not clear if the dot is for the asper or for diaeresis); 1730.5, 12, 20, 21, 24; 1731.5, 6, 22, 25, 27, 35, 37 (ticks also occur as apparent sense breaks in lines 11, 12, 17, 18, 27); P.Münch. I 3.9 (the editor’s statement in the note, ‘[d]er Apostroph hinter μεθ᾿ ist zweifelhaft,’ can be disregarded because the photo leaves no doubt that it is there); 10.8, 18, 19; 11.5, 6, 8, 17, 33, 44, 45, 51, 53–56, 61. 45 I exclude discussion of individuals thought by the editors to have signed contracts composed in their own hands. For Bell these are Abraamis s. Pamit (P.Lond. V 1722 = D22); Allamon s. Petros (V 1729 = D37 and 1727 = D38); Fl. Dios s. Basileides (V 1736 = D51); Dios s. Th- (V 1737 = D52); Theophilos the deacon (V 1724 = D32). In the case of Heisenberg, the non-disputed individuals are Allamon s. Petros (P.Münch. 1.9 = D40); Makarios s. Isakios (P.Münch. 1.2 = D31); Phoibammon s. Psenthaesios (P.Münch. I 13 = D47). In addition, I omit P.Lond. V 1734: Bell considered Abraam son of Dios to be distinct from the document’s composer, but Farber (D25) contested this, rightly in my view, and identified Abraam’s hand with that of the composer.

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Heisenberg – Abraam s. Mousaios: P.Münch. I 4 + 5v + P.Lond. V 1726 = D34 – Christophoros s. Patermouthis: P.Münch. I 14 (D48) – Dios s. Elias: P.Münch. I 7 + P.Lond. V 1860 = D36 – Apa Dios s. Sabinos: P.Münch. I 12 = D46 – Georgios s. Mousaios: P.Münch. I 8 = D23 – Phosphorios the priest: P.Münch. I 15 + P.Lond. V 1855 = D20 – Phosphorios the priest: P.Münch. I 16 = D21 – Viktor s. Petros: P.Münch. I 1 = D29 Different Hand (?) Bell

– Theodosios s. Apollonios: P.Lond. V 1735 + 1851 = D50

Some stylistic variation is observed between the signature and body in P.Lond. V 1732 (D44), a contract of surety written on August 16, 586 or 601. It was signed by Dios son of Papnouthios, who applies his quite plain signature in the completion note at the bottom of the papyrus in a slightly cramped space, which may account for the somewhat smaller lettering than in the main document. While the signature of the sole witness in line 9f. is clearly in a different hand – the strokes are thinner, the ink redder, and the letters more elongated and compact than the rest of the document – the signature of Dios son of Papnouthios is in the same thick black ink as the body.

The hand of the body of the document is competent but inelegant. As in many of the contracts, diaeresis is employed over iota and slightly elongated dots are drawn over aspirated upsilon; in one case the dots run together in a line giving the appearance of a circumflex accent . What is probably most remarkable about the hand is its utter unremarkableness. In this respect, it is very much like the unexceptional signature. To see this, one need only compare the name in line 1 and

in the signature. Moreover, the letter pi shows

similar roundedness in both the body,

(line 1), and in the signature,

, and there is an indistinct, slack quality to epsilon in both the body

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(line 8) and the signature (line 10). This absence of well-defined letterforms in the two parts of the document suggests to me that one person (Dios himself) was responsible for composing both of them. The next document in which Bell distinguishes between the signer and composer is P.Lond. V 1733 (D49). It was composed on March 6, 594 and signed by Flavius Lazaros son of Petros, adiutor of the regiment at Syene. The document was written in a fast, proficient script that shows a notable degree of detached lettering throughout. Similarly to 1732, diaeresis presents itself above iota and initial upsilon (line 40), and an apostrophe is used to mark elision (e.g., after μηθ᾿ in line 56). Noteworthy is the form of zeta, which distinguishes itself by looking somewhat like the letter xi (cf. l. 48). It is found not only in Lazaros’s name in the signature

, but also in χαρίζεσθαι (l. 54)

and in the expression ζυγῷ Συήνης (l. 46).46 This suggests that we are dealing with a single individual, and this presumption is supported by two instances where Lazaros son of Petros acts as signatory on behalf of the issuers of the documents: (P.Münch. I 13.77) and (P.Münch. I 14.104). In the former document the expression ζυγῷ Συήνης (l. 75) again points to the same person. Bell’s belief that the hands in P.Lond. V 1733 were different might have been influenced by the fact that the ink of the signature is very faint. In addition to 1732 and 1733, Bell also suspects the identity of the signer and composer of P.Lond. V 1735 + 185147 (D50), a contract of sale written in the first half of the 6th century.48 The signer’s name is Theodosios son of Apollonios, the nomikos of Bau.49 Bell felt that Theodosios’s signature sloped much more than the hand of the body of the contract.50 Although the papyrus is in a poor state of preservation, which makes it hard to judge the script, one feature stands 46 Two close parallels for this type of zeta are found in P.Münch. I 1 – cf. l. 43, which was written twenty years earlier (574, March 11) and signed by Viktor son of Petros (one wonders if the two men were brothers), and in P.Münch. I 14 (e.g. ll. 19 and 88), which was composed only a few weeks before 1733 and signed by Christophoros son of Patermouthis, whose script is similar to Lazaros’s. 47 J. Gascou thought this piece probably belonged with 1735, see BL VII, 92. 48 For the date, see BL XIII, 127. 49 For the signature, see DIETHART and WORP, Notarunterschriften, p. 53 (Diosp. 8.1.1), Tafel 18. On Theodosios’s title, see BL VII, 92. 50 “Just possibly the notary wrote the body of the document, though the subscription is in a much more sloping hand than it,” P.Lond. V 1735.29n.

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out in both parts of the document: the large, pronounced sigma that occasionally pops up. It is apparent in Theodosios’s name in the signature,

, and

in other parts of the document (ἐξουσίαν, line 9) and (κρ[άτ]ησιν, line 17). One can reasonably argue that this is a characteristic feature of Theodosios’s script; it belongs to his general writing profile, so to speak. The sloping tendency observed in his signature is rather a stylistic quality of the signature only. Having, in my view, reconciled the difficulties in the texts that Bell believed were (or might have been) signed by someone other than the document’s composer, I turn at this point to the more numerous cases of discrepancies noted by Heisenberg. In addition to the few texts signed by Markos son of Apa Dios that have been discussed already, there are eight further papyri in which Heisenberg distinguishes the hands of the signers and the composers. Of these, five certainly do not seem to have warranted this distinguishing. The first is P.Münch. I 7 + P.Lond. V 1860 (D36), a settlement pertaining to an inheritance signed by the notary (συμβολαιογράφος) Dios son of Elias; it was written on June 23, 583. Heisenberg expresses no doubt that Dios was not the composer of the body of the document, ‘Dios hat den Text der Urkunde (Z. 1–85) nicht eigenhändig geschrieben’, but, as was often his approach, he does not substantiate the claim.51 By contrast, his description of the hand of the main part of the document is detailed and accurate. He describes it as a bountiful (großzügig), upright and very elegant cursive minuscule written expansively and with generous spacing between the lines. If one takes a step back and compares in Tafel XIV (see Fig. 7) the signature in the two-line completion note with the minuscule script (Hand 1 in Fig. 7) in the main body, one might say the same thing about the signature. The general leftward tilt of the script plus the upward, left-to-right incline of the lines and the spacing between the lines are consistent with the main part of the document and markedly different from the witness signatures that precede it. More than any letter or ligature, it is the general appearance of the script and extra-alphabetic features such as spacing that suggest that one hand is operative in both parts of the document.

51

P.Münch. I 7, p. 78.

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Fig. 7. P.Münch. I 7 + P.Lond. V 1860 (D36) with 6 hands distinguished.52

Whereas generous spacing is an important indicator in P.Münch. I 7, it is the more cramped writing and the dishevelled character of the script in P.Münch. I 8 + P.Lond. V 1857 descr. (D23) that show us we are probably dealing with a single individual in both the final signature

and the body of the document

52 Johannes, the illiterate signatory, provides three crosses in his own hand in lieu of a signature; these are marked as Hand 2 in the Figure.

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Both sections of the document have in common the fact that letter sizes vary and the script is quite irregular. Furthermore, certain ligatures bear striking similarity, as when delta is ligatured to a preceding letter resulting in a looped join between the letters: cf. the epsilon-delta ligature in line 20

and

alpha-delta in the signature . An additional similarity is observed in the two-part composition of the letter delta itself: On the right side there appears to be a small leg that prevents the rest of the letter from rolling over, so to speak. Close similarities are also found in the two contracts signed by the priest Phosphorios, P.Münch. I 15 + P.Lond. V 1855 (D20) and P.Münch. I 16 (D21), the former dated April 26, 493 and the latter at some point also around the end of the 5th century.53 The hand of the composer can be described as steady, practiced, upright, and square. Heisenberg asserts, again without giving any reason, that the composer and signer are different people in both documents.54 Unfortunately, the signature is hardly visible in P.Münch. I 15, although Heisenberg saw enough of it on the original to convince himself that it belonged to Phosphorios.55

It is, however, clear in P.Münch. I 16.

And it can hardly be a coincidence that the hands of the bodies of the two contracts are undeniably the same. Compare, for instance, the expression ἢ καὶ ἀντιποιησόμενον in both documents: 53

For the date of P.Münch. I 16, see BL VIII 227. In the introductions to both P.Münch. I 15 and 16, he states simply, “Schreiber und Aussteller der Urkunde sind nicht identisch.” 55 P.Münch. I 15, p. 165. In general, the poor condition of P.Münch. I 15, and the resulting poor legibility of the plate at the back of the volume, makes it difficult to develop a profile of the writer. For example, it is unclear if he employed diacritical signs. About P.Münch. I 16 we can say that he employed diaeresis over iota and upsilon, as most writers in the archive do. 54

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15.10

and 16.36

The loopy kappa, compact -τι- ligature, and generally sober and squarish character of the two samples point to one person.56 This similarity, however, still does not exclude the possibility that the bodies of both documents were written by one person and the signature by another. To counter this, I would adduce the delta-iota ligature in the signature of P.Münch. I 16,

and in line 20 of the same

document, , which suggests that the signer of that contract was the same as the composer and, by extension, as the composer of P.Münch. I 15. This leaves us with one final document that almost undoubtedly should be considered the product of a single composer/signer. It is P.Münch. I 1 (D29), from a scribal perspective one of the most interesting in the archive. Written on March 11, 574, this settlement of a dispute over an inheritance is signed by Viktor son of Petros. The composer of the document, as I discuss elsewhere, betrays an unusually sophisticated command of diacritical marks.57 He is the only one in the archive who correctly distinguishes the spiritus asper from the spiritus lenis. His habit of writing suggests that his training was more thorough than his peers’. Heisenberg, however, thinks that this person was not Viktor, although, again, he does not explain why he distinguishes the two. Farber follows Heisenberg in seeing in the signature a different hand at work, although he acknowledges that it might be the product of the composer, and alludes to the private oral communication of Herwig Maehler to this effect.58 Farber finds it problematic that the document is said to have been ‘completed’ or ‘finished’ by Viktor, † διʼ ἐμοῦ Βίκτορος Πέτρου ἐτελειώθη Φαμενὼθ ϊε τῆς ἑβδόμης 󰯷νδ(ικτίονος) ἐν Συήνῃ †, “It was completed by me, Viktor son of Petros, on Phamenoth 15 of the 7th indiction at Syene.” Operating on the assumption that the hands are different, Farber adopts Mitteis’s view that such documents as have come down to us probably represent 56 Heisenberg sees in the squareness of the letters in P.Münch. I 16 the strong influence of uncial script (p. 169). 57 AST, Signs of Learning, p. 154–157. 58 See D29, p. 473 n. 41.

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final copies produced in the office of the notary by assistants, but under his authority: any talk of ‘completing’ them, as here, should be taken in a juristic and not a literal sense. Such arguments, however, strike me as unnecessary, if we take as our starting point the belief that the signer of the completion note is the same as the composer of the document in this archive unless there are clear reasons to doubt this. Upon comparing the two parts of the dispute settlement, one thing that stands out is the form of the ligature -ης: eta consists of a tall vertical stroke with descending hook on the left and a flourish on the right that scoops up the following sigma, as for instance in in the signature and in line 19. The shape of what one might call a stacked beta, with a lower bowl supporting the looped upper half, is also similar in both the body of the document and the sig(l. 43) and (signature). Finally, the two instances of iota with nature; cf. diaeresis in the signature (over the iota of the day of the month and over the first iota of ἰνδικτίονος) resemble examples in the body of the text; one can compare in the signature with in line 3. Both bear a similar swooping left hook on the bottom, and while it is not unusual for diacriticals to appear in signatures (see, for example the signature of Makarios son of Isakios in P.Münch. I 2), the flourish exhibited in Viktor’s case is fully in keeping with his general regard for such things. Another thing that stands out about Viktor’s signature is the faint appearance of the ink, which suggested to Heisenberg that the document was signed later than it was composed: “Der Aussteller unterschreibt mit anderer Tinte, also wohl erst in späterer Zeit.”59 How much later, he does not say, but it must have been the same day since the signature and document are dated to the same Phamenoth 15. From the pattern of fading found in the witness signatures, it does, however, appear that Viktor signed after the witnesses had done so. Nevertheless, the entire process of composing, bearing witness, and signing could have happened the same day and in fairly rapid succession. Thus, I see no formal reason to assume Viktor did not compose the settlement. The fact that the whole procedure was done in a day indeed supports the idea that we are dealing with one person, and palaeographical similarities also point to this. Three of the documents that Heisenberg takes to be composed by subordinates of the person who signed them might be deemed ambiguous enough to warrant uncertainty. They are P.Münch. I 4 + 5v + P.Lond. V 1726 (D34), written in 581 and signed by Abraam son of Mousaios who employs the formula ἐσωμάτισα, 59

P.Münch. I 1.64n.

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‘I wrote the body’; P.Münch. I 14 (D48) from February 15, 594, signed by the συμβολαιογράφος Christophoros son of Patermouthis; P.Münch. I 12 (D46), written between August 590 and 591 and completed (ἐτελειώθη) by Apa Dios son of Sabinos. The hand responsible for P.Münch. I 4 + 5v + P.Lond. V 1726 might be described as not incompetent, albeit irregular (it varies in speed and angle of inclination) and really quite average. Heisenberg’s assessment of it seems accurate: “Der Schreiber . . . verwendet eine etwas grobe, einfache Minuskelkursive.”60 He, however, believes that this hand was not that of Abraam. Confirming this is made difficult by the poor state of the signature:

But enough is legible to permit one to say that it is a no less coarse (grob) and plain (einfach) script. One might reasonably argue that it is coarser and plainer than that of the main hand, but this impression could be the product of the abraded letters. Moreover, the two are not entirely dissimilar, as illustrated above all by comparison of the forms of sigma and the epsilon-sigma ligature in, for example, the word συναρεσάσης

in line 20:

(line 20) and (signature). The execution of the ligature in the signature is somewhat awkward but the form is basically the same.61 Similar uncertainty revolves around two further documents, each of which shows a marked discrepancy in appearance between the signature in the completion note and the text of the main body. The first is P.Münch. I 12.

The body of this agreement to sell part of a house is written in a practiced, fairly fast, right-leaning cursive script, although Heisenberg styles it ‘clumsy’.62 60

P.Münch. I 4 + 5v, p. 50. It looks almost as if Abraam started writing sigma before changing it to an epsilon. 62 ‘Die Schrift ist eine etwas plumpe Minuskelkursive…’, P.Münch. I 12, p. 129. Despite this clumsiness, the writer is hardly unskilled. He employs numerous diacritical signs, such as 61

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Set in contrast to this is the signature of Apa Dios son of Sabinos, which, as in P.Münch. I 1, employs the formula δι᾿ ἐμοῦ . . . ἐτελειώθη, ‘it was completed by me’.63

Dios’s hand leans noticeably to the left, that is, in the opposite direction of the lines in the main part of the document. In addition, the individual letters he employs are bolder, more upright and less hurried than those in the main body. It is hard to tell if these differences result from a combination of Dios’s clumsiness and his stylised signature, or if the two parts are indeed in different hands. A couple letters point, however, to a single individual. For example, mu, which when ligatured with another letter appears to have a single peak, is similar both in the word ἀριθμοῦ in line 1, over, the nu in the body, e.g.

, and in ἐμοῦ in the signature,

; more-

(line 27), looks very much like that in the sig-

nature, . Whether this is sufficient evidence to conclude that the composer and signer were the same person is unclear, but the mu is distinctive enough to support the idea. If Dios did write the body of P.Münch. I 12 and the different angle of writing can be attributed to stylistic difference compounded with natural clumsiness, then perhaps the dramatic sloping displayed by the signature of Christophoros son of Patermouthis in P.Münch. I 14 (D48) is easier to defend. The writer of this document is experienced and professional, his hand upright and confident. Lines 26–29.

diaeresis over iota and upsilon (in examples of the latter, the marks sometimes run together to form what looks like a line); the occasional tick over the disjunctive conjunction ἤ, presumably in order to distinguish it from the aspirated article ἡ (see AST, Signs of Learning, p. 151–157); somewhat curious is the circumflex-looking mark, perhaps formed from two dots, above ω (for the word ᾧ) in line 40, which could mark the aspiration or else show that the omega is a complete word. 63 What follows ἐτελειώθη on the papyrus has been the subject of discussion. The ed.pr. has ἡ ὑπ(ογραφή); Wilcken (BL I, 311) read ἡ ὑπ(όθεσις); Diethart and Worp interpreted it as a cross followed by an unknown sign (BL VIII, 226).

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He employs diacritical signs extensively,64 and he writes good Greek. Indeed, Heisenberg is effusive in his praise: Der Schreiber . . . verwendet eine steile, großzügige Minuskelkursive ohne Abkürzungen; seine Sorgfalt machte nur selten Verbesserungen nötig. . . . Die Urkunde fällt vor den anderen auf durch ihre sprachliche und stilistische Korrektheit, die Schulung des ausgebildeten Notars verraten außerdem lateinische Wendungen. . . .65

The expectation occasioned by this praise makes the signature all the more surprising; it appears to fall off the page, as if Christophoros wrote it while being distracted.

I would readily concede with Heisenberg and Farber66 that Christophoros the notary is different from the composer of this document if it were not for the delta that stands out at the beginning of the signature. The form of it is different from nearly all other notarial signatures that begin with the preposition δι᾿. In contrast to this instance, these usually have a tall, upright ‘d’-looking delta. Those that come close to this example are P.Lond. V 1732 (Dios son of Papnouthios), , and P.Münch. I 16 (Phosphorios the priest), , and even they are not all that similar. Within the body of P.Münch. I 14, however, we find this type of delta (see for example in l. 70 and in 85). It is thus a characteristic feature of Christophoros’s script. The assessment of hands is an exercise in weighing degrees of probability; certainty is impossible in most cases. As far as the Patermouthis archive is concerned, when there are differences between the script of the main body and the notarial signature, they are generally not on an order of magnitude to elicit serious doubt that they derive from a single source. It is never the case that a beautiful and elaborate script in the main body is juxtaposed against a hardly literate signature, or vice versa. As a rule, the two parts of the documents tend to complement each other. Clumsy, ordinary hands in the main body are accompanied 64

One observes diaeresis over iota and upsilon, the apostrophe in cases of elision (e.g., l. 74 – in line 67 μέθοδον has an apostrophe after θ, probably a result of the habit of inserting an apostrophe after aspirated prepositional forms such as καθ᾿ and μεθ᾿), and the spiritus lenis on disjunctive conjunctions (e.g. ll. 67, 69, 75). 65 P.Münch. I 14, p. 149. 66 He distinguishes between the two hands in his translation (D48).

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by clumsy, ordinary signatures, and more skilled hands by more skilled signatures. If, therefore, we take it as our starting point that the practice within this particular archive was for the composer of the contract to notarise it – and the evidence certainly suggests this, then we should perhaps give each signer some benefit of the doubt and also presume that the apparent differences in script existed along the spectrum of variation allowed a single individual. Bibliography R. AST, Signs of Learning in Greek Documents: The Case of Spiritus Asper, in: G.N. MACEDO and M.C. SCAPPATICCIO (eds), Actes du colloque international “Signes dans les textes, textes sur les signes”, Université de Liège, 6 et 7 septembre 2013, Liège, 2017, p. 143–157. R. AST, Telling Them by Their Hands: What Palaeography Has to Offer Prosopography, in F.A.J. HOOGENDIJK and S. VAN GOMPEL (eds), The Materiality of Texts from Ancient Egypt. New Approaches to the Study of Textual Material from the Early Pharaonic to the Late Antique Period (Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava 35), Leiden, 2018, p. 27–34. R. AST and R.S. BAGNALL, Amheida III. Ostraka from Trimithis, Vol. 2. Greek Texts from the 2008–2013 Seasons, New York, 2016. C. BOURNE, Messiness in Manuscript: Literature’s Ongoing State, (Review of D. WAKELIN, Designing English: Early Literature on the Page), Times Literary Supplement (August 3, 2018), p. 32. L.E. BOYLE, Diplomatics, in M. POWELL (ed.), Medieval Studies: An Introduction, Syracuse, N.Y., 19922, p. 82-113. J.M. DIETHART and K.A. WORP, Notarunterschriften im byzantinischen Ägypten (MPER NS XVI), Vienna, 1986. J.H.F. DIJKSTRA, Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian Religion. A Regional Study of Religious Transformation (298-642 CE), Leuven, 2008. J.H.F. DIJKSTRA, A Coptic Papyrus from the Patermouthis Archive in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at Munich, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 216 (2020), p. 243–250. J.-L. FOURNET, Langues, écritures et culture dans les praesidia, in H. CUVIGNY (ed.), La route des Myos Hormos, Cairo, 2003, p. 427–500. K. GEENS, Archive of Flavius Patermouthis, son of Menas (ArchID 37), in W. CLARYSSE and K. VANDORPE (eds), Papyrus Archives in Graeco-Roman Egypt, Leuven, 2005, https://www.trismegistos.org/arch/detail.php?tm=37. J.G. KEENAN, Evidence for the Byzantine Army in the Syene Papyri, in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 27 (1990), p. 146–150. S. KOVARIK, Die byzantinische Tabellionenurkunde in Ägypten, in C. GASTGEBER (ed.), Quellen zur byzantinischen Rechtspraxis, Vienna, 2010, p. 27–37. B. PORTEN, The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change, Leiden, 1996. T.S. RICHTER, Byzantine Sales. Some Aspects of the Development of Legal Instruments in the Later Roman and Byzantine Period, in J.G. KEENAN, J.G. MANNING and U. YIFTACH FIRANKO (eds), Law and Legal Practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab Conquest. A Selection of Papyrological Sources in Translation with Introductions and Commentary, Cambridge, 2014, p. 83–95.

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R. DE RUSTAFJAELL, The Light of Egypt, London, 1909. A. SARRI, Material Aspects of Letter Writing in the Graeco-Roman World, c. 500 BC – c. AD 300 (Materiale Textkulturen 12), Berlin – Boston, 2017. E.G. TURNER, The Terms Recto and Verso. The Anatomy of the Papyrus Roll, Brussels, 1978. L. WENGER, Vorbericht über die Münchener byzantinischen Papyri, in Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Philologische und Historische Klasse Band 1911, 8. Abh., Munich, 1911. U. YIFTACH-FIRANKO, Cheirographon, in R.S. BAGNALL et al. (eds), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, Malden, 2013, p. 1446–1447. U. YIFTACH-FIRANKO, Evolution of forms of Greek documents of the Ptolemaic, Roman, and Byzantine periods, in J.G. KEENAN, J.G. MANNING and U. YIFTACH-FIRANKO (eds), Law and Legal Practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab Conquest: A Selection of Papyrological Sources in Translation, with Introductions and Commentary, Cambridge, 2014, p. 35–53.

SCRIBES AND OTHER WRITERS IN THE PETRA PAPYRI Marja VIERROS Archaeologists excavating the Byzantine church of the Virgin Mary in Petra in 1993 found strange charcoal pieces from a small side room of the church. They identified them as carbonized papyrus rolls. Since then the papyrus dossier has been conserved, studied and published in five volumes with 87 texts.1 The papyri turned out to be Greek documentary texts concerning the life and property of Theodoros, son of Obodianos, and his extended family and church.They are thus rare examples of Greek texts from the metropolis of the third Palestinian province of the Eastern Roman Empire.2 The documents span the sixth century AD and follow Theodoros’s career from his youth until his time as archdeacon of the church where the papyri were found.3 Coming from outside Egypt, where most of our papyrological material originates, they constitute a valuable addition to the corpus of documentary papyri concerning private legal matters in the sixth century. In this paper I focus on the issues of writing, education and literacy in Greek by collecting and discussing the available information on everyone who performed any kind of writing in the documents present in this dossier. I examine how easy or difficult it is to identify scribes vs. other writers and what practices can be deciphered across different texts. It will become apparent that different text types were written in a different handwriting style, i.e. the areas of scribal operation were visually differentiated, which probably meant separate communities of practice, although they were not necessarily mutually exclusive. The identification of all those contributing to the final form of a text can be approached from different angles. The document type defines to some extent whether it was written by or under the supervision of a public notary, an official More details on the archaeological context of the church can be found in Z.T. FIEMA, C. KANELT. WALISZEWSKI and R. SCHICK (eds), The Petra Church, Amman, 2001; for the papyri, their conservation and historical context, see P.Petra I. 2 Although Greek was both the main written language and the language of the church liturgy in the area at that time, Christian Palestinian Aramaic can be assumed to have been the spoken language of the people; in fact, the Aramaic and Arabic vernacular is visible in the papyri in toponyms and personal names. See A. AL-JALLAD, The Arabic of Petra, in P.Petra V, p. 35–55. For the general linguistic landscape, see e.g. S.H. GRIFFITH, From Aramaic to Arabic: The Languages of the Monasteries of Palestine in the Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 51 (1997), p. 11–31; L. DI SEGNI, Greek inscriptions in transition from the Byzantine to the early Islamic period, in H. COTTON, R.G. HOYLAND, J.J. PRICE and D.J. WASSERSTEIN (eds), From Hellenism to Islam. Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East, Cambridge, 2009, p. 352–373 at p. 356; G. HORROCKS, Greek. A History of the Language and Its Speakers, Chichester, 20102, p. 207–209. 3 See A. ARJAVA, The People of Petra, in P.Petra V, p. 1–7. 1

LOPOULOS,

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or someone who was simply able to write. The handwriting can tell whether the person wrote often and professionally or had difficulties in penning letters. The handwriting can also help to identify other texts written by the same individual, even if the name is lacking. The same can be said about the orthographic fingerprint and linguistic skills; similar mistakes in spelling or morphosyntax can corroborate identifications.4 The Petra papyri will shed some light on issues such as whether document types correlate with the handwriting styles and linguistic skills; and what can be said of the linguistic skills and education of different writer groups: notaries, notarial scribes, officials, non-professional writers, subscribers and witnesses.5 One group of society is notably missing from the pool of literate people in Petra: women. In the 87 texts there are around 280 acts of writing preserved. By ‘act of writing’ I mean a portion of text one person has written in one document. For example, the scribe who wrote the majority (80 lines) of document 1, ‘Agreement concerning family property’, performed one act of writing.6 The second act of writing was by Patrophilos, son of Bassos, who wrote the first signature in the same document and the third act of writing was by Theodoros, son of Obodianos, in the form of the second signature. The fourth act of writing was performed by Fl. Eustathios, son of Theon, who was the guardian of Theodoros, who was still under the age of 25. Naturally, some of these acts of writing in different documents were performed by the same people. E.g. both Patrophilos and Theodoros signed several different contracts which are preserved in the Petra dossier and some scribes who wrote several different documents can be identified by the handwriting. The signatories and witnesses were those whose names we know more or less; the names are preserved either in their autograph signatures and subscriptions or in the text of the contract. The names of the scribes are mostly missing. The notarial signatures have the name of the notary, but often it is impossible to tell if the notary himself wrote the contract proper, too, or if he was only approving the work with his signature after his assistant, an anonymous scribe, had performed the actual writing task (see further below on the notarial signatures). Document types Several different types of documents have been preserved in the Petra dossier. They can be roughly divided into three categories, and the rest, the types that 4 Although orthography is not always a reliable criterion for distinguishing writers; cf. Cromwell in this volume. 5 For the linguistic skills of the writers in Petra, see M. VIERROS, The Greek of the Petra Papyri, in P.Petra V, p. 8–34. 6 Throughout this article the bold numbers refer to P.Petra document numbers (1 = P.Petra 1). Volume I (2002) consists of 1–16, volume II (2013) = 17, volume III (2007) includes 18–36, volume IV (2011) 37–49 and volume V (2018) documents 48–87.

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occur less frequently or cannot be defined, fill the fourth category of ‘others’ (see Table 1). First, we have legal documents, notarial contracts made between private individuals usually concerning property exchanges. In Petra, all these types of contracts were written transversa charta, that is, instead of running parallel to the fibres, the text ran across the fibres and perpendicularly to the length of the roll in a single block of text. The rolls were often several meters long. The contract was written in the 3rd person, and at the end, each contracting party signed it with his own hand, or used a proxy to sign on his/her behalf, if s/he was illiterate. These signatures were several lines long, summarising the content of the agreement. Then there were short witness statements, also written in the hand of the witnesses themselves. As the final element there was the signature of the notary (completio/τελείωσις), who in Petra is always called symbolaiographos, when the title is preserved.7 The second group consists mainly of documents called epistalmata tou somatismou, ‘requests for transfer of taxation’. They are drawn up for taxpayers who order the taxation officials to transfer their tax liability in the registers to the name of another person, e.g., because of the sale of a given property. At Petra, all these requests are written in a different layout from the notarial texts. They are written with the text parallel to the fibres in one or more wide columns along the length of the roll. The columns consist of lines that are approximately 60 cm long or more, unusually long lines compared to the Egyptian documents.8 A few other document types are also in the column format, and they too are written in the first person and are of an official character (e.g. the donatio mortis causa, 55; a defensio dealing with registration of ownership and a deed both written in near-by Sadaqa, 40 and 41; official letters 60, 78 and 79). The phenomenon that documents addressed to officials or of otherwise official character were overwhelmingly written parallel to the fibres in one or more columns, is also attested in Egypt and Nessana.9 Very few of the epistalmata are preserved intact, so that we have very few ends of the documents, but it seems that they include the signatures of the people whose tax liabilities are to be changed, as well as a subscription of an official, possibly the tax collector to whom it was addressed (see below). Taxation plays a big role in the Petra dossier, and the third group of documents consists of tax receipts. There is some variation in the type of the receipt, but often they are relatively short, and written across the fibres of the papyrus. 7 See below n. 17 for bibliography on the subject of the completio. In Latin these contracts were called tabelliones and in Greek symbolaia. However, in Petra they were mostly called ‘written deed of X or Y’ ἔγγραφος διαμερισμός, ἔγγραφος ἀσφάλια etc. 8 See A. ARJAVA, Physical Format and Notarial Conventions in the Petra Papyri, in P.Petra III, p. 1–5. The exceptionally long lines are e.g. 86 cm in 23 and approximately 108 cm in 66. 9 ARJAVA, Physical Format, p. 1–2. However, in Nessana and Egypt the image is much more inconsistent than in Petra.

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But here we are talking merely of sheets of papyri, not whole rolls. The receipt is in the third person and often written by the same person as the subscription of the receiver of the payment, whether an official, tax collector, or someone else. The fourth group is a miscellaneous one; for example, we have two possible private letters (26–27) and an official letter (60). Many documents in this group are so poorly preserved that we do not know exactly what they are. Most of them do seem to belong to the first group of notarial contracts. 1. Notarial contracts between private individuals long, transversa charta written in 3rd person subscriptions of the parties witnesses subscription of the notary, συμβολαιογράφος handwriting style B (mostly)

2. Documents addressed to (tax) officials (epistalmata tou somatismou) wide columns along fibres written in 1st person signatures of the senders and a subscription of the receiving official handwriting style A

3. Tax receipts 4. Others short, transversa charta Letters written in 3rd person List of stolen items written and signed by the issuing official Donatio mortis causa handwriting style A Fragmentary texts Table 1. Document types in Petra

Handwriting styles There are two main handwriting styles in the Petra papyri; in addition, handwritings that show a lack of regular practise are attested.10 The handwriting styles seem to correlate with the document type. The document proper of the notarial contracts (see group 1 above) were usually written in a practised rounded upright cursive writing often including some majuscule letter forms, style B (e.g. 1 from 537 and 30 dated to 579–81).11 Style A is the more rapid kind of cursive, which slants heavily to the right and includes only minuscule letter forms (e.g. 4, a request for transfer of taxation from the year 538 and a tax receipt 10 from the year 578).12 10 E.g. 6 is written by an unpracticed hand, which cannot clearly be categorised as quadrilinear, like other hands in Petra. I have divided the main scribes of the Petra papyri into three groups (A–C) based on their handwriting, and discussed the signatories, proxies and witnesses separately, see VIERROS, Greek of the Petra Papyri, p. 8–9 and 26. 11 The digital images are available at http://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.petra;1;1 and http://papyri. info/ddbdp/p.petra;3;30. 12 Images at http://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.petra;1;4, and http://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.petra;1;10.

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Style A appears in all the requests for transfer of taxation in Petra. It is also used in some other types of documents, such as tax receipts. That is, document types from group 2 and 3 are written in this style. The gift after death, 55, which is preserved in six copies, is also written in the same style in column format. Exceptionally a few texts written transversa charta were written in style A: 52, a draft of a will, 53, a draft, and three documents that call themselves a memorandum (ὑπομνηστικόν), 18, 39 and 43, which also include signatures and witnesses. Within the notarial contracts, there are two exceptions that are not written in the upright hand of style B, but in style A: 36, a draft, and 28, a signed, valid agreement. Despite these exceptions, the tendency is clear. Scribes producing notarial contracts wrote in an upright hand (style B) whilst the scribes producing documents addressed to officials and often written in column format tend to use a rapid, slanting style (style A). It is unclear why this was so. Perhaps the notarial scribes were taught by other teachers than the aspiring career officials. The image we get from other places, such as near-by Nessana or farther away, in Egypt, shows that similar types of handwriting styles were popular there too, but there was not such a clear correlation with the document type.13 It is possible that in Petra this observation is caused by the small data set, but if it is true that in Petra the writing styles were more segregated, perhaps this was due to the different places or purposes of education and to what was thought suitable for certain document types. The hands of the signatories infer that one person did not necessarily always write in only one style. For example, Theodoros, son of Obodianos, who moved to an ecclesiastical career, is known to have used two different styles in his personal signatures in different contracts in which he was one of the contracting parties.14 Scribes, too, may have been skilled in both types of handwriting and chose what was suitable for each document type; we cannot know if the same scribes wrote both notarial contracts and requests for transfer of taxation, since the latter at least did not leave us their names.15 Document 28 at least shows that a notarial contract could be drawn up by a person who used the style A of writing.

13 A convenient tool for examining different handwritings in documentary papyri is PapPal (http://www.pappal.info/). 14 A sloping cursive style was more common (1, 12?, 23, 25, 30, 39, 61?) than the majuscule version (18, 29, 31). See below on the signatures written by the contracting parties; a different type of signature from the notarial completio. 15 A detailed discussion on the difficulties in identifying handshifts and on same scribes responsible for different types of handwritings in papyrus letters can be found in A. SARRI, Material Aspects of Letter Writing in the Graeco-Roman World c. 500 BC–c. AD 300, Berlin – Boston, 2018, p. 151–192.

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Identifying writers Notaries In Petra, the public notaries were called symbolaiographoi. We have their signatures, the completio preserved at least partly in 15 contracts.16 In Egypt, different versions of the completio are attested,17 but in Petra only the form presented below (1) seemed to be in use. (1) † Name, (patronymic), συμβολαιογράφος ἐτέλεσα. † “I, NN son of NN, public notary, have completed.”

In Petra we also often have some undeciphered marks after the signature surrounded by crosses, which have been interpreted as shorthand writing, but their meaning escapes us. All of the signatures are fragmentary, so we cannot tell how much variation there actually was. For example, we do not know if the patronymic was always used. In 29 (2), the name Alpheios can be either the name of the notary or his father, since the ending is in a lacuna and we do not know if it is in the nominative or the genitive case (the space would allow a short or condensely written name before Ἀλ]φει[ο-): (2) [† Ἄλ]φει[ος σ]υμβ[ο]λ[αιογρά]φος ἐτέλεσα. †

In 50 (3), we have a similar signature, where the name Alpheios is in the genitive, making it the father’s name. Document 50 is probably more than 50 years earlier than 29. (3) [

ca. 10

Ἀ]λφείου συμβολαιογράφος ἐτέλ[εσα. † ]

In Egypt this type of notarial signature (with the active verbal form ἐτέλεσα) has only been attested in Alexandria (where the notary was called synallagmatographos).18 It is usually difficult to tell if the handwriting of the signature is the same as the hand in the document proper.19 In 50 the editor states however, that “(t)he signature, although written in much larger characters, is almost certainly 16

12, 13 (?), 22, 28, 29, 30, 31, 42 (?), 43, 44, 50, 57, 58 (?), 61, 64. Moreover, a signature of a chartophylax is preserved in a request for transfer of taxation, 65. 17 Collected in J.M. DIETHART and K.A. WORP (ed.), Notarsunterschriften im byzantinischen Ägypten, Vienna, 1986. See also S. KOVARIK, Die byzantinische Tabellionenurkunde in Ägypten, in C. GASTGEBER (ed.), Quellen zur byzantinischen Rechtspraxis. Aspekte der Textüberlieferung, Paläographie und Diplomatik. Akten des internationalen Symposiums Wien, 5.–7.11.2007, Vienna, 2010, p. 27–37. Cf. Ast in this volume. 18 E.g. P.Cair.Masp. II 67168, 85: ☧ Μηνᾶς Ἰωάννου συναλλαγματογράφ(ος) τόπου Πύλ(ῶν) Τατιανοῦ ἐτέλεσα. Much more common was the passive construction δι’ ἐμοῦ NN ἐγράφη/ ἐτελειώθη/vel sim., cf. DIETHART and WORP, Notarsunterschriften. 19 See Ast’s treatment of this same subject in this volume.

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the product of the same hand that wrote the body of the document.” Moreover, examples elsewhere attest that sometimes very different looking styles of writing are by the same writer.20 Novella 44 of Justinian indicated that the notary was supposed to be present when the document was written, or at least when it was read aloud for the parties and witnesses. The edict demanded that the notary should not confirm an agreement with his signature without knowing its contents. Does the fact that this had to be specifically ordered in the Novellae mean that the absence of the notary had been a common problem? All we can say is that sometimes the notary perhaps wrote the contracts himself since the signature looks like it is written by the same hand as the document, but sometimes he possibly only signed the completio and the more substantial writing work was done by another (assistant) scribe. Individual notaries can thus be identified by their names in their signatures. Due to the fragmentary state of the texts, we can discern only the following notaries. • • • • • •

NN, son of Alpheios in 50 (528/9?) Alpheios, son of Valens in 22 (541) Leontios in 2821 (559) Vales in 57 (after 559) Alpheios (without patronymic) or NN, son of Alpheios in 29 (565 or 582–592) Anastasios, son of NN in 43 (592/3)

One group of notarial contracts can be judged on the basis of the handwriting and chronological proximity to have been written by the same scribe (and perhaps the same notary): 30 (579–581), 31 (582–592) and 29 (565 or 582– 592), although the name of the notary is preserved partly only in 29. Possibly also 12 (after 544)22, 51 (date uncertain), 64 (572), 71 (date uncertain) come from the same writer. 20 E.g. P.Nessana III 54 has three different styles in different parts of the document (a large upright, forward-slanting cursive, and flowing upright cursive), but two stylistic peculiarities reveal that they all are the work of a single scribe. According to the editor, these peculiarities include the writing of upsilon above the omicron at word end, but also within some words, and – a more convincing argument – the distinctly flourished double tail of the letter rho; an image of the papyrus can be found in E. CRISCI, Scrivere greco fuori d’Egitto. Richerche sui manoscritti grecoorientali di origine non egiziana dal IV secolo a.C. all’VIII d.C. (Papyrologica Florentina 27), Firenze, 1996; see also P.Oxy. XVI 1881, 24n., where it is deemed ‘safer’ to assume a different hand for the notarial signature written in Latin script, although in general it is assumed that same hand was often behind different styles of writing. 21 In vol. III, the letters following Leontios’s name were read as his patronymic (Elias), but after Leontios was found as the chartophylax in 65 (see example 4, below), it was noticed that the ‘patronymic’ was in fact the title eulabestatos, see Corrigenda in P.Petra V. 22 The signature in 12 is very difficult to compare to the others because it is so fragmentary, but what is left of the scribal hand is indeed very close to the scribal hand of 29, 30 and 31 (in these three the main document has been written by the same hand, the notarial signatures are more difficult to compare).

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The Alpheios, son of Valens, of 22 may appear in other documents, too. In the request for the transfer of taxation, 23 (544), the demosios chartophylax, keeper of the public records, to whom the request is addressed, has the exact same name. And a person of the same name has written a witness statement in 28 (559). We cannot be sure if Alpheios, son of Valens, in these three documents is the same person or not (the handwriting in the short and poorly preserved witness statement in 28.76 could be the same as the notarial hand(s) in 29–31). Both Alpheios and Valens are quite common names in the area.23 If he were the same person in all these texts, it would be an important argument supporting the view that the same people could be in charge of both notarial and tax-related writing tasks. Subscriptions in taxation documents The subscriptions in documents relating to taxation differ from the notarial ones and it is not always clear whether they were written by tax officials or other people, e.g. the previous owners of the land under discussion, who pay the taxes because their name still appears in the registers, but then collect the money back from the current owners. For example, in a bundle of tax receipts (7–10) a person subscribes that he has received tax payments ‘for the present tax collectors’ (εἰς τοὺς κατὰ καιρὸν ὑποδέκτας) from Patrophilos for three indiction years at once. The subscription in each is written in the same hand as the whole receipt, therefore it could be assumed that the person receiving the payments was at the same time the writer of the receipt and of the subscription (written in first person). The name of the receiver, Fl. Vales, son of Alpheios, has been preserved in 9 (575/6) and 8 (570?–571). The handwriting in 9, however, is different (larger sloping cursive) from the hand in 7, 8 and 10 (smaller sloping cursive). The editor has restored the name of Fl. Vales, son of Alpheios, also to 7 (568) and 10 (578). He may or may not have been a tax-collector.24 Tax receipts in another bundle were written later, 32 (593?), 33 (591–92?) and 34 (583–600?). In them, the payments were made in gold coinage to the members of the curial class (politeuomenoi), whose links to the administration of taxation are unclear. 32 is specifically said to have been written by a person whose name is most likely Ioannes (ἐγράφ[(η)] εἰδ[(οῖς)] Ἀπριλ(ίοις) ἰνδ(ικτίονος) ια χειρὶ Ἰω[άννου ?). In addition to that, it has been signed by two recipients, Fl. Michaelios and Fl. Victor. The receipt 34 is written by Fl. Theodoros, son of Georgios. The handwriting in 32–34 is not the slanting cursive of the earlier taxation documents (style A), but is more upright, a sort of mixture of styles A 23 On the spelling of the names Vales/Valens and Alpheios/Alphios, see 55.10 comm. and 55.50–1 comm. 24 See the discussion in 7–10, Introduction in P.Petra I.

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and B. This may simply be explained by the much later date of these receipts, but again, we are not sure about the official or unofficial status of the writer. In a third group of tax receipts, 45–47 (544/5–557/8?), the receivers of the tax payments are not officials but are previous owners of the land for which the taxes are paid. They sign the receipts in their own hand and this time the scribe does not identify himself, but the hand is the same in the two that were rolled together, 45 and 46 (the loops at the top of the lambdas and at the end of omegas are special characteristic of this hand), but the main hand of 47 resembles the hand which wrote some of the epistalmata (25, 66; e.g. the omicron written as one loop between other letters is a common feature). For the epistalmata, requests for transfer of taxation, the subscription practice is not very clear.25 In 65.10 (542/3?), example (4), we do have the signature of the chartophylax Leontios, who agrees to perform the changes requested in the register. He must have been the official who received the request and subscribed it for that reason. The request itself has not survived apart from the last lines and the signatures of the parties. The handwriting of the chartophylax is of the sloping cursive style A with some long curling tails of letters. (4) † Φλ(άουιος) Λε[όν]τιος εὐλαβ(έστατος) χαρτοφύλαξ κατεδεξάμην καὶ κουφ[ίσω] καὶ βαρήσ[ω ἀπὸ τῆς] ἑβδόμης [ἰνδι]κ(τίονος) κ[αὶ] εἰς τὸν ἑξῆς τὸ προ[γεγραμ(μένον)] ἐλε[υ]θερ[ι]κ[οῦ ἰ(ουγέρου) τὸ ἥ]μισυ [ c. 10 ] † (I), Flavius Leontios, most reverend keeper of records, have accepted and will relieve and burden [beginning from the] seventh indiction and for the time thereafter for the half . . . of a free [iugerum . . .

As mentioned above, the request 23 (544), was addressed to the demosios chartophylax, Alpheios, son of Valens. However, requests were usually addressed to the tax collectors, hypodektai, who sometimes were also politeuomenoi, members of the curial class, as in 3–5, the addressee of the text, Euthenios, son of Dousarios. The sender of those requests, Fl. Patrikios, son of Diphilos, was also most likely a politeuomenos (see P.Petra I, p. 74). This suggests that the people dealing with taxation (paying and receiving) were members of the curial class. The possibility that they wrote some of the documents themselves is an attractive idea.26 25 In the epistalmata from Egypt, the practice varies; not all seem to have subscriptions and in some the end has not survived. P.Oxy. I 126, however, has signatures of the parties and a subscription of the notary (di emu Paul(u) sum(bolaeografu) etelioth(e)); P. Michael 33 is issued and signed by a politeuomenos; P. Warr. 33 is subscribed by the receiver: Αὐρήλιος Φιλόξενος βοηθὸς ἐξακτορίας τοῦ αὐτοῦ οἴκου Τιμαγένους ἔσχον τὸ αὐθεντικὸν ἐπίσταλμα. 26 See R. AST, Writing and the City in Later Roman Egypt. Towards a Social History of the Ancient ‘Scribe’, in CHS Research Bulletin 4, no. 1, 2015 suggesting that councillors and their assistants generated many memoranda, petitions, accounts etc. The signature of Patrikios, son of Diphilos, is partially preserved in 5 and in 35. In both cases it is capital; in 5 smaller and in 35 larger, but possibly the same hand. However, that handwriting does not resemble the cursive style A in the least. That does not, of course, mean that the writer would not have been able to use the style A handwriting if he would have written documents that ‘required’ it.

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In addition to 65, remnants of signatures in the epistalmata in the Petra dossier are preserved in 5, 23, 25 and 66, but none of them preserve the signature of the authority accepting the document. The handwriting in all the epistalmata and many of the tax receipts is the same sloping style, and we can discern some groups of texts, where the writer is likely to be the same person; for example, the requests 3, 4 and 5 (all from 538) are by one writer. Above I already discussed 45–46 and 25 (559), 47 (557/8 or 572/3), 66 (549?). Temporary non-professional scribes Some documents were written by people who most likely were not professional writers, even though their profession could require literacy. One such person is Fl. Leontios, son of Valens, who wrote and signed the tax receipt 20 (540), which is very similar to the tax receipts discussed above. His handwriting is semicursive, a solid and legible hand, i.e. the letters are consistent in shape and they are executed firmly; yet as such it does not strike one as ‘professional’ or ‘scribal’, even though it was far from shaky. This is mostly because all the other scribal hands in the archive are much heavier with the ligatures. However, Leontios must have had some support for formulating such a receipt, either some models or an education in receipt formulae. Then we have Nonnos, son of Auxon, who appears to have been a military prior in the camp of Sadaqa. He wrote the tax receipt 37 (565–575) on behalf of Fl. Kyrikos, who was acting on behalf of his wife Arista. The receipt was written in the form of a homologia and is much longer than the receipts discussed above. Kyrikos is said to be an oligogrammatos, a person of few letters, who was able to write his own subscription of ten lines at the end of the document, but with difficulties. For example, he makes several different kinds of orthographic errors caused by phonology, e.g. confusing ε and η, but interestingly his hand is more cursive than e.g. that of Leontios in 20. Kyrikos’s hand clearly imitates the style A, although his letters are not flowing with ease, the ink is occasionally too thick and occasionally thin. As for Nonnos, the editors say that “[he] was clearly not a professional scribe. Although his handwriting is a quite easily legible cursive, it abounds in errors. While he could write the consonants correctly, he had problems with most vowels.” Nonnos’s handwriting definitely belongs to an accustomed writer with a fair amount of training, since his cursive runs effortlessly and with steady thickness; his literacy was just on a level where producing orthographically standard texts was not the main concern. Third, we have an odd little text 6 (538) called a ‘List of Stolen Items’, which is apparently in the very hand of priest Epiphanios, son of Damianos. The text is written in the first person and there is no change in the handwriting when the signature begins. The editor describes the hand as medium-sized, quite clumsy

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and coarse. In the orthography, we find much more variation than in the notarial documents, especially in writing consistently the omicron instead of omega. The fragmentary letters 26 and 27 are written ‘in a very similar semi-cursive hand’ according to the editors who, however, state that there might also be another writer. The sender of the letters remains elusive: the editors suggested that Philoumenos who appears in 25 was a likely candidate. The Philoumenos of 25 was a slow writer (see below), so if he were the sender, he must have used someone else to pen the letters, since the hand does appear to be by an accustomed writer. Signatories, proxies and witnesses A large group of writers, who may or may not be professionals, appear of course in the signatures of the parties and witness statements. The contracting parties were expected to write their own signatures in their own hand repeating the main contents of the agreement. These signatures were written in different types of handwriting and with varying competence in orthography and grammar. We can identify by name roughly thirty people who wrote their signatures in one or more documents, and there are more than ten whose names do not survive. Eleven appear in more than one document.27 The main figure of the archive, Theodoros, son of Obodianos, has apparently signed for himself in thirteen documents. As mentioned above, Theodoros used two different types of handwriting in his signatures. If the contracting party was illiterate, s/he could use as a proxy a literate person who wrote on his/her behalf. In the Petra documents we can identify seven cases where a proxy was used (15, 25, 28, 42, 43, 44, 57). In four of these seven cases, the illiterate was a woman (Elaphia, daughter of Sabinos in 28; Kyra, daughter of Georgios in 42, 43 and 44) and in the very poorly preserved document 15 the only surviving personal name is female. Possibly we therefore have three illiterate women, and no evidence is present for any literate women. Furthermore, in 37 mentioned above, the oligogrammatos husband of Arista was acting on her behalf so that Arista did not even need to subscribe with a proxy. Twice a proxy was certainly used by a man: in 25 by Philoumenos, son of Gerontios, and in 57 by Fl. Paulos. Philoumenos was presbyter of a church or a monastery and he wrote his own name, patronymic and title with great difficulties, and then the proxy took over. The beginning of the signature of Paulos is not preserved, so we do not know if he was able to write his name. On the basis of our evidence, illiteracy was very likely for women, but rare for men of the propertied class in sixth century Petra.

27

See VIERROS, Greek of the Petra Papyri, p. 26, Table B.

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Notarial documents usually included three or five witnesses. They were required to state that they were present at the agreement and they witnessed it by writing in their own hand. We have some 13 witnesses whose names or patronymics are preserved, and traces of many more anonymous ones. Very few people acting as witnesses are found as signatories in other documents. One exception is Fl. Barachos, son of Barachos, who was the proxy signing for Kyra in 43 and a witness in 61. Roughly half of the witness statements have been written in the style A sloping cursive handwriting, but the other half shows a range of variations (but rarely the notarial upright hand). Thus it seems that the proxies and witnesses were often people with fluent writing skills who were available for performing the needed writing tasks; they were the same group of people who also could write taxation documents, that is, possibly members of the curial class (at least for two of the witnesses, the title politeuomenos can be read,28 and in addition Euthenios, son of Dousarios, who elsewhere is attested as politeuomenos and a tax-collector, is acting as a witness in 22. Thus, in theory, we could find some of our anonymous writers in that group and give them names. In practice this would require much more detailed palaeographical work, and the fragmentary state of the subscriptions could inhibit such an endeavour altogether. Copies and drafts Only in two cases do we have copies of the same text. The more notable case is 55 (573?), which consists of six copies of a donatio mortis causa, all written by the same scribe on the same papyrus roll. The whole roll consisted of 8 columns. The first and last columns were not copied; the first fragmentary column consisted of the date and some sort of introduction in Greek and Latin; then the names of the people present and the executor of the will were most likely listed. The donation itself was copied six times, one copy per column, almost identically. The last column had subscriptions. The six copies were apparently meant for each beneficiary of the donation and they would have been cut out from the roll for them after the death of the testator. He, however, must have recovered from the illness he suffered when drawing up the document, since the columns were never cut out. The copies were made all at the same instance one after another, apparently to ensure nothing was added, as it might have been, had the copies been produced after the death of the testator. The other preserved copy is a request for transfer of taxation (24 is a copy of 23). The original document has signatures written in the hands of the parties, but in 24 the signatures have been copied by the same hand as the document proper. The copyist has repeated some orthographic mistakes of the original, 28

Fl. Diphilos, son of Gessios in 29m6, 61m6, and NN son of Euthenios in 28m4, 29m5, 31m3.

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but not all; he also produced new mistakes.29 The hand of the copyist shows stylistic similarities to the hand of the original, but it is a different hand. Also, the same wide-column format is employed in both. Therefore the copy seems to have been an official one, perhaps meant for one of the parties. The original and the copy were not found close together since they have different field numbers; they were found approximately one meter apart from each other in the room, thus they might have been stored on separate shelves. Some of the texts have been identified as drafts by the editors. Text 36, ‘Division of Property’, is tentatively identified as a draft on the basis of missing signatures, although the presence of a protocollon, and the lack of corrections seem to suggest that this may not have been the case.30 Text 52, ‘Draft of a Will’, is more clearly a draft. It is written on the verso of another document, it has no dating nor subscriptions and the scribe cancelled some words and replaced some between the lines. This draft included the whole text of the will minus the date and subscriptions; i.e. it was a roll of almost 3 meters long. Text 53 is titled ‘Draft or Annotations’ which points to the fact that at least the text is not a final document, it may consist of several drafts or notes. The clearest example of a draft is 54, where the text has been cancelled with criss-crossed lines. Conclusions Calculating the number of literate people appearing in the Petra papyri cannot be done accurately, since the amount depends on how strict the criteria are that we set in identifying people of the same name and people who have similar handwriting. Around 280 acts of writing give of course the upper limit for writers. From this we can subtract those writing acts that we can be sure were done by the same person, such as the many signatures left by parties to the contracts and writing acts of scribes whose hands we know. However, some anonymous scribes may be the same people who have written witness statements or acted as proxies. If we count the ca. 40 signatories and a minimum of 30 witnesses and assume all witnesses were the scribes and notaries of the contracts, we get 70 as the minimum of literate people attested in the Petra papyri. Most likely the number was higher, perhaps somewhere between 100–200. Many of the signatories and nonprofessional writers seem to come from an ecclesiastical or military sphere of society. Among them we see great variation in skills and experience in writing, i.e. the consistency of spelling and fluidity of the handwriting varied; some priests wrote rather cumbersomely and some 29 E.g. ἐπέστιλα in 23.15 and 24.5; πλίο (23.16)/πλίω (24.6) instead of πλείω; but μαι in 24.5 instead of με as in 23.15. 30 See the introduction of 36 (edited by M. Buchholz and M. Mustonen) for a discussion on the difficulties of interpretation. The length of the document was 4 meters, which also can be considered a difficult length for a draft.

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military officials did not handle spelling very well, but yet they could write rather long documents. Then again, our archdeacon Theodoros shows much skill even as a young man. It is clear that education in writing was widespread among men in the church, the military and members of the city council, but notarial practices, legal formulae and standard orthography were not a big part of the education of at least the first two groups.31 Then, we have many skilled and proficient writers, the scribes of the notarial contracts and the writers who wrote the taxation documents for administrative uses. These two scribal/administrative groups employed distinctively different handwriting, and also their linguistic skills sometimes suggest that they had received different educations,32 but it seems that there was also some overlap with all these groups. It is difficult to define the term ‘scribe’ very accurately, which becomes clear within the Petra material, especially when examining the tax receipts; tax collectors and members of the curial class may have been the same people and they were skilled in writing administrative documents but they probably did not see themselves as mere scribes (and they could have assistants for the writing tasks). Bibliography A. AL-JALLAD, The Arabic of Petra, in A. ARJAVA et al. (eds), The Petra Papyri V, Amman, 2018 (= P.Petra V), p. 35–55. A. ARJAVA, Physical Format and Notarial Conventions in the Petra Papyri, in A. ARJAVA, M. BUCHHOLZ and T. GAGOS (eds), The Petra Papyri III, Amman, 2007 (= P.Petra III), p. 1–5. A. ARJAVA, The People of Petra, in A. ARJAVA et al. (eds), The Petra Papyri V, Amman, 2018 (= P.Petra V), p. 1–7. R. AST, Writing and the City in Later Roman Egypt. Towards a Social History of the Ancient ‘Scribe’, in CHS Research Bulletin 4, no. 1, 2015. Persistent identifier: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:AstR.Writing_in_the_City_in_Later_ Roman_Egypt.2016 E. CRISCI, Scrivere greco fuori d’Egitto. Richerche sui manoscritti greco-orientali di origine non egiziana dal IV secolo a.C. all’VIII d.C. (Papyrologica Florentina 27), Firenze, 1996. J.M. DIETHART and K.A. WORP (eds), Notarsunterschriften im byzantinischen Ägypten, Vienna, 1986. L. DI SEGNI, Greek Inscriptions in Transition from the Byzantine to the Early Islamic Period, in H. COTTON, R.G. HOYLAND, J.J. PRICE and D.J. WASSERSTEIN (eds), From Hellenism to Islam. Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East, Cambridge, 2009, p. 352–373. Z.T. FIEMA, C. KANELLOPOULOS, T. WALISZEWSKI and R. SCHICK (eds), The Petra Church, Amman, 2001. 31 For different levels in Byzantine education, see for example A. GIANNOULI, Education and Literary Language in Byzantium, in M. HINTERBERGER (ed.), The Language of Byzantine Learned Literature, Turnhout, 2014, p. 52–71. 32 As can be seen in the Tables on orthography in VIERROS, Greek of the Petra Papyri, p. 27–34.

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A. GIANNOULI, Education and Literary Language in Byzantium, in M. HINTERBERGER (ed.), The Language of Byzantine Learned Literature, Turnhout, 2014, p. 52–71. S.H. GRIFFITH, From Aramaic to Arabic: The Languages of the Monasteries of Palestine in the Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 51 (1997), p. 11–31. G. HORROCKS, Greek. A History of the Language and Its Speakers, Chichester, 20102. S. KOVARIK, Die byzantinische Tabellionenurkunde in Ägypten, in C. GASTGEBER (ed.), Quellen zur byzantinischen Rechtspraxis. Aspekte der Textüberlieferung, Paläographie und Diplomatik. Akten des internationalen Symposiums Wien, 5.–7.11.2007, Vienna, 2010, p. 27–37. A. SARRI, Material Aspects of Letter Writing in the Graeco-Roman World c. 500 BC– c. AD 300 (Materiale Textkulturen 12), Berlin – Boston, 2018. M. VIERROS, The Greek of the Petra Papyri, in A. ARJAVA et al. (eds), The Petra Papyri V, Amman, 2018 (= P.Petra V), p. 8–34.

THE PROBLEMS OF ANONYMOUS SCRIBES AT WADI SARGA Jennifer CROMWELL

Despite being published for almost a century, the textual corpus from the monastic complex at Wadi Sarga (ca. 6th to 8th centuries CE) has received scant attention and no detailed analysis.1 Yet, it offers an excellent opportunity for the study of scribal activity at a specific time and place. The 385 published texts, as well as the unpublished material, have secure provenance – they were found during excavation work at Wadi Sarga, a valley within the western desert of Egypt approximately 25 km south of Asyut.2 Now part of the British Museum’s collection, images of all the textual material are available on the Museum’s online catalogue, enabling detailed philological and palaeographic analyses of the corpus.3 Predominantly written on ostraca (potsherds) in Coptic (the last phase of the indigenous Egyptian language) or a mix of Coptic and Greek, the texts preserve the internal communications within the monastery and those sent to the monastery. These principally concern the economic affairs of the organisation itself and include letters and orders issued by its senior figure (the superior – proestos – or Father). While some superiors could and did sign their name in their own hand, the body of the texts was written by scribes, some of whom also added their 1 The published texts, known by the papyrological sigla O.Sarga were published in W.E. CRUM and H.I. BELL, Wadi Sarga. Coptic and Greek Texts from the Excavations Undertaken by the Byzantine Research Account, Copenhagen, 1922. Note that O.Sarga refers to texts from the site written on ostraca; texts on papyrus are P.Sarga, while I.Sarga refers to inscriptions and graffiti. Cromwell briefly mentions the unpublished textual material in the Museum’s collection in J. CROMWELL, A Coptic Epistolary Exercise from Wadi Sarga, in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 99 (2013), p. 272–275; O’Connell includes a comprehensive annotated bibliography of studies that mention the site, cf. E.R. O’CONNELL, Wadi Sarga at the British Museum: Sources for Study (with Annotated Bibliography), in P. BUZI, A. CAMPLANI and F. CONTARDI (eds), Coptic Society, Literature and Religion from Late Antiquity to Modern Times. Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies, Rome, September 17th–22nd, 2012, Leuven, 2016, p. 1547–1566. As an example of how Wadi Sarga is yet to be incorporated fully into studies on Egyptian monasticism, only a handful of pages are dedicated to it in E. WIPSZYCKA, Moines et communautés monastiques en Égypte (IVe–VIIIe siècles), Warsaw, 2009, p. 90, 155–157, 330, 361, 457, 546, 549–550. 2 R.J.A. TALBERT, Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, Princeton, 2000, Map 77, grid E3; see also the entry in the only gazetteer of ancient places, Pleiades, at https://pleiades. stoa.org/places/756676. 3 On the photographing of the corpus, see J. CROMWELL, The Textual Corpus from Wadi Sarga: A New Study, in British Museum Newsletter Ancient Egypt and Sudan 1 (2014), p. 17. As only a limited number of images can be published here, table 3 provides a concordance of publication and inventory numbers, to facilitate consultation of the texts in the British Museum’s catalogue (http:// www.britishmuseum.org/research.aspx).

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Fig. 1. (O.Sarga 171)

own signatures. On one hand, we therefore have dossiers of known individuals. Of note is the scribe Phoibammon (Fig. 1), who wrote several payment orders issued by the Father of the monastery, Enoch, and to whom can be attributed several other documents, some of which are broken, others of which are unsigned. Table 1 presents the evidence for known scribes at the monastery, based on texts with surviving signatures. On the other hand, however, there is a much larger number of texts that bear no signatures, including accounts, invoices, receipts, and letters. Who wrote these documents – and where they wrote them – has a vital impact on our understanding of how the monastery operated. Unfortunately, the precise findspot of each text is of little help in providing answers to this issue. While the original excavators wrote the number of the specific spot on many of the ostraca, analysis of these figures in conjunction with the site’s plan shows that the majority of items were found in dumps.4 Nevertheless, while their original archival context 4 Approximately one-third of the texts in the British Museum bear findspot numbers. Of these, the majority come from site 80, a dump at the eastern entrance of the wadi (111 texts + 29 possible texts). Three other dumps, within the wadi, have also produced large numbers of texts: sites 40 (56 + 5 possible texts), 43 (36 + 1 possible texts) and 70 (58 + 8 possible texts). Note, that ‘possible’ here means that the reading of the number written during the excavations a century ago is uncertain.

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is now lost, the fact remains that this material was found at Wadi Sarga. The texts were therefore either written at the monastery, and remained there, or were sent to the monastery. Either way, their connection to the monastery is without doubt. One topic dominates the written record: the administration of wine, including deliveries to the monastery and its redistribution as payment to other individuals and communities.5 As a result, wine is mentioned in almost all text types, but receipts recording wine delivery are by far the most common, comprising almost one-third of the published material.6 The majority of these are short, pithy texts that conform to a standard pattern, containing only the most essential information: the date, the name of the vineyard (the source of the wine), the quantity of wine delivered, and the name of the camel-driver who delivered it. While in some instances the name of the camel-driver is omitted and some receipts record deliveries from multiple vineyards, for the most part the texts are remarkably homogenous in form and style. In contrast to other categories of texts from the monastery, which bear the signature of the superior and the scribe who wrote the document, this information is not recorded in the majority of these receipts. The notable exception is Mena, discussed below, who wrote non-standard receipts.7 In the introduction to O.Sarga 213, the texts’ editor, Walter Crum, posed a number of questions pertaining to these receipts: Each of these dumps contains similar material, that is, all text types are represented in them – there is no coherency of text types within each dump. For these site numbers, see the plan published in CRUM and BELL, Wadi Sarga, XX. Further information about Thompson’s excavations, together with his excavation photographs, is available in E.R. O’CONNELL, R. Campbell Thompson’s 1913/14 Excavation of Wadi Sarga and Other Sites, in British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 21 (2014), p. 121–192. 5 The wine receipts mention a number of wine measures and their study implicitly involves several issues concerning the transportation by camel of goods to the monastery. The metrological data contained in the Wadi Sarga texts is complex, as indicated by H.I. Bell’s discussion in O.Sarga p. 19–26. While an attempt has been made to calculate the volume of wine entering the monastery (as noted below), in this study I do not discuss capacities and the logistics of how much a camel can bear. One of the most pressing issues is whether the measures mentioned refer to actual vessels or are simply units. This point affects how we understand practical matters, such as how many amphorae could be loaded onto an individual camel – a total weight that was probably much lower than the actual load-bearing capacity of the animal. Further research on this topic, by myself and Gillian Pyke, will hopefully elucidate matters in the future. 6 In general, receipts comprise the largest single text group in the Sarga corpus, according to the division of the material by Crum and Bell (170 receipts, the majority of which are for wine). However, many texts do not fall neatly into their categories. There is a distinct overlap between their ‘invoices’ and their ‘receipts’, and the label ‘receipt’ is not necessarily accurate in all instances (the function of individual texts is not always transparent). Through my preliminary analysis of the unpublished material from the site, I have identified a small number of additional wine receipts. Their number (and the amount of information that they preserve) is small enough that they will not significantly alter the following discussion. 7 Receipts for other commodities were sometimes signed, e.g., the wheat receipts signed by Horos (O.Sarga 205–208).

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• By whom and to whom were the receipts issued? • What was their function? • Did the camel-driver – the only named individual – issue the receipt, or was he the recipient? • If the latter, where was the receipt issued, e.g., at the monastery or at the point of collection? • Did the camel-drivers reside at the monastery? • Were these receipts issued upon delivery or were they waybills issued at the point of collection and given to the monastery as a check on proper delivery? Crum concluded that, due to their provenance and the limited number of hands that wrote these texts, these receipts were issued to the camel-drivers upon delivery and that the camel-drivers must have been resident at the monastery in order for the receipts to remain on site. The only study of the logistics of wine organisation at Wadi Sarga, which considers the circulation of wine here and at monasteries at Bawit and Saqqara, treats all the receipts as coming from a single year.8 As the majority of receipts were written in the month of Thoth (late August to late September), after the grape harvest, Bacot calculated that 25,665 litres of wine were delivered to Wadi Sarga in this single month of a single year. This in turn raises a question that Bacot does not address: if all of these receipts were written in a single year, why was this the case? Why would there be evidence for such detailed accounting for one year only? Through analysis of the original receipts, focussing on a few case studies, I propose different approaches to tackling the following issues, as well as outline the difficulties faced in the process: • Were the receipts actually written in a single year? • Can the hands be identified with any other hands from the monastery? • What function did the receipts serve? No definitive conclusions are offered here, but I hope to show the advantages of close examination of all aspects of the written evidence, not only for the study of scribal activity (be they known or anonymous scribes), but the wider impact that this has on understanding the internal workings of such an organisation as this monastery. 1. Wadi Sarga productions As stated above, while all of these texts were certainly found at the monastery, this does not mean that they were all written at the site. It is first necessary, therefore, S. BACOT, La circulation du vin dans les monasteries d’Égypte à l’époque copte, in N. GRIMAL and B. MENU (eds), Le commerce en Égypte ancienne, Cairo, 1998, p. 269–288, at p. 273. 8

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to identify what letters were certainly written to the monastery from an external person or community.9 The hands of these texts can then be removed from the Wadi Sarga scribal corpus. O.Sarga 94 is a letter written by the brethren of Pohe, with a request for camels to be sent to them.10 The beginning of O.Sarga 111 only partially survives, but is written from the mount of Talau (ⲧⲁⲗⲁⲩ), presumably the monastery of Taroou (ⲧⲁⲣⲟⲟⲩ) at Aphrodito.11 These two letters were certainly not written at Wadi Sarga. They are both relatively unusual, however, in that the location of the sender is written. For other letters, it is not always possible to determine what is internal correspondence and what was sent from external communities.12 Each of these three ostraca, O.Sarga 93 (see n. 12), 94, and 111, are written in different hands, but they can all be described as majuscule styles with few ligatures. The principal differences lie in individual letter formation (and in this respect, 111 is particularly of note) and considerable work is required before it can be determined if such changes reflect local practices in different communities, or are entirely dependent on individual ductus (in which case the variety found within a community will potentially be as great as that found between communities).13 2. Palaeographic variation One of the principal problems with working with short texts, such as those found at Wadi Sarga, is having sufficient palaeographic material to make comparisons. Such a limited dataset meets with extra problems when writers produced letters in multiple forms, making it difficult to identify characteristic features. Even in the short wine receipt, O.Sarga 224 (Fig. 2), which comprises only 27 letters (plus a couple of non-alphabetic signs), the letter ⲙ has two different forms, each of which occurs twice: one form appears in the toponym ⲧⲙⲟⲩⲛⲥⲓⲙ (written in one motion and with curved strokes), and the other is used in ⲙⲉⲅ/ and ⲕⲁⲙⲁⲗ/ (written with four separate strokes). This multiplicity of forms 9

The monastery’s local networks, based on its ceramic remains, are treated in a recent study, J. FAIERS, Wadi Sarga Revisited: A Preliminary Study of the Pottery Excavated in 1913/14, in E.R. O’CONNELL (ed.), Egypt in the First Millennium AD: Perspectives from New Fieldwork, Leuven, 2014, p. 177–189. 10 For the location of Pohe (Buha), in the nome of Asyut, see S. TIMM, Das christlich-koptische Ägypten in arabischer Zeit, eine Sammlung christlicher Stätten in Ägypten in arabischer Zeit, unter Ausschluss von Alexandria, Kairo, des Apa-Mena-Klosters (Der Abu Mina), der Sketis (Wadi n-Natrun) und der Sinai-Region, 7 vols, Wiesbaden, 1984–2007, vol. II, p. 422–424. 11 See TIMM, Das christlich-koptische Ägypten, vol. VI, p. 2534–2535. 12 O.Sarga 93 is another request for camels from the monastery and as such was probably written elsewhere, even though this information is not stated. In contrast, accounts, invoices, receipts and orders from the superior, all of which concern the internal organisation of the monastery, were most likely written in-house. 13 In this respect, the unpublished writing exercises from Wadi Sarga may be important, in determining whether or not there was a distinctive local style; on these exercises, see CROMWELL, A Coptic Epistolary Exercise.

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Fig. 2. (O.Sarga 224)

means that specific letterforms cannot necessarily be assigned to specific writers, unless there is further supporting palaeographic, linguistic, or contextual information. As a comparison, of the three ostraca that are signed by Phoibammon (and so ignoring for now the texts that can be attributed to him, but are unsigned), O.Sarga 168 and 169 have only one form of ⲙ. However, in O.Sarga 171 (Fig. 1) there are two forms of this letter. The first of these, and the only one that occurs in 168 and 169, is the same as that in ⲧⲙⲟⲩⲛⲥⲓⲙ in O.Sarga 224 (i.e., a curved form of ⲙ). The other form, found, e.g., in ⲙⲚⲧⲏ in line 4, ⲙⲉⲅ/ in line 6, and in Phoibammon’s own name on the final line, Φοιβάμμων,14 has a long initial stroke, which ends in a tick at the bottom. With Phoibammon, this change in 14 Phoibammon writes his notation in Greek, with a slightly modified script. This practice of using two scripts to write different sections of documents occurs in Coptic and Coptic-Greek documents found throughout Egypt, as discussed in J. CROMWELL, Aristophanes son of Johannes: An 8th Century Bilingual Scribe?, in A. PAPACONSTANTINOU (ed.), The Multilingual Experience in Egypt from the Ptolemies to the Abassids, Aldershot, 2010, p. 221–232; and J. CROMWELL, Coptic Texts in the Archive of Flavius Atias, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 184 (2013), p. 284–288.

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letterform reflects a more general development in his writing, with increased competency and confidence within his writing style.15 This in turn raises another point: a single scribe may have several writing styles, some of which were used at a single time, in different sections of a text (e.g., the body of the text and the signature or when writing passages in different languages16), or consecutively across several texts, as their skill-level improved.17 Without a large body of comparative material, it is not always an easy task to distinguish between the works of one individual and the works of several. The problem faced by the Wadi Sarga corpus is that, while a large body of material has survived, individual texts hold little information, and so the entire body of material has to be examined at the same time. 3. Orthographic variation In conjunction with the level of palaeographic variation found within the work of a single person is the problem of orthographic variation. The same individual may have spelled the same word differently in separate texts. This is a distinct possibility, given that there is clear evidence of this from other sites. The scribe Job son of Alexander, who wrote the child donation document P.KRU 88 (from western Thebes; 8th century), exhibits a lack of consistency within this document: δωρίζειν occurs as ⲇⲱⲣⲓⲍⲉ (line 5), ⲇⲱⲍⲉ (line 10), and ⲧⲱⲣⲓⲍⲉ (line 4); τόπος occurs as ⲧⲱⲡⲟⲥ (line 6) and ⲇⲱⲡⲟⲥ (lines 9, 11, and 13); and ὅλως occurs as ϩⲟⲗⲟⲥ (line 13) and ϩⲱⲗⲟⲥ (line 17).18 With this in mind, one can turn to three Sarga wine receipts and ask whether the same person wrote them. O.Sarga 228 (Fig. 3) was written on Paope 15 (Greek Phaophi)19 and O.Sarga 231 (Fig. 4) and 242 (Fig. 5) were written on the same day, Thoth 18, and all were for the same camel-driver, John. Their palaeography strongly suggests that they were written by the same person; note in particular the writing of the abbreviation stroke at the end of ⲙⲉⲅ/ in 228 and 231, which looks like a short lightning-bolt. The only difference between them 15 If these features do reflect Phoibammon’s development as a scribe, tracking these changes will be a potential tool for relatively dating these texts. 16 On this point, see also Ast in the current volume. 17 The Theban writer, Isaac son of Constantine, who appears as a witness and amanuensis in multiple legal documents from western Thebes in the early 8th century, is a prime example of this. For the significant development in his writing ability, see J. CROMWELL, Palaeography, Scribal Practice and Chronological Issues in Coptic Documentary Texts, in Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 46 (2010), p. 1–16. 18 For Job son of Alexander (and other case studies), see further J. CROMWELL, Greek or Coptic? Scribal Decisions in Eighth-Century Egypt (Thebes), in J. CROMWELL and E. GROSSMAN (eds), Scribal Repertoires in Egypt from the New Kingdom to the Early Islamic Period, Oxford, 2018, p. 251–273 (especially p. 256–259). 19 See Table 2 for the Gregorian calendar equivalents of all Egyptian dates mentioned in connection with specific ostraca.

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Fig. 3. (O.Sarga 228)

Fig. 4. (O.Sarga 231)

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Fig. 5. (O.Sarga 242)

is the use of a second form of ⲙ in 242, but it has already been established above that the same individual could employ multiple forms of the same letter. However, there are two orthographic differences: 1) ⲙⲓⲕ/ in 228 vs ⲙⲉⲕ/ in 242 for μίκρα (small measure);20 and 2) ⲓⲱϩⲁⲛⲛⲏⲥ in 231 vs ⲓⲱϩⲁⲛⲏⲥ in 228 and 242 for the personal name John. The level of palaeographic consistency across these texts suggests that this is a situation in which one person exhibits orthographic variation across multiple texts. Another group of texts, O.Sarga 261, 283, 285, and 288, shows the same practice. These ostraca are written in the same hand, which is not that of the previous group. Apart from the first ostracon, written for Macarius, the receipts are issued to Collouthos, and all were written between Thoth 18 and 29 (261 and 285 were written on the same day). There are a number of striking features about these receipts. The initial staurogram (⳨) has embellishments at each end of the vertical stroke, such that it resembles a pi-rho monogram (⳦), rather than the standard tau-rho form. The letter upsilon is written as a ‘v’, rather than its standard Coptic form with a vertical stem (ⲩ). In addition, this writer uses an unusual variant of μεγάλα: ⲙⲩⲅ/ (261, 283, 285), which does not occur outside 20 ⲙⲉⲕ/ is most likely for μίκρα rather than μεγάλα as the following numeral, ⲡ (80), is a little too high to be for large measures. The only other occurrence of ⲙⲉⲕ/ for μίκρα is in O.Sarga 338, which is written in a markedly different hand. Again, the large sum after ⲙⲉⲕ/ (ⲣⲝⲇ = 164) supports reading this as the abbreviation of μίκρα.

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this dossier; but he was not always consistent in his use, as in 288 he writes ⲙⲩⲕ/. Again, the same person shows a degree of orthographic variation within the texts that he wrote. Consequently, orthography cannot be used as a decisive criterion for attributing texts that do not exhibit the same spellings to different people. A different form of orthographic variation is found in the writing of month names, in particular the month Paope, which occurs both as Coptic ⲡⲁⲟⲡⲉ and Greek ⲫⲁⲱⲫⲓ (Φαῶφι). There are nine attestations of the Coptic version (O.Sarga 213, 214, 232, 239, 262, 263, 264, 310, 323) and seven of the Greek version (O.Sarga 221, 227, 228, 237, 277, 294, 324). Examination of the ostraca reveals no marked palaeographic differences between any of these receipts. How, then, to account for the two forms? One possibility is that each set of receipts was written by different individuals with the same style. Conversely, these could all be the work of a single writer who switched between each version freely. Alternatively, if this is not a case of free variation, the use of two different forms may reflect wider administrative practice wherein there was a global shift in the use of the Coptic version to the Greek version (or vice versa) at the monastery. Without any dating criteria beyond the month and day, this point is not possible to prove. Nevertheless, it may mean that the ostraca were not all written in the same year. 4. Multiple deliveries on a single ostracon There are a number of instances in which multiple deliveries, made by the same camel-driver, from multiple vineyards are written on a single receipt. On the other hand, there are as many examples in which separate receipts bearing the same date were issued to the same camel-driver. The receipts issued to the camel-driver Macarius provide an illustrative case study.21 Of his 18 receipts, there are three pairs that bear the same date: iii) Thoth 21: O.Sarga 267 (two deliveries, from Touhô and Tjits) and 270 (from Tsunhôr). iii) Thoth 28: O.Sarga 272 and 27322 (each records a single delivery from Plebiôu). iii) Paope 1: O.Sarga 262 (from Takouts) and 263 (three deliveries from two different vineyards: Takouts, Koulêu, and again Takouts; the three deliveries are separated by a horizontal dividing line). 21 The dossiers concerning the camel-drivers Hor and Luke provide comparable situations to the dossier of Macarius. 22 It should be noted that the month’s name is now lost on this receipt, which is broken on the left. However, as the majority of receipts were written in Thoth, this date can be reconstructed with a high degree of certainty.

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Additionally, three double-receipts (i.e., receipts for two deliveries on a single ostracon) were issued on Thoth 24 (from Thallou and Tsunhôr: O.Sarga 269), Thoth 27 (only Plebiôu survives, as the right side of the ostracon is broken off: O.Sarga 271), and Paope 6 (from Takouts and Tôu: O.Sarga 264).23 As has been the case in several of the examples presented above, all of these receipts appear to be written by the same person. How, then, do we account for the issuing of multiple receipts on the same day when ostraca exist that record multiple deliveries? There appear to be two possible answers. The first is that the camel-driver made multiple deliveries to the monastery on the same day and was issued a receipt each time. On those days, one load may have contained wine from different vineyards (hence the double- and triple-receipts), while the other load bore wine from a single site. This scenario envisages the cameldriver and his train making repeat trips across the desert from where the wine was collected to the monastery. Although this was not a significant distance to cover, it should be remembered that the time involved did not only entail the journey itself, but the loading and unloading of the amphorae upon the camels, and the counting of the goods, for example. While multiple journeys cannot be discounted (and on this point, see n. 27 below), I believe it is more likely that these receipts were not written on the same day, but record deliveries by the same camel-driver made over different years. In turn, this raises the possibility that not all receipts bearing the same date, regardless of the camel-driver involved, were written in the same year. Several days witness a peak in deliveries: seven receipts date to Thoth 11, six to Thoth 21, and seven to Thoth 23. While multiple deliveries may have been made to the monastery on particularly busy days, it cannot be discounted that these were written over two or more years. That they are, for the most part, written in the same hand and so most likely by the same person, also does not discount them from being written over multiple years. 5. Different hands, same day On Thoth 20, receipts were issued by at least two different scribes. O.Sarga 258 (camel-driver: Lucas) was written by the scribe to whom so many of these receipts can seemingly be attributed, characterised by his square letterforms and lightning-bolt diagonal stroke at the end of ⲙⲉⲅ/. O.Sarga 325 (cameldriver: Cyriacus) upon first inspection appears to be written by another person. The letters are more angular, more closely written, with a right-slant, and 23 One point that needs to be considered is how the size of the ostraca used for each receipt affected this practice, that is, how much space may have been available for writing multiple deliveries on a single sherd. Only a small amount of space is required for these short texts, and many receipts contain a considerable proportion of blank space, but this feature of the materiality of the ostraca needs to be considered further.

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Fig. 6. (O.Sarga 325)

some forms are slightly different (especially the lower limb of ⲕ). However, the lightning-bolt diagonal stroke is the same, as is the use of the supralinear stroke and diaresis above ⲓ. Rather than being written by two men with similar styles, this ostracon was probably written by the same person; the differences found in this receipt are likely the result of the scribe writing over rather than along the potsherd’s ridges (Fig. 6). A third receipt, O.Sarga 288 (camel-driver: Collouthos), which has already been mentioned above, was written in a different hand, with distinct features. If these receipts were written in the same year, then multiple scribes were involved in the process. Alternatively, if only one person was responsible for issuing these ostraca in a given year, they must have been produced in different years. Again, without further dating criteria, this cannot be confirmed, but the idea that these were written by different people over multiple years is certainly a possibility. 6. Wine accounts A small number of wine accounts have also survived. These texts are characterised by their cramped writing and heavy use of abbreviations. The hand is not that typical of the receipts, but much of the same information is recorded: date, camel-driver, and amount of wine. There are two important differences:

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the accounts do not include the name of the vineyard,24 and they refer to different delivery convoys. In addition, the accounts only refer to large measures as φοραί and small measures as κνίδια; they use neither μεγάλα nor μίκρα. These two terms are found in some receipts, but not those that conform to the set pattern found in the majority of them (see section 7 for such non-standard receipts).25 No account is preserved in full, but the following observations regarding O.Sarga 123 are applicable to the other receipts. Parts of seventeen entries are preserved over two fragments, including the left and right margins for the first ten lines, but only line 10 is preserved in full. The first nine lines concern the same day, as indicated by the use of ‘likewise’. The actual date does not survive, but as line 10 begins with a new date, Thoth 19, these entries were presumably for Thoth 18. After line 10, the beginnings of the remaining seven lines are lost and it cannot be determined if all these entries are for the same date. For the third convoy of the first day, all the details survive, albeit with the loss of a few letters. Four different camel-drivers are listed: John, Andrew, Serenos, and Zacharias. Two of these, John and Serenos, occur in the wine receipts (but, these may not be the same people, especially in the case of John, which is a common name26). If these entries are for Thoth 18, we can compare the information to the three receipts issued to John on this date. In the account, John delivers 36 large and two small measures. This does not exactly match the information in the receipts, but O.Sarga 242 records a delivery of 38 large measures from Thallou. It may not be too much of a stretch to state that the two record the same delivery (i.e., 38 large is actually 36 large plus two small), and that the minor discrepancies result from one text being a corrected version of the other. As for Serenos, the account records a delivery of 43 large measures, but none of his receipts are for this quantity (O.Sarga 315 only preserves the month, Thoth, but is for 40 large measures), yet, it is not implausible that such a receipt was written but is now lost. It is a pity that so little has survived of the account, as the receipts also record deliveries by Macarius, Collouthos, Joseph, Enoch, and Pamoun on Thoth 18.27 24 The exception is O.Sarga 124, but only the central section of this account survives, and no name is preserved in full. 25 It is difficult to use this as a criterion for distinguishing between scribes. For example, Phoibammon used both phoros and mega in his texts to refer to the same goods; they are direct equivalents and the use of both within the same text was used as a check, to confirm the quantity involved. 26 Among the wine receipts, O.Sarga 227 is for a Little John and O.Sarga 228 is for a Big John, and both are dated Paope 15. One can imagine such terms of distinction being used if two camel-drivers made deliveries on the same day. However, it is possible that somebody called Little John or Big John was always referred to as such, and the epithet was not a distinguishing mark employed only on particular occasions. 27 O.Sarga 121 preserves more information, but it is difficult to understand, because the convoys are not written in order, but jump between first, second and third. However, if they are all for the same day, the repetition of the name Phoibammon suggests that camel-drivers could make multiple

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As already stated, different scribes appear to have written the accounts and the receipts. Is it possible to infer anything from this fact? Different scenarios could explain this situation. 1) One member of the monastery wrote the receipts upon the camel-driver’s arrival, but they were not given to the camel-driver. Instead, they were kept in order for their information to be entered into an account by another individual. 2) The receipts were not issued at the monastery, but where the camel-drivers collected the wine. In this scenario, these texts are not receipts but are waybills; their information was later checked and entered into the monastic account. The scribes of the waybills may still be members of the monastery, who spent the time after the harvest at the collection point in order to check cargo. 3) The accounts and receipts are not contemporaneous and either mark a difference in recording practice at the monastery or the involvement of different scribes over the years who did not employ the same style. A number of other documents provide interesting information regarding the quantity of various commodities that entered the monastery, including wine. O.Sarga 135 is a list/account (logos) of wine jars from Tiloj (Nilopolis) that arrived on the first ship: 51 large vessels.28 This quantity of wine is the equivalent of the amount of wine recorded on some receipts, and so is the amount that a single camel-driver could deliver in a single day. Unfortunately, Tiloj does not occur in any other text from Wadi Sarga, and so there are no receipts against which this particular account can be checked. Another account (logos) records the amount of wine transported from Touhô, which is well attested among the wine receipts. It is, again, not possible to check this against any of the receipts that we have for this vineyard. The reason in this instance is the unusual measures that are used: ten ‘hands’ (ϭⲓϫ) and six simpulum (if this is how ⲥⲏⲙⲡⲏⲗ is to be understood), which equals 769 of an unknown measure (ⲛⲁⲓⲛⲉ ⲥⲁϣⲃⲉ Ⲛϣⲉ ϣϥⲉ ϣⲁⲧⲉⲟⲩⲉⲓ). Even if these are small measures, this is a substantial volume of wine, which exceeds the amount recorded for any specific day from Touhô.29 Neither of these accounts is written in a style that is found among the wine receipts. They may well have been written at the respective vineyards, rather than at the monastery (and so are waybills rather than accounts). trips. O.Sarga 122 preserves parts of eighteen entries with only a limited number of camel-drivers – George, Phoibammon, Zacharias, John and Pamoun (only four entries do not preserve the name of the camel-driver). 28 The number of vessels involved is, however, not certain. At the end of this short text are the letters ⲧⲕ, before which are traces of what may be an erased letter. The original editor, Walter Crum, read this passage differently: ⲧⲁⲓⲟⲩ ⲘⲚ ⲟⲩⲉⲓ ⲛⲛⲟϭ ⲛⲥⲕⲉⲩⲉ ⲧⲕ ‘51 (jars); large vessels 320’, reading the final two letters as a numeral. However, the use of the connecting morpheme ⲛ- indicates that there is only one type of vessel involved. I do not believe we have to insert an omitted vessel type, but the final two letters are difficult to account for, as such a high number is without parallel in the corpus. 29 Four receipts from Touhô bear the date Thoth 11, each of which was issued to a different camel-driver: O.Sarga 265 (Macarius), 290 (Joseph), 298 (Matthew) and 307 (Enoch). In total, these receipts record 193 large measures of wine. Without knowing what measure is intended in the account, it is not possible to compare these 193 large measures with the 769 noted therein.

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Fig. 7. (O.Sarga 346)

7. Receipts written by Mena A number of receipts do not conform to the pattern of those heretofore discussed. Eleven receipts for wine, dating to the beginning of Thoth, were written and signed by one Mena (see Table 1; Fig. 7). These are longer than the most common receipt-type and all concern wine from the estate of Nesieu. Not only does Mena not follow the same pattern as the other receipts, he includes different vessel / wine measure terminology. In addition to the large and small measures, he lists: ‘pots’ (σκεῦος), metra (μέτρα), and orga (ὄργα).30 There is also a greater degree of internal variation in the level of information recorded across his receipts: the inclusion of a convoy number and the origin of the camel-driver is inconsistent.31 30 For these measures, see the discussion of Wadi Sarga metrological terms by Bell in CRUM and BELL, Wadi Sarga, p. 24 and 25. 31 Similarly, O.Sarga 355–357 concern wine from the estate of the ‘vineyard’ (ἄμπελος), all of which may be attributed to the scribe Horos (see table 1), and the unsigned O.Sarga 358–359 concern the southern estate / estate of Notinos (νότινος). An estate called ὄργανον Ἀμπέλου νοτιν[…] occurs in O.Sarga 125, and so the ‘southern vineyard’ (Ἄμπελος may also occur in the account O.Sarga 124.3, but only […]ⲡⲉⲗ/ survives). These five receipts may therefore refer to the same vineyard, but were written by two people who use different designations. Again, it is important to note that these vineyards do not occur in other receipts. It should be stressed here that not all receipts are the same and we witness within them the work of different scribes and administrative practices.

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Nesieu occurs only twice more in the Sarga corpus. The now much-effaced O.Sarga 99 is written from an Apa Enoch to a Brother Enoch, ‘the ste[ward] of Nesieu’ (ⲡⲟ̣ⲓ[…] ⲛ̣ⲛⲉⲥⲓⲏⲩ32). As this ostracon was found at the monastery, this indicates that this text (categorised in the original publication as a letter) is a piece of internal correspondence and that the steward of Nesieu was resident at the monastery. If correct, this has further ramifications, suggesting that a separate administrative framework existed within the monastery for dealing with its estate at Nesieu. A papyrus account regarding the shipment of barley, P.Mich. XV 749, lists Nesieu among its estates.33 The estate, thus, did not only include a vineyard, it also had associated agricultural land. Even though the evidence from this single papyrus is limited, cumulatively, the evidence points towards Nesieu being an important part of the monastery’s landholdings. Mena’s receipts may therefore be part of a separate administrative procedure. It is also possible that Mena was not, himself, resident at the monastery at the time of writing. He may have been at the estate, to ensure accurate recording of the wine being produced. Unfortunately, too little information exists with which to determine Mena’s role and his place of writing. Despite the brevity of the wine receipts, enough information is present across the entire corpus to allow us to observe scribes at work and to raise important questions concerning administrative practice at the monastery. To summarise the above discussion, the following observations can be made. (1) The receipts that conform to the ‘standard’ pattern, including those bearing the same date, were written by more than one individual, none of whom wrote the wine accounts that survive from the monastery. (2) Some receipts record deliveries of wine from multiple vineyards by the same camel-driver; for some camel-drivers, there are multiple receipts that bear the same date and vineyard. This different recording practice may indicate that they were written in different years. (3) The largest group of receipts follows the same pattern and were written by a small number of men (perhaps only two or three individuals). These were therefore not written at the individual vineyards, but must have been written either at the point where the camel-driver collected the wine or the point of delivery, i.e. the monastery. Their function still, however, needs to be determined: are they waybills, given to the monastery to ensure that the correct amount arrived at the monastery; receipts for the camel-drivers for their deliveries; or notes of individual loads that were later entered into account registers? (4) There are a number of non-standard receipts, written by different individuals. If these were members of the monastery, The title may have been abbreviated as ⲡⲟⲓⲕ/. For this papyrus’ attribution to the monastery of Apa Thomas, see N. GONIS, Review of: Rupprecht, H-A. and A.M.F.W. Verhoogt (eds.), Berichtigungsliste der griechischen Papyrusurkunden aus Ägypten. Elfter Band (Leiden), in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 41 (2004), p. 183. 32 33

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this provides evidence of different administrative practices. Alternatively, the ostraca may have been written at different estates. Further research on this corpus, paying close attention not only to what the texts say but how this information is written, will shed more light on these points and the questions raised at the beginning of this discussion. It is only in this way that we can start to understand the reality – and the changing reality – of how the monastery of Apa Thomas functioned.

Table 1. Known scribes at Wadi Sarga Scribe

Evidence [O.Sarga]

Collouthos

193: ⲕⲟⲗⲗⲟⲩⲑⲟⲥ ⲉⲅⲣⲁⲯ/ ‘Written by Collouthos’ 211: ⲕⲟⲗⲗⲟⲩⲑⲟⲥ ⲉⲅⲣ\ⲁ// ‘Written by Collouthos’ 212: ⲕⲟⲗⲗⲟⲩⲑ/ ⲉⲅⲣⲁⲯ/ ‘Written by Collouthos’

Elias

370: ⲉⲅⲣⲁⲫ/ [date] ⲇⲓ ⲉⲙⲟⲩ ⲏⲗⲓⲁⲥ ‘Written [date] by me, Elias’

Georgios

372: ⲅⲉⲱⲣⲅⲉ ⲅⲣⲁⲯⲁ ‘Written by George’

Horos

205: ⲱⲣⲟⲥ ⲥⲧⲟⲓⲭⲏ ‘Horos signs’ 206: ⲱⲣⲟⲥ ⲥⲧⲟⲓⲭ/ ‘Horos signs’ 207: ⲱⲣⲟⲥ ⲥⲧⲟⲓⲭⲉ ‘Horos signs’ 208: ⲱⲣⲟⲥ ⲥⲧⲟⲓⲭ ̣ ̣ ‘Horos signs’ 355: ⲇ/ ⲱⲣⲟⲥ ‘By Horos’ 356 and 357: unsigned; ascribed on palaeographic bases

Mena

209: ⲇ/ ⲙⲓⲛⲞ ⲉⲅⲣⲁ/ ‘Written by Mena’ 345: ⲇ/ ⲙⲓⲛⲞ ⲉⲗⲗⲁⲭ/ ⲉⲅⲣ\ ⲁ// ‘Written by the humblest Mena’ 346: ⲇ/ ⲙⲓⲛⲞ ⲉⲗ/ ⲉⲅⲣ\ ⲁ/ ‘Written by the humblest Mena’ 347: ⲇ/ ⲙⲓⲛⲞ ⲉⲗ ⲉⲅⲣ/ ‘Written by the humblest Mena’ 348: ⲙⲓⲛⲞ ⲉⲅⲣⲁ: ‘Written by Mena’ 349: ⲙⲓⲛⲞ ⲉⲅⲣ\ ⲁ/: ‘Written by Mena’ 350: ⲙⲓⲛⲞ ⲉⲅⲣ\ ⲁ// ‘Written by Mena’ 351: ⲙⲓⲛⲞ ⲉⲅⲣ\ ⲁ// ‘Written by Mena’ 352: ⲙⲓⲛⲞ ⲉⲗ/ ⲙⲟⲛⲁⲍ/ ⲉⲅⲣ\ ⲁ// ‘Written by the humblest monk Mena’ 353: ⲇ/ ⲙⲓⲛⲟⲩ ⲉⲅⲣ\ ⲁ// ‘Written by Mena’ 354: ⲙⲓⲛⲟⲩ ⲉⲗ ⲉⲅⲣⲁⲫ ‘Written by the humblest Mena’

Phibios

210: ⲇ/ ⲉⲙⲟ\ⲩ/ ⲫⲓⲃⲓⲟⲩ ⲉⲅⲣ/ ‘Written by me, Phibious’

168: ⲇⲉⲙⲞ ⲫⲟⲓⲃⲁⲙⲙⲱⲛ ⲉⲅⲢ/ ‘Written by me, Phoibammon’ 169: ⲇⲓ/ ⲉⲙⲞ ⲫⲟⲓⲃⲁⲙⲙⲱⲛ ⲉⲅⲣⲁ ‘Written by me, Phoibammon’ Phoibammon 171: ⲇ/ ⲉⲙⲞ ⲫⲟⲓⲃⲁⲙⲙⲱⲛⲟⲥ ⲅⲣⲁ/ ‘Written by me, Phoibammon’ 167, 170, 172, 173, 176, 182, 183, 187: unsigned; ascribed on palaeographic bases

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Table 2: Concordance of dates in named O.Sarga texts34 Date

Gregorian Calendar

Text

Thoth 18

15th/16th September

O.Sarga 231, 242, 283

Thoth 19

16th/17th September

O.Sarga 123

Thoth 20

17th/18th September

O.Sarga 258, 288, 325

Thoth 21

18th/19th September

O.Sarga 267

Thoth 24

21st/22nd September

O.Sarga 269

Thoth 27

24th/25th September

O.Sarga 271

Thoth 28

25th/26th September

O.Sarga 272, 273

Thoth 29

26th/27th September

O.Sarga 261, 285

Paope 1

28th/29th September

O.Sarga 262, 263

Paope 6

3rd/4th October

O.Sarga 264

Paope 15

12th/13th October

O.Sarga 228

Table 3: Concordance of O.Sarga and British Museum inventory numbers35 Text

EA number

Text

EA number

O.Sarga 93

55736

O.Sarga 261

55889

O.Sarga 94

55752

O.Sarga 262

56793

O.Sarga 99

55822

O.Sarga 263

55921

O.Sarga 111

56737

O.Sarga 265

55975

O.Sarga 121

55851

O.Sarga 267

55788

O.Sarga 123

55857

O.Sarga 269

55742

O.Sarga 124

55848

O.Sarga 270

55894

O.Sarga 125

55853

O.Sarga 271

55971

34

Two dates are possible for texts written between 29th August and 1st March, depending on whether or not the year in question was a leap year (which cannot be determined for any of the texts from Wadi Sarga, as none contain absolute dates). 35 P.Sarga 176 is not in the British Museum. The papyri from Wadi Sarga are now in the British Library, where they are collected under the same inventory number: Or. 9035. P.Sarga 176 has the individual number Or. 9035 (58).

THE PROBLEMS OF ANONYMOUS SCRIBES AT WADI SARGA

Text

EA number

Text

EA number

O.Sarga 135

55739

O.Sarga 272

55990

O.Sarga 167

55775

O.Sarga 283

55945

O.Sarga 168

55778

O.Sarga 285

55748

O.Sarga 169

55796

O.Sarga 288

55777

O.Sarga 170

55817

O.Sarga 290

55745

O.Sarga 171

55799

O.Sarga 298

55998

O.Sarga 172

55774

O.Sarga 307

55876

O.Sarga 173

55825

O.Sarga 310

55976

O.Sarga 182

55792

O.Sarga 315

55783

O.Sarga 183

55824

O.Sarga 323

55899

O.Sarga 187

56739

O.Sarga 325

56794

O.Sarga 193

55855

O.Sarga 338

55966

O.Sarga 205

56802

O.Sarga 345

55908

O.Sarga 206

55844

O.Sarga 346

55955

O.Sarga 207

56798

O.Sarga 347

55898

O.Sarga 208

56791

O.Sarga 348

55897

O.Sarga 209

55909

O.Sarga 349

55910

O.Sarga 210

55862

O.Sarga 350

56792

O.Sarga 211

55896

O.Sarga 351

55907

O.Sarga 212

55900

O.Sarga 352

55906

O.Sarga 213

55903

O.Sarga 353

55956

O.Sarga 221

55977

O.Sarga 354

55854

O.Sarga 224

55919

O.Sarga 355

55746

O.Sarga 227

55772

O.Sarga 356

56804

O.Sarga 228

55911

O.Sarga 357

56809

O.Sarga 231

55885

O.Sarga 358

55852

O.Sarga 242

55884

O.Sarga 359

55951

O.Sarga 258

55922

O.Sarga 370

55849

135

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List of Figures 1. O.Sarga 171; BM EA 55799 (© Trustees of the British Museum; photograph by Jennifer Cromwell) 2. O.Sarga 224; BM EA 55919 (© Trustees of the British Museum; photograph by Jennifer Cromwell) 3. O.Sarga 228; BM EA 55911 (© Trustees of the British Museum; photograph by Jennifer Cromwell) 4. O.Sarga 231; BM EA 55885 (© Trustees of the British Museum; photograph by Jennifer Cromwell) 5. O.Sarga 242; BM EA 55884 (© Trustees of the British Museum; photograph by Jennifer Cromwell) 6. O.Sarga 325; BM EA 56794 (© Trustees of the British Museum; photograph by Jennifer Cromwell) 7. O.Sarga 346; BM EA 55955 (© Trustees of the British Museum; photograph by Jennifer Cromwell) Bibliography S. BACOT, La circulation du vin dans les monasteries d’Égypte à l’époque copte, in N. GRIMAL and B. MENU (eds), Le commerce en Égypte ancienne, Cairo, 1998, p. 269–288. J. CROMWELL, Aristophanes son of Johannes: An 8th Century Bilingual Scribe?, in A. PAPACONSTANTINOU (ed.), The Multilingual Experience in Egypt from the Ptolemies to the Abassids, Aldershot, 2010, p. 221–232. J. CROMWELL, Palaeography, Scribal Practice and Chronological Issues in Coptic Documentary Texts, in Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 46 (2010), p. 1– 16. J. CROMWELL, A Coptic Epistolary Exercise from Wadi Sarga, in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 99 (2013), p. 272–275. J. CROMWELL, Coptic Texts in the Archive of Flavius Atias, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 184 (2013), p. 280–288. J. CROMWELL, The Textual Corpus from Wadi Sarga: A New Study, in British Museum Newsletter Ancient Egypt and Sudan 1 (2014), p. 17. J. CROMWELL, Greek or Coptic? Scribal Decisions in Eighth-Century Egypt (Thebes), in J. CROMWELL and E. GROSSMAN (eds), Scribal Repertoires in Egypt from the New Kingdom to the Early Islamic Period, Oxford, 2018, p. 251–273. W.E. CRUM and H.I. BELL, Wadi Sarga. Coptic and Greek Texts from the Excavations Undertaken by the Byzantine Research Account, Copenhagen, 1922. J. FAIERS, Wadi Sarga Revisited: A Preliminary Study of the Pottery Excavated in 1913/14, in E.R. O’CONNELL (ed.), Egypt in the First Millennium AD: Perspectives from new fieldwork, Leuven, 2014, p. 177–189. N. GONIS, Review of: Rupprecht, H-A. and A.M.F.W. Verhoogt (eds.), Berichtigungsliste der grichischen Papyrusurkunden aus Ägypten. Elfter Band (Leiden), in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 41 (2004), p. 181–188. E.R. O’CONNELL, R. Campbell Thompson’s 1913/14 Excavation of Wadi Sarga and Other Sites, in British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 21 (2014), p. 121–192.

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E.R. O’CONNELL, Wadi Sarga at the British Museum: Sources for Study (with Annotated Bibliography), in P. BUZI, A. CAMPLANI and F. CONTARDI (eds), Coptic Society, Literature and Religion from Late Antiquity to Modern Times. Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies, Rome, September 17th–22nd, 2012, Leuven, 2016, p. 1547–1566. R.J.A. TALBERT, Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, Princeton, 2000. S. TIMM, Das christlich-koptische Ägypten in arabischer Zeit, eine Sammlung christlicher Stätten in Ägypten in arabischer Zeit, unter Ausschluss von Alexandria, Kairo, des Apa-Mena-Klosters (Der Abu Mina), der Sketis (Wadi n-Natrun) und der SinaiRegion, 7 vols, Wiesbaden, 1984–2007. E. WIPSZYCKA, Moines et communautés monastiques en Égypte (IVe–VIIIe siècles), Warsaw, 2009.

THEODORE THE STOUDITE AND THE STOUDIOS SCRIPTORIUM IN NINTH-CENTURY BYZANTIUM Ken PARRY The life and times of Theodore Theodore the Stoudite has been described as a ‘politician in a monk’s gown’,1 and while there is a degree of truth in this statement it should not to be taken as something unique to him. From the moment that monasticism became a prominent aspect of Christian life in the fourth century, we find monks reacting to the political and ecclesiastical events of their times. One has only to think of the riot of anti-Chalcedonian monks in Alexandria in the late fifth century,2 or the stand taken by Maximos the Confessor against the imperial and ecclesiastical authorities in the seventh century,3 to see that in the Byzantine world monks were often at the forefront in challenging the prevailing powers. Theodore was no exception in this regard and in addition to his political activism, he left a substantial corpus of writings that is unmatched in the first quarter of the ninth century. Theodore was born in Constantinople in 759 during the reign of the iconoclast emperor Constantine V (741–775) to a leading family and was the eldest of four children. His uncle Plato on his mother’s side was an early influence on the young Theodore. At the age of 24 his uncle left his government position as a notary to become a monk at Mt Olympus in Bithynia where he gained a reputation for piety. On his returned to Constantinople around 775 he was offered the hegoumenate of a monastery as well as a bishopric, but he declined both to return to Bithynia. In 787 he attended the Seventh Ecumenical Council held at Nicaea and was later imprisoned and exiled for his stand against the second marriage of the emperor Constantine VI (780–797) in 797. He died in 814 and was immortalised by his nephew in an encomium.4 In 781 Theodore’s parents by mutual agreement entered the monastic life along with Theodore, his two brothers, and one sister. Theodore was 22 at the time. The family moved to their estate in Bithynia where Plato acted as their spiritual director.5 1 P. KARLIN-HAYTER, A Byzantine Political Monk: St. Theodore Studite, in Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 44 (1994), p. 217–232. 2 See E.J. EDWARDS, Riot in Alexandria: Tradition and Group Dynamics in Late Antique Pagan and Christian Communities (Transformation of the Classical Heritage 46), Berkeley, 2010. 3 See P. BOOTH, Crisis of Empire: Doctrine and Dissent at the End of Late Antiquity (Transformation of the Classical Heritage 52), Berkeley, 2014. 4 (BHG 1553), PG 99, 804–850. 5 Between 787 and 815 several leading Constantinopolitan families embraced the monastic life, see A. KAZHDAN, A History of Byzantine Literature (650–850), Athens, 1999, ch. XII ‘The Monastic

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Theodore received the monastic schema from his uncle and his monastic sponsor was the chronographer Theophanes the Confessor.6 Theodore composed a panegyric on Theophanes in 822.7 In 783 the family moved to another property nearby where they founded the Sakkoudion monastery with Plato as abbot.8 In 794 Theodore was made hegoumenos and under his leadership the monastery grew to around 100 monks. In 798 Theodore moved to Constantinople to become hegoumenos of the Stoudios monastery at the age of 39, where he began to reform the community and its rule.9 Under his guidance the Stoudios and its dependencies (μετόχια) expanded to around 700 monks. Theodore was exiled by the imperial authorities because of his objection to Constantine VI’s second marriage, and then again for his opposition to Leo V’s reintroduction of iconoclasm. In 797 he was taken with his uncle Plato and his brother Joseph from the Sakkoudion to Constantinople where he was beaten and then exiled to Thessaloniki. In 808, again with Plato and Joseph, he was exiled once more because of his discourtesy towards emperor Nikephoros I. He was released from the Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara after two years. His final exile occurred in 815 under the iconoclast emperor Leo V (813–820) and he spent three years in Bithynia before being moved to Smyrna. During this exile he was caught writing letters in support of other iconophiles and was ordered to receive one hundred lashes at the age of 60.10 In his letters from exile he uses a series of ciphers to protect the identity of certain individuals, even resorting to Aristotelian logic terminology in his correspondence with his brother Joseph.11 Revival of Literature (ca. 775–850)’, p. 381–407; P. HATLIE, The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, ca. 350–850, Cambridge, 2007, p. 280–294; C. FRAZEE, St. Theodore of Stoudios and Ninth Century Monasticism in Constantinople, in Studia Monastica 23 (1981), p. 27–58. For historical background see W. TREADGOLD, The Byzantine Revival 780–842, Stanford, 1988. 6 On Theophanes, see C. MANGO and R. SCOTT, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, Oxford, 1997, ‘Introduction’. 7 S. EFTHYMIADIS, Le panégyrique de S. Théophane le Confesseur par S. Théodore Stoudite (BHG 1792b): édition critique du texte intégral, in Analectica Bollandiana 111 (1993), p. 259–290. 8 R. JANIN, La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantin. II. Les églises et les monastères des grands centres byzantins, Paris, 1975, p. 177–181. See the more recent archaeological survey by M.-F. AUZÉPY, O. DELOUIS, J.-P. GRÉLOIS and M. KAPLAN, À propos des monastères de Médikon et de Sakkoudiôn, in Revue des études byzantines 63 (2005), p. 183–194. 9 R. MORRIS, Monks and Laymen in Byzantium 843–1118, Cambridge, 1995, p. 14–15. On the founding of the monastery, see C. MANGO, The Date of the Studius Basilica at Istanbul, in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 4 (1978), p. 115–122. 10 G. FATOUROS (ed.), Theodori Studitae Epistulae, 2 vols, Berlin, 1991, II. 382. Theodore suggests that the Arabs were more respectful of Christ than the iconoclasts, FATOUROS, Epistulae, II. 512. A similar sentiment is expressed in the Vita of the eighth-century iconophile saint Stephen the Younger, see M.-F. AUZÉPY, La Vie d’Étienne le Jeune par Étienne le Diacre: Introduction, édition et traduction (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs 3), Aldershot, 1997, p. 28. 11 FATOUROS, Epistulae, I. 37. On the use of Aristotelian logic terminology during the iconoclast controversy, see K. PARRY, Aristotle and the Icon: The Use of the Categories by Byzantine Iconophile Writers, in S. EBBESEN, J. MARENBON and P. THOM (eds), Aristotle’s Categories in the Byzantine, Arabic and Latin Traditions (Scienta Danica. Series H, Humanistica 8, vol. 5), Copenhagen, 2013,

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In Smyrna he was imprisoned under harsh conditions until his release in 821 by the iconoclast emperor Michael II (820–829). He remained on and off in exile until his death in 826 at the age of 66. He spent more than 15 years in various places of exile and throughout this period he inspired a new generation of Stoudite monks while working to reform the monastery’s cenobitic life. He clearly saw his role as one of holding up a mirror to the ruling dynasty, and renouncing actions that appeared to him to be uncanonical and theologically indefensible. Yet despite his absence from the Stoudios, and the imposition of iconoclast abbots in his stead, he retained his authority over his monastic community. The emphasis of his monastic reform was on communal work so as to enhance order and stability (στάσις). This aspect of the monastic life is exemplified in a complaint Theodore made about the way his monks were chanting the psalms: Ever since yesterday I have been annoyed at you on account of the psalmody; I ask and beseech you to sing the psalms in an orderly manner and according to the rules, and not simply haphazardly and confusedly. For this grieves not me, who am a sinner, but the Holy Spirit. He Himself ordained: ‘Sing psalms intelligently’ (Ψάλατε συνετῶς [Ps. 46:7 LXX]). Intelligent singing is not served when, in organising the choir, one does not avoid beginning a verse before the preceding one has finished, or if the psalmody is too loud or too quiet, or if the rhythm of the verse is slower [than it should be] or faster. For this often results in slackness and boredom. Let [each verse] answer the other, and let good order be conserved as much as possible.12

Liturgical reform was part of Theodore’s broader aim with regard to the Stoudios monastery and this passage clearly shows the need for discipline in chanting the Psalter. In the list of penances concerning the precentor (κανονάρχος), it is stressed that he must take care not to let oil from the lamps or wax from the candles fall on the liturgical books, nor let anyone with dirty or sweaty hands touch them. For these transgressions he must stand in the refectory,13 a penance that we will hear more about later. Education and learning For Theodore manual work (ἐργόχειρον) was an essential aspect of the monastic life and such activities as coping manuscripts, calligraphy and painting icons were listed in this category. These were not intellectual pursuits for individual p. 35–58. For more on Theodore’s theology of the icon, see K. PARRY, Theodore the Stoudite: The Most ‘Original’ Iconophile?, in Jarbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 68 (2018), p. 261–275. 12 Trans. R. CHOLIJ, Theodore the Stoudite: The Ordering of Holiness, Oxford, 2002, p. 85– 86; and T. POTT, Byzantine Liturgical Reform: A Study of Liturgical Change in the Byzantine Tradition, New York, 2010, p. 133. For further discussion, see D. GALADZA, “Open Your Mouth and Attract the Spirit”: St Theodore the Stoudite and Participation in the Icon of Worship, in I. MOODY and M. TAKLA-ROSZCZEN (eds), Church Music and Icons: Windows to Heaven (Publications of the International Society for Orthodox Church Music 6), Joensuu, 2015, p. 441–455. 13 PG 99, 1745D–1748A.

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fulfilment, let alone personal enjoyment, because this would have resulted in pride. As Theodore remarks: We did not leave the world to enjoy pleasures, nor to be learned, or wise, or to be a calligrapher. We came here to be cleansed of sin, to learn the fear of God and to humble ourselves to the point of death.14

He further contends that intellectual study was to be done only under the supervision of a superior, and that a monk who disobeyed in order to find time to read was liable to punishment: If anyone is found writing on his slate (πίνακι) anything, either from scripture (Γραφικόν), or a dictionary (λεξικόν), or any message to another brother, or anything expect that which he is learning from the service book of the Psalter (καθίσματος), let him be excluded (ἀφορισμός) from church for one day.15

This gives us an idea of what Theodore thought about education and learning within a monastic environment: it was a means to an end and that end was humility through obedience. The desire for learning was not incompatible with the monastic life, but was attainable only through discipline and deference. Selfeducation was subordinate to communal service, which benefited everyone, including those who performed it. Reflecting earlier fathers who observed that Christian salvation was not a matter of knowing how to read and write,16 Theodore in one of his early Catecheses states: At the judgement of Christ it will be of no avail being well-learned, well-spoken, knowing texts by heart, being well-read. The fathers in the Gerontikon were wise not because they knew much – some were quite uneducated. You can have studied much and yet still be eternally condemned. You can be saved even if you cannot distinguish alpha from beta. However, if you search out your own will and have learned everything and know everything, perhaps even the Egyptian alphabet, you will still feel fire consuming you for all eternity.17

One wonders what examples of the Egyptian alphabet Theodore might have known, but it is quite possible that he had seen the hieroglyphs on the obelisk in the Hippodrome, which can still be viewed today in Istanbul.18 The Gerontikon was a compilation of sayings of the Egyptian and Palestinian desert fathers and was an important source of meditational readings in Byzantine monasteries. Later Theodore’s own Catecheses were adapted for reading during mealtimes in monastic refectories throughout the Eastern Orthodox world, as is still the case today. Trans. CHOLIJ, Theodore the Stoudite, p. 32–33. PG 99, 1737B. 16 For example, Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, 3.4.1–2. 17 Trans. modified after CHOLIJ, Theodore the Stoudite, p. 33. 18 See K. PARRY, Egypt in the Byzantine Imagination; Cultural Memory and Historiography, Fourth to Ninth Centuries, in D. DZINO and K. PARRY (eds), Byzantium, Its Neighbours and Its Cultures (Byzantina Australiensia 20), Brisbane, 2014, p. 181–208. 14 15

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It has been argued that the iconoclast emphasis on writing as opposed to painting (bearing in mind that the same Greek word γραφή is used for both) may have spearheaded a revival of learning in iconoclast circles.19 However, given that iconophiles were just as much concerned with writing as with painting this revival cannot be attributed to iconoclast circles alone. In fact it is clear from iconophile polemic that texts and images were integral to their Christian world-view, and that to stress the written word at the expense of the painted image was to deny the reality of Christ’s circumscribability and hence his incarnation.20 For the iconoclasts written tradition was the main source of authority, but for the iconophiles written and unwritten (ἄγραφος) tradition were on an equal footing, with the icon anchored in the unwritten customs of the church.21 The authority of Basil the Great was evoked on the place of unwritten tradition within Christianity.22 The Stoudios scriptorium For Theodore scripture and other holy books must be cared for ‘as if received from God’. The virtues that flowed from copying the scriptures and other texts were naturally considered meritorious, but there were penances for those who made copying errors in the scriptorium (see below). In a letter to the monk Ignatios Theodore refers to him as chief calligrapher (πρωτοκαλλιγράφος) and keeper of powdered gold or gold leaf (χρυσοφύλαξ), probably used for decorating manuscripts.23 The term χρυσογράφος, one who writes or illuminates in gold, was used to describe the art of the iconographer and the application of gold was to become a distinctive feature of Byzantine art.24 In the anonymous Life of Nicholas the Stoudite, a disciple of Theodore who accompanied him into exile in 815 and who became abbot of the Stoudios in the mid-ninth century, he is praised for his proficiency as a copyist; He used to work with his hands, and if anyone excelled at writing out texts in a fluent hand it was he … as both his books and his labours bear witness.25 19 N. GAUL, Paideia and the Imperial “Beast” (Eighth and Ninth Centuries), in E. J. BAKKER (ed.), A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language, Oxford, 2010, p. 73–76. 20 K. PARRY, Depicting the Word: Byzantine Iconophile Thought of the Eighth and Ninth Centuries (The Medieval Mediterranean 12), Leiden, 1996, ch. 11, p. 99–113. See Theodore the Stoudite, Third Refutation of the Iconoclasts, in T. CATTOI, Theodore the Studite: Writings on Iconoclasm, Translated and Introduced (Ancient Christian Writers 69), New York, 2015. 21 PARRY, Depicting the Word, ch. 16, p. 156–165. 22 On the Holy Spirit, 27.66. 23 FATOUROS, Epistulae, II. 130, 13–14. Trans. P. LEMERLE, Byzantine Humanism: The First Phrase (Byzantina Australiensia 3), Canberra, 1986, p. 142, n. 60. 24 See J. FOLDA, Sacred Objects with Holy Light: Byzantine Icons with Chrysography, in D. SULLIVAN, E. FISHER and S. PAPAIOANNOU (eds), Byzantine Religious Culture: Studies in Honor of Alice-Mary Talbot, Leiden, 2011, p. 155–172. 25 (BHG 1365), PG 105, 876AB. Trans. LEMERLE, Byzantine Humanism, p. 131; HATLIE, The Monks and Monasteries, p. 277, 417, 422.

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At one point Theodore speaks of ‘the great superabundance of books we possess’,26 and although emphasising that copying was manual work and not a profession, he was naturally proud of his monastery’s achievements in producing books. The iconoclast persecutions of the Stoudios after 815 must have affected this production to some extent due to the ousting and exile of many of its iconophile monks. We know that books were commissioned from the Stoudios scriptorium, but unfortunately none of the surviving manuscripts are dated to Theodore’s lifetime. An uncial manuscript of the writings of Pseudo-Dionysios that may be a Stoudite production was sent by the iconoclast emperor Michael II to the Carolingian king Louis the Pious in 827, the year after Theodore’s demise.27 It is probable that Theodore had access to the Dionysian corpus (possibly at the Stoudios) because he gives a list of 6 sacraments (μυστήρια) in the same order as found in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy in one of his letters dated between 821 and 826.28 The first Stoudite scribe whose works we possess is Nicholas the Stoudite whom we just mentioned. He was sent from Crete to the Stoudios at the age of ten to join his uncle who was a monk there, when Theodore was hegoumenos.29 We learn from Nicholas’s Life that he became an excellent calligraphist who wrote with astonishing speed and that examples of his handwriting were to be seen at the Stoudios.30 We know of at least two of his works, the so-called Uspensky Gospel Book which he completed in 835, and a collection of Theodore’s letters of which several folios are extant.31 The Uspensky Gospel Book is the earliest dated manuscript in minuscule to have survived and appears to have been produced by Nicholas while in hiding in Thrace.32 There are in fact 11 manuscripts in both minuscule and majuscule attributed to the Stoudios from the ninth century, four of which may date from before 850.33 26

HATLIE, Monks and Monasteries, p. 416. C. ERISMANN, On the Significance of the Manuscript Parisinus graecus 437. The Corpus Dionysiacum, Iconoclasm, and Byzantine-Carolingian Relations, in F. DAIM, C. GASTGEBER, D. HEHER and C. RAPP (eds), Menschen, Bilder, Sprache, Dinge. Wege der Kommunikation zwischen Byzanz und dem Westen 2: Menschen und Worte (Byzanz zwischen Orient und Okzident 9.2), Mainz, 2018, p. 95–101. 28 FATOUROS, Epistulae, II, 489. For discussion of Theodore’s use of μυστήριον, see CHOLIJ, Theodore the Stoudite, p. 153–164; J. MEYENDROFF, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes, New York, 19872, p. 191. 29 (BHG 1365), PG 105, 872. 30 LEMERLE, Byzantine Humanism, p. 144; HATLIE, Monks and Monasteries, p. 277. An early Christian stenographer was the theologian and martyr Lucian of Antioch (d. 312), P.R. AMIDON, Philostorgius: Church History, Translated with an Introduction and Notes (Society of Biblical Literature 23), Atlanta, 2007, p. 195. For more references to stenographers, see H.C. TEITLER, Notarii and Exceptores: An Inquiry into the Role and Significance of Shorthand Writers in the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Bureaucracy of the Roman Empire (from the Early Principate to c. 450 A.D), Amsterdam, 1985. 31 LEMERLE, Byzantine Humanism, p. 132. 32 HATLIE, Monks and Monasteries, p. 417; ill. 24 shows the colophon in Nicholas’s minuscule script. 33 HATLIE, Monks and Monasteries, p. 416–417. 27

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Scribal practice When it comes to Stoudite scribal practice we know that Theodore laid particular emphasis on grammar and handwriting and was himself a notable calligrapher. It appears from the different versions of his Lives that there were manuscripts in his own hand at the Stoudios when some of these hagiographies were being composed.34 In his letters from exile he complains that his books have been taken away from him and that he is without copying materials. He asks to be sent books which he can copy and remarks: I am left the manual task of writing, which I consider a consolation and benefit for the soul; and so think of work for my hands from now on which you would like in a flowing script (συρμαιόγραφα); only do not burden me with praise.35

And in another letter he asks for a lexicon and a notebook (τετράδιον) in which he had written in shorthand (διά σημείων) a treatise that a certain Kallistos had been given the task of transcribing.36 One of the most significant developments in Greek scribal practice associated with the Stoudios monastery is the appearance of the minuscule script. In his encomium on his uncle Plato Theodore writes: Who has written trailing letters (συρμαιογραφεῖν) more harmoniously than this man’s right hand? And whose commitment to serious writing was more onerous than the spirit he showed? For he successfully handled whatever work that came his way. How would someone manage to count the number of people who have in their possession his writings and copies – these anthologies of the holy fathers which bring great benefit to those possessing them? And from where did the wealth of volumes found in our own monastic library come – volumes that illuminate our souls – except from the holy hands and labours of this man? We stand in amazement at how prolific and superb his pen was!37

The phrase ‘trailing letters’ is a translation of συρμαιογραφία, which is said to refer to the minuscule script that Plato was among the first to adopt.38 This neologism derives from σύρμα, meaning something that trails or drags, and was originally applied to an actor’s long robe. It describes a style of writing that leaves trails because it uses strokes or ligatures that are drawn out. In Modern Greek the same word is used for ‘wire’.

LEMERLE, Byzantine Humanism, p. 141. FATOUROS, Epistulae, II. 132, 23–26. Trans. LEMERLE, Byzantine Humanism, p. 130–131. For the term συρμαιόγραφα see next paragraph. 36 FATOUROS, Epistulae, II. 152, 48–51. LEMERLE, Byzantine Humanism, p. 141, n. 55. 37 (BHG 1553), PG 99, 829AB. Trans. modified HATLIE, Monks and Monasteries, p. 415. Also Vita of Nicholas the Studite (BHG 1365), PG 105, 876AB. 38 G. AMMANNATI, Συρμαιογραφία?, in Scriptorium 57.2 (2003), p. 223–226. The word ‘minuscule’ appears not to be attested in French or English before the seventeenth century. 34 35

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It seems there was no term in Greek for the minuscule script available to the hagiographer of the tenth-century founder of coenobitic monasticism on Mount Athos, Athanasios the Athonite, because he writes as follows: However, because he [Athanasios] was human and it was necessary for him to have at least his daily bread, he was obliged to concern himself with works of the hands so that by this he might feed himself. It was already apparent that in addition to his knowledge, he could write beautifully and quickly, and the beauty of his writing is plain to see from the books written in his own hand which are still around, but his speed had overcome the beauty because in six days he completed the whole Psalter, and it was not common for him to fall short of his target. In order not to stop at all, he employed one of the pious brothers to bring him food and also to be a fellow worker in the writing.39

The speed with which Athanasios copied the complete Psalter could only have been achieved by using the minuscule script and it is quite astonishing that he could do this in six days, even allowing for hagiographical hyperbole. It is of considerable interest to find the famous Church of the East translator Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq in ninth-century Baghdad criticising another translator for knowing only the contemporary minuscule script of the Byzantines and not the ancient uncial script of the Greeks.40 According to recent research the origins of the Stoudite minuscule are to be seen in some fragments in Moscow and Paris from the works of the seventhcentury Byzantine medical authority, Paul of Aegina. These fragments are dated on palaeographical and codicological grounds to the last quarter of the eighth century and are thought to have been produced at the monastery of Sakkoudion. Furthermore, they may have been written by Theodore’s uncle Plato or one of his collaborators,41 and would appear to be good evidence for the minuscule developing in iconophile circles.42 Certainly the reference to Plato’s minuscule handwriting by Theodore in his encomium lends weight to this argument. Still, whatever contribution the adoption of the minuscule script may have made to the controversy over icons, it is not immediately discernible from the available evidence.43 39 Vita B, 19, J. NORET (ed.), Vitae duae antiquae Sancti Athanasii Athonitae, Leuven, 1982. I am grateful to John Theodoridis for this reference and translation. A complete English translation of Vita B is now available, see R.H. GREENFIELD and A.-M. TALBOT, Holy Men of Mount Athos (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 40), Cambridge Mass., 2016. 40 M. MAVOURDI, Greek Language and Education under Early Islam, in B. SADEGHI, A.Q. AHMED, A. SILVERSTEIN and R. HOYLAND (eds), Islamic Cultures, Islamic Contexts: Essays in Honor of Professor Patricia Crone, Leiden, 2014, p. 295–342, at p. 322. 41 B.L. FONKIČ, Aux origines de la minuscule Stoudite (les fragments Moscovite et Parisien de l’œuvre de Paul d’Égine), in G. PRATO (ed.), I manoscritti greci tra riflessione e dibattito. Atti del V colloguio internationale di paleografia greca (Cremona, 4–10 ottobre 1998) (Papyrologica Florentina 31), Frienze, 2000, p. 169–186. 42 N.G. WILSON, Scholars of Byzantium, revised edition, London, 1996, p. 63–68. 43 See the remarks by LEMERLE, Byzantine Humanism, p. 133.

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Penances for scribes and librarians We come now to the Monastic Penances (ἐπιτιμία) for scribes and librarians at the Stoudios.44 It is not thought that these were necessarily written by Theodore himself, but that they reflect much that can be found in his writings and are therefore an authentic witness to Stoudite practice. There are two collections of epitimia attributed to Theodore, the first consisting of 110 penances and the second of 65, but this second collection is thought to be a later attribution.45 The Stoudite penal system distinguished itself from Byzantine civil law in that corporal punishment was never used;46 we may recall Theodore’s own flogging at the hands of the imperial authorities and his opposition to capital punishment for heretics.47 The Stoudios Typikon speaks of places of confinement (ἀφορίστρια) for recalcitrant brothers where they were obliged to fast on a diet of dry food for training in virtue, known as ‘xerophagy’ (ξηροφαγία).48 Discussion about xerophagy is found in several early Christian texts on fasting, such as Tertullian’s work of that name. We begin with the epitimia relating to readers and librarians (PG 99, 1740AB): μζ. Ἐὰν τις λάβῃ βιβλίον, καὶ μὴ φιλοκάλως κρατῇ αὐτό, ἢ ἅψηται ἄλλου ἄνευ τῆς ἐπιτροπῆς τοῦ κρατοῦντος, ἢ ἐπιζητοίη ἕτερον παρ’ ὃ ἔλαβε γογγύζων, μὴ ἅψηται ὅλως τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ. 47. If anyone takes out a book and does not take good care of it, or if he touches the book of another without the permission of him who has taken it out, or if, complaining (γογγύζων), he seeks a book other than that which he has already taken, let him touch no other book the whole day. μη. Ἐὰν ὁ βιβλιοφύλαξ τὴν δέουσαν ἐπιμέλειαν μὴ ἐπιδείκνυται, τινάσσων καὶ μεταστοιβάζων καὶ κονιορτῶν ἕκαστον, ξηροφαγείτω. 48. If the librarian does not show proper concern (for the books), shaking and re-stacking and dusting each one, let him eat dry food (ξηροφαγία). 44 See G. FEATHERSTONE and M. HOLLAND, A Note on Penances Prescribed for Negligent Scribes and Librarians in the Monastery of Stoudios, in Scriptorium 36 (1982), p. 258–260. 45 PG 99, 1733–1757. 46 Unlike Apa Shenoute of the famous White Monastery in Upper Egypt who is said not only to have struck Nestorius at the Council of Ephesus, but to have inflicted beatings on his monks resulting in the accidental death of one of them, see R. KRAWIEC, Shenoute and the Women of the White Monastery: Egyptian Monasticism in Late Antiquity, Oxford, 2002, p. 64. 47 CHOLIJ, Theodore the Stoudite, p. 143. Theodore expresses his opposition to such punishment in a letter to Theophilus bishop of Ephesus, FATOUROS, Epistulae, II. 455. 48 See T. MILLER (trans.), Stoudios: Rule of the Monastery of St. John Stoudios in Constantinople, in J. THOMAS and A. CONSTANTINIDES HERO (eds), Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’ Typika and Testaments, vol. 1 (Dumbarton Oaks Studies 35), Washington D.C., 2000, p. 84–119, Rule, 25, at p. 108. For discussion, see K. PARRY, Vegetarianism in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: The transmission of a regimen, in W. MAYER and S. TRZCIONKA (eds), Feast, Fast or Famine: Food and Drink in Byzantium (Byzantina Australiensia 15), Brisbane, 2005, p. 171–187.

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μθ. Ὅστις εὑρεθῇ ἀποκρύπτων εἰς κοιτάριον, καὶ μὴ κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν τοῦ κρούσματος ἀποδοίη τοῦτο τῷ βιβλιοφύλακι, ἄνευ εὐλόγου προφάσεως, παρεστηκέτω ἐν τῇ τραπέζῃ. 49. If anyone is found concealing a book in his cell, and if he does not return it to the librarian at the sound of the wooden gong without a good excuse, let him stand in the refectory.

A similar punishment to that of 49 is stipulated in the Stoudios Typikon for those who break an earthenware or metal vessel in the refectory: “while the brothers are eating, he (the culprit) stands near the abbot’s table with his cowl (κουκουλλίῳ) covering his head and holds the vessel he has broken in his hands as a sign of his own fault.”49 Standing next to the table of the abbot during mealtimes must have been an embarrassing penance because one’s misdemeanour would have been known to the whole community. Further information regarding the function of the βιβλιοφύλαξ is given in the Stoudios Typikon, where we are told: It should be known that on the days when we rest from physical labour, the librarian sounds the wooden gong (σήμαντρον) once, and the brothers assemble at the collection point (place of books); each one takes a book and reads it until the evening. Before the signal for the office of lamp lighting (λυχνικόν), the librarian sounds the wooden gong again, and all the brothers come to return their books in accordance with the register. If anyone is late in returning his book, he should suffer some penalty.50

As far as I know this is the earliest reference to a fine system for the late return of library books and shows the high standard applied to the care of books at the Stoudios monastery. Presumably the penalty would be a certain number of prostrations, or exclusion from church, or a diet of dry food, as a monetary penalty would have been unlikely for monks. At the office of lamp lighting the ancient hymn ‘O Gladsome Light’ (Phos Hilaron) was sung. This hymn first appears in the Constantinopolitan monastic office as a result of its inclusion in the Stoudite Typikon, most likely under Palestinian influence.51 We come now to epitimia appropriate to scribes and calligraphers (PG 99, 1740CD): νδ. Εἰ μὴ φιλοκάλως κρατεῖ τὸ τετράδιον, καὶ τίθησι τὸ ἀφ᾿ οὗ γράφει βιβλίον, καὶ σκέπει ἐν καιρῷ ἐκάτερα, καὶ παρατηρεῖται τά τε ἀντίστιχα καὶ τοὺς τόνους καὶ τὰς στιγμάς, ἀνὰ μετανοίας λ´ καὶ ρ´. 49 MILLER, Stoudios: Rule, 35, p. 113. Palladius mentions monks cowling their heads while eating in Pachomian monasteries, see R.T. MEYER, Palladius: The Lausiac History, Translated and Annotated (Ancient Christian Writers 34), New York, 1964, p. 93. 50 MILLER, Stoudios: Rule, 26, p. 108. 51 Already considered ancient in the fourth century, see Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, 73. See further A. TRIPOLITIS, ΦΩΣ ΙΛΑΡΟΝ. Ancient Hymn and Modern Enigma, in Vigiliae Christianae 24.3 (1970), p. 189–196.

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54. If anyone does not take good care of the quire (in which he is writing), as well as the book out of which he is copying, putting both away at the proper time, and does not observe the copied line (ἀντίστιχον),52 accentuation and punctuation (of the original), one hundred and thirty prostrations (μετανοίας).

Writing in his Amphilochia in the second half of the ninth century, the patriarch of Constantinople, Photios (858–867 and 877–886), was also concerned with scribal practice in relation to the copying of manuscripts. He writes as follows: It is not only the addition or subtraction of a single letter that creates wholesale confusion and misrepresentation, but the inexact use of an accent can turn one word into another although the spelling is identical, and can alter the sense to an utterly inappropriate meaning or produce an impious notion or laughable nonsense. Why speak of letters? After all, even the smallest of signs, the mark of punctuation, wrongly used or overlooked or misplaced, creates great heresy of every kind.53

Photios’s particular anxiety over the incorrect copying of texts that might give rise to heresy echoes early Christian writers, such as Irenaeus, who criticised the Gnostics for altering the sense of scripture.54 Also in the ninth century, the hagiographer Ignatios the Deacon draws attention to the need to follow grammatical rules as well as complains about the quality of the papyrus and the writing style of his correspondent.55 The use of the word ‘metanoia’ in the Stoudite epitimia is often translated as ‘genuflection’, but in the context of Byzantine monasticism the word ‘prostration’ is more accurate. To genuflect means to go down on one knee, while metanoia implies a more radical act of humility. νε. Ἐάν τις ἐκστηθήσει ἐκ τῶν γεγραμμένων τοῦ ἐξ οὗ γράφει βιβλίου, ἀφοριζέσθω ἡμέρας γ.

55. If anyone recites by heart (anything) from the book out of which he is copying, let him be excluded (ἀφορισμός) from church for three days. It would appear that this stipulation and the following number 56 were meant to prevent mistakes occurring as a result of being distracted from what was in 52 FEATHERSTONE and HOLLAND, A Note on Penances, p. 259, n. 3 adopt the reading ἀντίστοιχα and suggest the meaning ‘does not retain the spelling’ because there is no indication that lines were drawn on manuscripts at this time, but it seems to mean keeping to the correct line of script to be copied, see G.W.H. LAMPE, A Greek Patristic Lexicon, Oxford, 2005, s.v. A ruler of some kind for keeping lines straight must surely have been used. See further J. LEROY, Les types de réglure des manuscripts grecs, Paris, 1976. 53 Amphilochia 1, 742–751, L.G. WESTERINK (ed.), Photii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani, Epistulae et Amphilochia, vol. iv, Amphilochiorum pars prima, Leipzig, 1986; trans. WILSON, Scholars of Byzantium, p. 117. 54 But it was not only heretics who did this; see B.D. EHRMAN, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament, New York – Oxford, 1993. 55 Letters 36 and 38, C. MANGO, The Correspondence of Ignatios the Deacon, Text, Translation, and Commentary (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 39), Washinghton D.C., 1997.

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the original. The Typikon states that during the Lenten fast each monk while applying himself to his work should recite the entire Psalter between the first hour (6 am) and the ninth hour (3 pm), except for the calligraphers.56 It has been suggested that the calligraphers were exempt because they were forbidden to recite the Psalter while they were copying, as this might lead to errors being made, not because they were benefiting from special privileges.57 νϛ. Εἴ τις πλέον τῶν γεγραμμένων ἀναγνώσει ἐξ οὗ γράφει βιβλίου, ξηροφαγείτω. 56. If anyone reads anything besides that which is written in the book out of which he is copying, let him eat dry food. νζ. Εἰ ἐκ θυμοῦ συντρίψει κάλαμον, μετάνοιαι λ. 57. If anyone breaks his pen out of anger, thirty prostrations. νη. Εἰ ἐπάρῃ ἕτερος ἑτέρου τετράδιον ἄνευ γνώμης τοῦ γράφοντος, μετάνοιαι ν. 58. If anyone takes up the quire of another without the consent of him who is writing in it, fifty prostrations. νθ. Εἰ μὴ στοιχείῃ τοῖς τετυπωμένοις παρὰ τοῦ πρώτου καλλιγράφου, ἀφοριζέσθω ἡμέρας δύο. 59. If anyone does not follow the instructions of the chief calligrapher, let him be excluded from church for two days. ξ. Ἐὰν ὁ πρωτοκαλλιγράφος ἐμπαθῶς διανέμῃ τὰ ἐργόχειρα, καὶ εἰ μὴ περιστέλλῃ καλῶς τὰς μεμβράνας καὶ πάντα τὰ ἀμφιαστικὰ ἐργαλεῖα, ὥστε μή τι ἀχρειωθῆναι τῶν χρησιμευόντων εἰς τὴν τοιαύτην διακονίαν, ἀνὰ μετανοίας ν καὶ ρ, καὶ ἀφορισμὸν ἐπιτίμησον. 60. If the chief calligrapher distributes the work with partiality towards anyone, or if he does not carefully maintain the parchment sheets and binding materials, in case any of the things used in this work be ruined, let him do one hundred and fifty prostrations and be excluded from church.

In this context exclusion from church (ἀφορισμός = excommunication) must mean not being allowed to take communion because Theodore had encouraged daily communion for the monks at the Stoudios.58 The Typikon specifies the hours for attending the liturgy and receiving the blessed bread (εὐλογία),59 while among the later 65 epitimia there are punishments for those who fail to attend communion or who go 40 days without receiving it.60 In the fourth century Basil the Great had urged daily communion,61 but this had not become the norm in Byzantine 56 57 58 59 60 61

MILLER, Stoudios: Rule, 33, p. 112. LEMERLE, Byzantine Humanism, p. 142, n. 61. CHOLIJ, Theodore the Stoudite, p. 197–200. MILLER, Stoudios: Rule, 27, p. 108–109. PG 99, 1753A; 1756D. Letter 93.

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monasteries, where monks congregated on Sundays for the Eucharistic liturgy but with some only taking communion once a year. Conclusion This fascinating list of penances for misdemeanours committed by scribes and librarians gives a unique glimpse into ninth-century Byzantine scribal practice. We can see how far-reaching Theodore’s reforms were in that they filtered down to the daily activities in the library and scriptorium. Given this attention to detail it is not surprising that the Stoudite Typikon was adopted in the Slavonic Orthodox world in the wake of the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodios in the second half of the ninth century. In addition, the Typikon and other Stoudite documents were foundational to the establishment of cenobitic monasticism on Mount Athos in the tenth century.62 Theodore led by example when it came to resisting what he saw as the abuses of imperial power, and despite attempts to silence him, his name became synonymous with the Stoudios monastery, its reform, and its legacy. The scribal achievements of the Stoudios under his direction were considerable, as they paved the way for the more extensive revival of learning that flourished in Constantinople in the latter half of the ninth century.63 The lasting reputation of the Stoudios monastery and its scriptorium in the history of Byzantine monastic culture owed everything to the inspiration and foresight of Theodore the Stoudite. Bibliography P.R. AMIDON, Philostorgius: Church History, Translated with an Introduction and Notes (Society of Biblical Literature 23), Atlanta, 2007. G. AMMANNATI, Συρμαιογραφία?, in Scriptorium 57.2 (2003), p. 223–226. M.-F. AUZÉPY, La Vie d’Étienne le Jeune par Étienne le Diacre: Introduction, édition et traduction (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs 3), Aldershot, 1997. M.-F. AUZÉPY, O. DELOUIS, J.-P. GRÉLOIS and M. KAPLAN, À propos des monastères de Médikon et de Sakkoudiôn, in Revue des études Byzantines 63 (2005), p. 183–194. P. BOOTH, Crisis of Empire: Doctrine and Dissent at the end of Late Antiquity (Transformation of the Classical Heritage 52), Berkeley, 2014. T. CATTOI, Theodore the Studite: Writings on Iconoclasm, Translated and Introduced (Ancient Christian Writers 69), New York, 2015. R. CHOLIJ, Theodore the Stoudite: The Ordering of Holiness, Oxford, 2002. G. DENNIS (trans.), Ath. Typikon: Typikon of Athanasios the Athonite for the Lavra Monastery, in J. THOMAS and A. CONSTANTINIDES HERO (eds), Byzantine Monastic 62 See G. DENNIS (trans.), Ath. Typikon: Typikon of Athanasios the Athonite for the Lavra Monastery, in J. THOMAS and A. CONSTANTINIDES HERO (eds), Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’ Typika and Testaments, vol. 1 (Dumbarton Oaks Studies 35), Washington D.C., 2000, p. 245–270. 63 A. KAZHDAN, A History of Byzantine Literature (850–1000), Athens, 2006.

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Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’ Typika and Testaments, vol. 1 (Dumbarton Oaks Studies 35), Washington D.C., 2000, p. 245–270. E.J. EDWARDS, Riot in Alexandria: Tradition and Group Dynamics in Late Antique Pagan and Christian Communities (Transformation of the Classical Heritage 46), Berkeley, 2010. S. EFTHYMIADIS, Le panégyrique de S. Théophane le Confesseur par S. Théodore Stoudite (BHG 1792b): édition critique du texte intégral, in Analectica Bollandiana 111 (1993), p. 259–290. B.D. EHRMAN, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament, New York – Oxford, 1993. C. ERISMANN, On the Significance of the Manuscript Parisinus graecus 437. The Corpus Dionysiacum, Iconoclasm, and Byzantine-Carolingian Relations, in F. DAIM, C. GASTGEBER, D. HEHER and C. RAPP (eds), Menschen, Bilder, Sprache, Dinge. Wege der Kommunikation zwischen Byzanz und dem Westen 2: Menschen und Worte (Byzanz zwischen Orient und Okzident 9.2), Mainz, 2018, p. 95–101. G. FATOUROS (ed.), Theodori Studitae Epistulae, 2 vols, Berlin, 1991. G. FEATHERSTONE and M. HOLLAND, A Note on Penances Prescribed for Negligent Scribes and Librarians in the Monastery of Stoudios, in Scriptorium 36 (1982), p. 258–260. J. FOLDA, Sacred Objects with Holy Light: Byzantine Icons with Chrysography, in D. SULLIVAN, E. FISHER and S. PAPAIOANNOU (eds), Byzantine Religious Culture: Studies in Honor of Alice-Mary Talbot, Leiden, 2011, p. 155–172. B.L. FONKIČ, Aux origines de la minuscule Stoudite (les fragments Moscovite et Parisien de l’œuvre de Paul d’Égine), in G. PRATO (ed.), I manoscritti greci tra riflessione e dibattito. Atti del V colloguio internationale di paleografia greca (Cremona, 4– 10 ottobre 1998) (Papyrologica Florentina 31), Firenze, 2000, p. 169–186. C. FRAZEE, St. Theodore of Stoudios and Ninth Century Monasticism in Constantinople, in Studia Monastica 23 (1981), p. 27–58. D. GALADZA, “Open Your Mouth and Attract the Spirit”: St Theodore the Stoudite and Participation in the Icon of Worship, in I. MOODY and M. TAKLA-ROSZCZEN (eds), Church Music and Icons: Windows to Heaven (Publications of the International Society for Orthodox Church Music 6), Joensuu, 2015, p. 441–455. N. GAUL, Paideia and the Imperial “Beast” (Eighth and Ninth Centuries), in E. J. BAKKER (ed.), A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language, Oxford, 2010, p. 73–76. R.H. GREENFIELD and A.-M. TALBOT, Holy Men of Mount Athos (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 40), Cambridge Mass., 2016. P. HATLIE, The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, ca. 350–850, Cambridge, 2007. R. JANIN, La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantine. II. Les églises et les monastères des grands centres byzantins, Paris, 1975. P. KARLIN-HAYTER, A Byzantine Political Monk: St. Theodore Studite, in Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 44 (1994), p. 217–232. A. KAZHDAN, A History of Byzantine Literature (650–850), Athens, 1999. A. KAZHDAN, A History of Byzantine Literature (850–1000), Athens, 2006. R. KRAWIEC, Shenoute and the Women of the White Monastery: Egyptian Monasticism in Late Antiquity, Oxford, 2002. G.W.H. LAMPE, A Greek Patristic Lexicon, Oxford, 1969. P. LEMERLE, Byzantine Humanism: The First Phrase (Byzantina Australiensia 3), Canberra, 1986. J. LEROY, Les types de réglure des manuscripts grecs, Paris, 1976.

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C. MANGO, The Date of the Studius Basilica at Istanbul, in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 4 (1978), p. 115–122. C. MANGO, The Correspondence of Ignatios the Deacon, Text, Translation, and Commentary (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 39), Washinghton D.C., 1997. C. MANGO and R. SCOTT, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, Oxford, 1997. M. MAVOURDI, Greek Language and Education under Early Islam, in B. SADEGHI, A.Q. AHMED, A. SILVERSTEIN and R. HOYLAND (eds), Islamic Cultures, Islamic Contexts: Essays in Honor of Professor Patricia Crone, Leiden, 2014, p. 295–342. J. MEYENDROFF, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes, New York, 19872. R.T. MEYER, Palladius: The Lausiac History, Translated and Annotated (Ancient Christian Writers 34), New York, 1964. T. MILLER (trans.), Stoudios: Rule of the Monastery of St. John Stoudios in Constantinople, in J. THOMAS and A. CONSTANTINIDES HERO (eds), Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’ Typika and Testaments, vol. 1 (Dumbarton Oaks Studies 35), Washington D.C., 2000, p. 84– 119. R. MORRIS, Monks and Laymen in Byzantium 843–1118, Cambridge, 1995. J. NORET (ed.), Vitae duae antiquae Sancti Athanasii Athonitae, Leuven, 1982. K. PARRY, Depicting the Word: Byzantine Iconophile Thought of the Eighth and Ninth Centuries (The Medieval Mediterranean 12), Leiden, 1996. K. PARRY, Vegetarianism in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: The transmission of a regimen, in W. MAYER and S. TRZCIONKA (eds), Feast, Fast or Famine: Food and Drink in Byzantium (Byzantina Australiensia 15), Brisbane, 2005, p. 171–187. K. PARRY, Aristotle and the Icon: The Use of the Categories by Byzantine Iconophile Writers, in S. EBBESEN, J. MARENBON and P. THOM (eds), Aristotle’s Categories in the Byzantine, Arabic and Latin Traditions (Scienta Danica. Series H, Humanistica 8, vol. 5), Copenhagen, 2013, p. 35–58. K. PARRY, Egypt in the Byzantine Imagination; Cultural Memory and Historiography, Fourth to Ninth Centuries, in D. DZINO and K. PARRY (eds), Byzantium, Its Neighbours and Its Cultures (Byzantina Australiensia 20), Brisbane, 2014, p. 181–208. K. PARRY, Theodore the Stoudite: The Most ‘Original’ Iconophile?, in Jarbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 68 (2018), p. 261–275. T. POTT, Byzantine Liturgical Reform: A Study of Liturgical Change in the Byzantine Tradition, New York, 2010. H.C. TEITLER, Notarii and Exceptores: An Inquiry into the Role and Significance of Shorthand Writers in the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Bureaucracy of the Roman Empire (from the Early Principate to c. 450 A.D), Amsterdam, 1985. W. TREADGOLD, The Byzantine Revival 780–842, Stanford, 1988. A. TRIPOLITIS, ΦΩΣ ΙΛΑΡΟΝ. Ancient Hymn and Modern Enigma, in Vigiliae Christianae 24.3 (1970), p. 189–196. L.G. WESTERINK (ed.), Photii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani, Epistulae et Amphilochia, vol. iv, Amphilochiorum pars prima, Leipzig, 1986. N.G. WILSON, Scholars of Byzantium, revised edition, London, 1996.

MIRRORING BYZANTIUM: SCRIBES, DUKES, AND LEADERSHIP IN PRE-NORMAN SOUTHERN ITALY Norman UNDERWOOD

Sometime around the year 1000, a southern Italian author by the name of Landolfus Sagax added marginal notations to his magnum opus, a twenty-sixbook history of Rome and her empire until 813. Drawing on various late antique and early medieval histories, Landolf wove a moralising composite for the explicit edification of an unnamed princeps and complemented it with a full copy of Vegetius’s De re militari and a convenient reference list of Roman monarchs up to the present Byzantine emperor. His advice, once limited to the margins of the luxurious Beneventan original, now points to the exemplars of Roman history from a Vatican URL.1 Although this manuscript, Palatine Latin 909 (hence forth Pal. Lat. 909), has received several academic treatments in the past century, few historians have considered the social functions of Landolf’s compilation on leadership Romanstyle in the context of the renewed influence of Byzantine culture on the tenthcentury Mezzogiorno. This essay argues that Landolf’s didactic compilation conformed to a larger trend among Lombardo-Latin aristocrats to articulate their elevated social status through Byzantine, i.e. ‘Roman’, flourishes in coinage, charters, and literary productions. A particular comparison will be made to archpriest Leo’s contemporaneous translation of the Greek Alexander Romance, which Leo copied and translated for the duke of Naples after an embassy to Constantinople. These southern Italian scribes, I argue, not only elevated their patrons as cognoscenti with their productions, but also allowed them to engage with the court culture of contemporaneous Constantinople, which was obsessed with Kaisergeschichte and didactic, technical literature. The Roman History of Landolfus Sagax Thirty-five manuscripts of Landolf’s Historia Romana survive, four of them from before 1100.2 The oldest, Pal. Lat. 909, written by a single Beneventan hand 1 https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Pal.lat.909; the MSS is also viewable at https://digi.ub.uniheidelberg.de/diglit/bav_pal_lat_909. 2 L. MORTENSEN, The Diffusion of Roman Histories in the Middle Ages: A List of Orsius, Eutropius, Paulus Diaconus, and Landolfus Sagax Manuscripts, in Filologia mediolatina 6–7 (1999– 2000), p. 101–200, at p. 105.

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has long been known to be Landolf’s ‘original manuscript.’3 It consists of 359 vellum folios with ff. 1v–306v containing the Historia Romana and ff. 306r– 359v containing Vegetius’s De re militari, a late antique Latin military treatise. The concluding folios of the Historia feature decorated reference pages that list Roman rulers from Julius Caesar to the reigning Byzantine Emperor Basil II and his Caesar Constantine VIII, key events of their reigns, and the Augustae Romanorum quae Constantinopolim regnaverunt. Since the list ends without Constantine and Basil’s regnal years, the manuscript was presumably assembled during their long joint-reign (976–1025). With spacious margins and polychrome rubrication, the volume was worthy of the princely audience that its margins address.4 Which princeps exactly was to be its intended recipient remains unclear. Its Beneventan script, the author’s common southern Lombard name Landolf, and the text’s reverence to Byzantium, however, make certain a southern Italian provenance. At the time of the Historia’s composition Lombardo-Latin elites held sway over the region’s bustling cities such as Naples, Gaeta, and Capua, as vassals of Constantinople, so the author’s continued association of Roman authority with Byzantium is only natural.5 Where specifically in the region the manuscript was made is less clear. On account of the explicit princeps addressed in the margins, Amadeo Crivellucci connected the manuscript to the principalities of Benevento, Capua, and Salerno where local monarchs assumed that particular title.6 The honorific, though, might simply intend a generic ruler or nobleman, perfectly acceptable for Medieval Latin. Nor should we rule out the possibility that the luxurious volume was composed in one principality, say Naples as the paleographer Ludwig Traube suggested, only to be gifted to the princeps of another.7 Much plainer are the compiler’s intentions. As the incipit explains, Landolf’s history, sometimes mistitled the Historia miscella,8 aims to augment Paul the Deacon’s eighth-century history of Rome.9 Landolf did so by drawing on a range of sources including Orosius, Aurelius Victor, Rufinus, and Jordanes. The majority 3 H. DROYSEN, Über den odex Palatinus (no. 909) der Historia Romana des Landolfus Sagax, in Hermes 12 (1877), p. 387–390, at p. 390. For a discussion of Beneventan scripts, see the updated E.A. LOWE and V. BROWN, The Beneventan Script: A History of the Southern Italian Minuscule, 2 vols, Rome, 19802. 4 For a full codicological description, see A. CRIVELLUCCI (ed.), Landolfi Sagacis Historia Romana, Rome, 1912, p. XIII–XXI. 5 See G.A. LOUD, Southern Italy in the Tenth Century, in T. REUTER (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. III: 900–1024, Cambridge, 2005, p. 624–645. 6 CRIVELLUCCI, Landolfi Sagacis Historia Romana, p. X–XLI. 7 L. TRAUBE, Perrona Scottorum, ein Beitrag zur Ueberlieferungsgeschichte und zur Palaeographie des Mittelalters, Munich, 1900, p. 472. 8 See, for instance, the first edition P. PITHOU (ed.), Historia miscella, Basel, 1569, and F. EYSSENHARDT (ed.), Historia miscella, Berlin, 1869. 9 Pal. Lat. 909, 1v: Landolfus Sagax secutus plura et ipse ex diversis auctoribus colligens in eadem historia addidit.

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Fig. 1. List of Roman / Byzantine Empresses. MS Pal. Lat. 909, 305r. Reproduced by permission of Vatican Library.

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of the narrative after Justinian, though, is lifted directly from Anastasius Bibliothecarius’ Latin translation of Theophanes’s Greek Chronographia with some minor alterations. Hence, Leo narrates no events of Roman / Byzantine history beyond Theophanes’s conclusion at the ascension of Leo the Armenian.10 Landolf likely could not access any Greek sources necessary to update Eastern history in any meaningful way after 813, save being able to list the emperors, their wives, and the length of their reigns in his decorated reference list. In total, he covers 1,500 years of Roman history from the founding of the city forward. Significantly, the main body, its corrections, and most of the marginalia are all in the same hand, a fact which has long induced scholars to place the manuscript at Landolf’s desk. As Hans Droysen in 1877 illustrated, the corrections and the text made by the same scribe occurred most frequently at points where source materials were being sutured.11 The scribe, then, was copying his sources at the same time that he was fumbling to weave them into a single artful composition. Thus, Landolf was both author and scribe. Crivellucci in his edition rejected this argument and proposed instead that the manuscript was an idiograph created under Landolf’s supervision. He cited inconsistent spelling between sections as particularly damning evidence, which suggested transcription error between original and copy. Of course, the author might have mixed his own spelling conventions with those of his materials. Crivellucci added further that, lacking any religious titles and writing on so secular a topic, the presumed layman Landolf would have needed a clerical amanuensis to produce such a quality manuscript.12 Pace Crivellucci, plenty of clergymen dabbled in secular historiography,13 and the sobriquet Sagax could easily signify a clerical role, perhaps as an educator. The concentration of corrections at suture points alone makes a cogent, although not definitive case for counting Pal. Lat. 909 as a rare autograph from the early Middle Ages.14 The scribe, whether Landolf or his protégé, wished to draw with his marginalia his prince’s eye towards ‘praiseworthy actions and sayings or shameful deeds and vices.’15 He points out where a prince is to imitare or cavere, when 10 See R. FORRAI, The Interpreter of the Popes. The Translation Project of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, PhD Diss., Central European University, 2008, and Anastasius Bibliothecarius and His Textual Dossiers: Greek Collections and Their Latin in 9th Century Rome, in S. GIOANNI and B. GRÉVIN (eds), L’antiquité tardive dans les collections médiévales. Textes et représentations, vi e– xiv e siècle, Rome, 2008, p. 319–337. For a general overview of Latin historiography in the early Middle Ages, see the introduction and first four chapters of D. DELIYANNIS (ed.), Historiography in the Middle Ages, Leiden, 2003, p. 1–115. 11 DROYSEN, Codex Palatinus (no. 909), p. 387–390. 12 CRIVELLUCCI, Landolfi Sagacis Historia Romana, p. XVI–XXI. 13 The historian and monk Peter the Deacon, for instance, copied the surviving twelfth-century Vegetius from Monte Cassino. Cf. Monte Cassino, Biblioteca dell’Abbazia MS 361. 14 For an overview of the early medieval autographs, see H. HOFFMANN, Autographa des früheren Mittelalters, in Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 57 (2001), p. 1–62. 15 DROYSEN, Codex Palatinus (no. 909), p. 387: lobenswerthe Aussprüche und Handlungen, oder Schand- und Lasterthaten.

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Fig. 2. Attende, Princeps, quomodo domi et armis prudentia necessaria est (“Take note, prince, how prudence is necessary at home and in arms.”). MS Pal. Lat. 909,100v. Reproduced by permission of Vatican Library.

a course of action is cavendum, utile, or laudabile.16 He highlights the pitfalls of excessive wrath and envy.17 Elsewhere he warns about the dangers of too casual an atmosphere among troops. “While it makes troops dearer to one another, it softens the authority of the prince.”18 Other times, he simply clarifies a point in the text. On the point that Rome had subjugated many peoples, he specifies, ‘there were 1000 peoples under the Roman Empire.’19 Regarding Domitian’s death he adds the tidbit, “Know that the wife was involved in the man’s murder.”20 He remarks on the stern character of Philip the Arab with the note, “Understand that the prince never laughed.”21 My favourite is a simple cave Princeps. The adjacent text reads: “He (the Emperor Tiberius) had the custom to sleep with very many girls and twelve catamites!”22 CRIVELLUCCI, Landolfi Sagacis Historia Romana, p. 216.K, 194.L, 198.H. Landolf, Historia, 7.18. 18 Landolf, Historia, 7.16: Commilitiones novo blandoque more appellant, dum affectat carior fieri, auctoritatem principis emolliverat. 19 Landolf, Historia, 8.6 (p. 215.C): Nota mille gentes sub romano imperio fuisse. 20 Landolf, Historia, 8.13 (p. 222.e): Cerne uxorem in necem viri esse. 21 Landolf, Historia, 10.3 (p. 250.N): Attende imperatorem nunquam ridentem. 22 Landolf, Historia, 7.18: Nam inter duodecim katamitos totidem puellas accubare solitus erat. In light of the continued Mediterranean eunuch trade in places like Taranto and the proximity of 16 17

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In its composite form the manuscript is, as one historian recently put it, ‘una lettura di somma utilità per la formazione di un commandante.’23 It saw to the two capstones of instruction for medieval rulers: ‘morale e storica coll’Historia Romana, educazione militare con Vegezio.’24 To apply the title of a late medieval genre, the text was a handcrafted mirror for princes. Landolf was not alone though in southern Italy in his appreciation of history. Francis Newton’s magisterial study of the scriptorium at Monte Cassino has highlighted a sustained copying program of deluxe histories in the Mezzogiorno. Indeed, several contemporaneous copies of Landolf’s sources such as Anastasius Bibliothecarius (MC 6) and Orosius (Pal. Lat. 3340) survive.25 But the didactic-historiographical tradition in which Landolf placed his project is harder to evince as the compendium lacks any direct comparanda among contemporary southern Italian texts. There certainly was a Carolingian tradition of clergymen dedicating didactic, historical volumes to monarchs.26 A century earlier, for instance, Bishop Freculf of Liseux composed a world chronicle for Charles the Bald (d. 877), to which he also appended a copy of Vegetius.27 In the prefatory letter he explained that he compiled the two works ‘so that princes might beware of detriments (incommoda) to themselves.’28 Liseux’s work, however, stands in the terse chronicle tradition of Eusebius and Rufinus. Its focus lies on a salvation history mostly from the myopic angle of local events. Influenced heavily by Augustine’s City of God and Orosius’s Against the Pagans, it has little interest in the ‘Babylon of the West’, that is, Rome whose ultimate role is in the conversion of the Franks.29 We might see the same values behind Hrabanus Maurus’s epitome of Vegetius for his sovereign Louis the German, entitled De procinctu romanae militae. He included it among other, more theological works that he dedicated to the miles Christi.30 Tiberius’s grotto at Capri, the advice seemed pertinent. See M. VALANTE, Vikings, the Slave Trade, and the Value of Eunuchs, in L. TRACY (ed.), Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages, Cambridge, 2013, p. 174–187, at p. 182. 23 P. CHIESA, Storia romana e libri di storia romana fra IX e XI secolo, in Roma antica nel Medioevo. Mito, rappresentazioni, sopravvivenze nella ‘Respublica Christiana’ dei secoli IX–XIII. Atti della quattordicesima Settimana internazionale di studio, Mendola, 24–28 agosto 1998, Milan, 2001, p. 231–258, at p. 251. 24 CRIVELLUCCI, Landolfi Sagacis Historia Romana, p. XL. 25 F. NEWTON, The Scriptorium and Library at Monte Cassino, 1058–1105, Cambridge, 1999, p. 277–278. 26 H.H. ANTON, Fürstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit, Bonn, 1968. 27 C. ALLMAND, The De re militari of Vegetius: The Reception, Transmission and Legacy of a Roman Text in the Middle Ages, Cambridge, 2011, p. 66. 28 Freculf of Lyons, Prologus ad Karolum Caluum regem, in M.I. ALLEN (ed.), Frechulfi Lexouiensis episcopi opera omnia (Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaeualis 169A), Turnhout, 2002, p. 725–729, at p. 729: principes sua suorumque incommoda praecauere poterint. 29 G. WARD, All Roads Lead to Rome? Frechulf of Lisieux, Augustine and Orosius, in Early Medieval Europe 22.2 (2014), p. 492–505. 30 E. DÜMMLER (ed.), Hrabanus Maurus, De procinctu romane militae, in Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum 15 (1872), p. 443–451.

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While The Carolingian dynasty had built strong connections with Monte Cassino and elsewhere in southern Italy during the eighth and ninth centuries, by Landolf’s day the monasteries and cities of southern Italy were subject to the ostensible authority of the East.31 Even if Landolf followed in the Carolingian mirror tradition, his political agenda and allegiances were distinct from any of his Carolingian predecessors. Landolf’s historico-didactic program directly connected princely edification with the Roman Empire based in Constantinople, something no Frank after Charlemagne’s usurpation of eastern primacy would dare do. “Landolf considered the Byzantine state the natural and legitimate successor that preserved the name of Rome.”32 Inherent in this connection between the nova Roma and princely education was the recognition of Byzantium as a polity worthy of study and emulation. The production, patronage, and gifting of this luxurious leadership manual held then a slightly different significance; a distinct Latin political culture, which placed value in Byzantine Romanitas, justified the capital and time invested in the project. The Mezzogiorno and Byzantium A century before Landolf, the Byzantine emperor Basil I (867–886) developed a system of collusion with the Lombardo-Latin aristocracies of southern Italy in order to secure his new gains of Apulia and Calabria, previously in Lombard and Arab hands. The dukes and princes of southern Italy became recognised vassals of Constantinople, while retaining relative autonomy. For their part, they acquired new protection from any possible Arab onslaughts. This arrangement, along with the settlement of thousands of soldiers and farmers on territory in direct Byzantine possession, cemented the Byzantine foothold in southern Italy until the rise of the Normans.33 The political relationships between the Lombard principalities and Byzantium were only quasi-binding, though.34 They could strengthen at moments of crisis and intrigue or dissolve as dukes followed their own prerogatives. More significantly, these bonds needed to be maintained in ritualised embassies and 31 For Monte Cassino caught between the Carolingian-Ottonian and Byzantines spheres of influence, see H. BLOCH, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages, vol. 1, Cambridge Mass., 1986, p. 1–39 32 CHIESA, Storia romana, p. 248: “Il titolo Historia Romana appare dunque significativo del fatto che, ancora in pieno x secolo, Landolfo non avvertiva una soluzione di continuità nella storia dell’antico impero, ma ne considerava sua naturale e legittima prosecuzione lo stato bizantino, che conservava il nome di Romano.” 33 More generally, the classic study of these sometimes rocky relationships is J. GAY, L’Italie méridionale et l’Empire byzantine, Paris – Rome, 1904. BARBARA KREUTZ’s Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, Philadelphia, 1991, has become the standard English reference. For an overview of scholarship since KREUTZ, see LOUD, Southern Italy in the Tenth Century. 34 G. TABACCO, Egemonie sociali e strutture del potere nel medioevo italiano, Turin, 2000, p. 219–221.

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symbolic gifts. Constantine Porphyrogenitus’ Book of Ceremonies informs us, for instance, that upon receiving a representative from the dukes of southern Italy, the court would stamp and gift a two-solidi golden bull affirming their authority to rule.35 Landolf I of Benevento even journeyed himself to the royal city to accept his titles as anthypatos and patrikios amid the pomp and circumstance of an imperial audience.36 It was thus with some earnestness that Constantine boasted to his son Romanos that ‘in earlier times … Naples, Capua, Benevento, Salerno, Gaeta, all Langobardia had been lorded over by the Romans.’37 At Naples, what has been called the ducato bizantino, the changes in the political topography were most pronounced.38 The city had entered into Byzantine submission early into the formation of its longest medieval dynasty, when only its second member, Gregory III, placed himself under the imperial yoke as a magister milituum.39 Imperial titles and pretences became key references in justifying the dynasty’s continuity. Symbolic deference to the Byzantine Empire permeated the local aristocratic culture in its officialdom and regalia. Dukes such as Marinus II, a contemporary of our author Landolf, sealed their charters with both their local and their Byzantine titles: Marinus eminentissimus consul et dux atque imperialis anthipatus patricius.40 Neapolitan coin legends likewise honoured the reigning Roman imperator alongside the present consul et dux.41 Charters also switched to dating by the regnal years of the emperors, a practice that would continue until the Norman conquest of the city in 1137.42 Perhaps the best image of the Byzantine-styled Lombard elite appears in the depiction of Marinus’s father John III in an early eleventh-century manuscript of the Leges Langobardorum from a monastery near Salerno.43 Draped in a colourful eastern tablion, surrounded by military attendants John rests enthroned under the title consul et dux, styled a Byzantine emperor in miniature. The image befitted a man whose Latin subscriptions in charters read out in bold Greek capitals ΙΟΑΝΝΕC ΚΟΝCΟΥΛ ΕΘ ΔΟΥΞ CΟΥΒ (Ioannes consul et dux subscripsi), that is, ‘I, John consul and duke subscribed.’44 It was a sign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De ceremoniis, II.1–6 (p. 690): εἰς τὸν ἄρχοντα Σαρδανίας. Βούλλα χρυσῆ δισολδία. “κέλευσις ἐκ τῶν φιλοχρίστων δεσποτῶν πρὸς τὸν Σαρδανίας.” Εἰς τὸν δοῦκα Βενετίας. εἰς τὸν πρίγκιπα Καπύας. εἰς τὸν πρίγκιπα Σαλερινοῦ. Εἰς τὸν δοῦκα Νεαπόλεως. τὸν ἄρχοντα Ἀμάλφης. εἰς τὸν ἄρχοντα Γαΐτης… 36 GAY, L’Italie méridionale et l’Empire byzantine, p. 231. 37 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De thematibus, p. 114: Ἰστέον ὅτι ἐν τοῖς παλαιοῖς χρόνοις κατεκρατεῖτο ἡ πᾶσα ἐξουσία τῆς Ἰταλίας, ἥ τε Νεάπολις και Κάπυα καὶ ἡ Βενεβενδός, τό τε Σαλερινὸν καὶ ἡ Ἀμάλφη καὶ Γαϊτὴ καὶ πᾶσα ἡ Λαγουβαρδία παρὰ τῶν Ῥωμαίων. 38 G. CASSANDRO, Historia di Napoli, vol. 2, Naples, 1969, p. 162–168. 39 C. WICKHAM, Early Medieval Italy, London, 1981, p. 154. 40 B. CAPASSO, Monumenta ad Neapolitani ducatus historiam pertinentia, vol. 2, part 2, Naples, 1892, p. 15–16. 41 KREUTZ, Before the Normans, p. 63. 42 LOUD, Southern Italy in the Tenth Century, p. 628. 43 Cava de’Tirreni, Biblioteca della Badia MS 4. 44 For example, B. CAPASSO, Monumenta ad Neopolitani, p. 10, 14. 35

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Fig. 3. John III in the Leges Langobardorum Codex Legum Langobardorum at Cava. Reproduced from Capasso, Monumenta, Table III.

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the times that a manuscript commemorating the creation of a unique Lombard ethnic law and land donations made within that particular legal regime portrayed the nobles in so Byzantine a fashion. Even the names of those witnessing blurred the ethno-linguistic distinctions. Nebulously Greco-Roman names such as Johannes, Georgius, Sergius appear next to Germanic Aligern and Landolf. John’s own second son was named Landolf, and he presumably subscribed in the same Greek characters in which his father and brother did – a fitting script for the son of a Theodora and grandson of a Theophylactus.45 Indeed, one finds hundreds of pseudo-Greek subscriptions in southern Italian charters, whereby Lombardo-Italian nobles transliterate their Latin witness statements into clunky Greek capitals.46 Always hovering towards the top of subscription lists, a Latin name in Greek script – quite literally – signified one’s elevation in the social hierarchy. No doubt, the habit trickled down from the ducal families to the nobility more generally. But we should not reduce the practice to pure snobbery, rote habit, or sprezzatura as some historians have done. Rather, I would suggest, they operated as ‘performative acts’, which projected status as well as political stability within the context of ‘Roman’ imperial power.47 Signing in Greek letters affirmed the ruling classes’ distinction as educated members of a Roman body politic, now centred in the Greek East, which had endured for over a millennium. To quote Michael McCormick on late Roman and early Medieval political ritual, “[f]lamboyant symbolic gestures were crucial tools to stitching oneself into a social pyramid capped ultimately by the emperor himself.”48 The important political moment of witnessing a land transaction was an opportunity to make one’s mark. Literary patronage and consumption were equally conspicuous acts to emphasize status among early medieval aristocracies. They showcased the 45 Theodora’s ancestors were the counts of Tusculum near Rome who controlled papal politics for much of the tenth century, what Liudprand of Cremona styled a pornocracy. For a history of the Tusculani, Cf. P. LLEWELLYN, Rome in the Dark Ages, London, 1999, p. 296–313. A grave marker from Rome suggests that this Landolf was raised by his aunt at Rome. K. STRECKER (ed.), Grabinschriften, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Poetæ Latini medii ævi, vol. 5, part 1: Die Ottonenzeit, Leipzig, 1937, p. 340: Landolfus … senatricis Theodoræ … Ioha[nnis] consulis atque ducis … progenies … adoptivum Maroza senatrix. 46 See Kreutz’s appendix Greek Signatures in Neapolitan Documents, in KREUTZ, Before the Normans, p. 304–308. 47 For a discussion of the charters, see V. VON FALKENHAUSEN, A Medieval Neapolitan Document, in The Princeton University Library Chronicle 30 (1969), p. 171–182. Example facsimiles can be found in J. MAZZOLENI, Le Pergamene del Monastero di S. Gregorio Armeno di Napoli, vol. 1: La scrittura curialesca napoletana con n. XVI tavole, Naples, 1973. Also M. MORCALDI, Codex diplomaticus cavensis nunc primum in lucem editus curantibus dd. Michaele Morcaldi. Mauro Schiani. Sylvano de Stephano. O.S.B. Accedit appendix qua praecipua bibliothecae ms. Membranacea, Naples – Pisa, 1873–1893. For a theoretical framework about the performative and legitimising nature of charters, see. G. KOZIOL, The Politics of Memory and Identity in Carolingian Royal Diplomas: The West Frankish Kingdom, 840–987, Turnhout, 2012, p. 17–63. 48 M. MCCORMICK, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West, Cambridge, 1987, p. 253.

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Fig. 4. †ΕΓΟ ΠΕΤΡΟΥΣ ΦΙΛΙΟΥΣ Δ(ΟΜΙ)Ν(Ι) ΙΩ(ΑΝΝΙΣ) ΡΟΓΑΤΟΥΣ Α Σ(ΟΥΠΡΑ)Σ(ΚΡΙΠ)ΤΟ ΚΕΣΑΡΙΟ ΤΕΣΤΙ ΣΟΥΒ(ΣΚΡΙΨΙ) † [ego Petrus filius d(omi)n(i) Io(annis) rogatus a s(upra)s(crip)to Cesario testi sub(scripsi)]. MS. Scheide 66. Photo: Paul Needham. Reproduced by permission of Paul Needham, Librarian, Scheide Library, Princeton University.

Fig. 5. ΕΓΟ ΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΣ ΣΟΥΒΣ(ΚΡΙΨΙ) [ego Stephanos subs(cripsi)]. Reproduced from Mazzoleni, Le Pergamene, 97 by permission of Libreria Scientifica Editrice.

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appreciation for erudition and artistry. Likewise, the giving and sharing of such volumes stitched together textual communities in much the same way as political rituals. In the particular case of mirrors for princes, the patronage and gifting of manuscripts confirmed the continuation of a legitimate, wise leadership, while affirming the donor’s role as political advisor. In this light Landolf’s manuscript as an objet d’art would have acculturated the unnamed prince to a particular Roman tradition of sagacious leadership embodied in the figure of the emperor. The marginalia make this aim clear. Concerning Hadrian, the so-called Graeculus, he asks the prince to ‘notice that the emperor knew many arts’, that he was ‘most elegant in Latin and erudite in Greek.’49 On Marcus Aurelius’s philosophical reign, he informs the prince that ‘God looks to it that good princes are set up during bad times.’ For, as he continues, ‘good princes are the medicine of the world.’50 Philosophy nourished the prince, and in turn the prince became a panacea for a brutal world. It was a classic metaphor for leadership, one that stemmed ultimately from Plato.51 The formation of a ruler’s moral and intellectual character was an act of providential as well as political significance. But whether it was of particularly Roman, that is, Byzantine significance for Landolf is the question. During the so-called Macedonian Renaissance,52 Byzantium exploded with ‘new’ encyclopedic compilations, historical excerpta, and epitomes on a diverse range of antiquarian topics (geography, tactical strategy, veterinary medicine, dream interpretation).53 Both clerical and lay members of the aristocracy took to the habit of refashioning ancient didactic literature into ‘novel’ synthetic works. Emperors even authored within this compilation culture such as Leo VI who refashioned from earlier sources two strategy manuals. His son Constantine Porphyrogenitus (905–959),54 or more accurately he and 49 Landolf, Historia 9.9: Iste facundissimus latino sermone, grecis litteris eruditissimus fuit, ita ut a plerisque Greculus appellaretur; CRIVELLUCCI, Landolf Sagacis Historia Romana, p. 231v: Attende imperatorem multas artes scisse. 50 CRIVELLUCCI, Landolfi Sagacis Historia Romana, p. 236n: Providet deus malis temporibus bonos ordinari principes; 237h: boni principes medicina mundi sunt. 51 See Plato, Theaetetus 166d–167c. 52 See P. LEMERLE, Le premier humanisme byzantin, Paris, 1971; W. TREADGOLD, The Macedonian Renaissance, in W. TREADGOLD (ed.), Renaissances before the Renaissance. Cultural Revivals of Late Antiquity and the Middle Age, Stanford, 1984, p. 75–98. 53 For instance, see the Problemata and the Tactica of the Emperor Leo VI the Wise, The anonymous Sylloge Tacticorum (συλλογὴ τακτικῶν), or the De velitatione bellica (περὶ παραδρομῆς) and Praecepta militaria (στρατηγικὴ ἔκθεσις καὶ σύνταξις Νικηφόρου δεσπότου) attributed to Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, in A. MCCABE, A Byzantine Encyclopaedia of Horse Medicine. The Sources, Compilation, and Transmission of the Hippiatrica, Oxford, 2007. On dreambooks, cf. S. OBERHELMAN, Dreambooks in Byzantium: Six Oneirocritica in Translation, with Commentary and Introduction, Burlington, 2008; see also M. MAVROUDI, Occult Science and Society in Byzantium: Considerations for Future Research, in P. MAGDALINO and M. MAVROUDI (eds), The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, Geneva, 2006, p. 39–95, esp. p. 74–75. 54 I. ŠEVČENKO, Re-reading Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in J. SHEPARD and S. FRANKLIN (eds), Byzantine Diplomacy: Papers of the Twenty-Fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Cambridge, March 1990, Brookfield, 1992, p. 167–195.

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his court, would assemble a detailed catalogue of ceremonial procedures (De ceremoniis), a book on the themes of the Empire (De thematibus), three military compilations, and a mirror for his own son on the running of the Empire (De administrando imperii).55 The (re)production of these genres marked off the true aristoi from hoi polloi as well as connected them to the literature favoured at court. As scholars have come to appreciate, didactic histories and anachronistic, moralising military manuals formed the encyclopedic paideia for Byzantine ruling classes. The compilation of a new work or simply the projection of erudition in these texts yielded prestige and offered the chance for advancements in personal careers. “In this way, the apparently ancient and obsolete could be put to highly practical use by individuals and groups in Byzantine politics.”56 Moreover, the absorption of classical values gleaned from these readings set ‘the behavior and expectations that provided the context for political action.’57 Moralising, antiquarian literature, especially those on the history of the Roman Empire, established the models for good leadership. As Constantine reminded his son, ‘prudent’ and ‘wise’ rulers ‘the peoples will bless’, and in turn the state shall prosper. The optimum objects of study were the “events between the Romans and different nations … what reforms have been introduced from time to time in Our state…”58 How much the Latin vassals of southern Italy appreciated these trends is a larger question. As subjects of the Byzantine oikumenē, local Latin aristocracies engaged with the dominant Greek-speaking culture of the empire on a regular basis. Real ‘Greeks’ lived in Italy and studied the literature au courant, as surviving manuscripts from Greek monasteries in the South attest.59 Likewise, the movement of persons and trade objects between Italy and the Byzantine heartland was steady during the period.60 Elsewhere on the periphery of empire compilers such as the contemporary Arab and Armenian historians, Yahya ibn Said and Stephen of Taron, ‘synced-in’ with fashionable historiographical trends by See the translations in J. HALDON, Constantine Porphyrogenitus: Three Treatises on Imperial Military Expeditions, Vienna, 1990; G. MORAVCSIK (ed.) and R. JENKINS (trans.), Constantine Porphyrogenitus. De administrando imperii, Washington, 1966. 56 C. HOLMES, Byzantine Political Culture and Compilation Literature in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries: Some Preliminary Inquiries, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 64 (2010), p. 55– 80, at p. 80. 57 C. HOLMES, Byzantine Political Culture and Compilation Literature, p. 69–74. 58 G. MORAVCSIK (ed.) and R. JENKINS (trans.), Constantine Porphyrogenitus, p. 45. 59 Plenty of Greek manuscripts survive from Byzantine monasteries in southern Italy. J. IRIGOIN, L’apport de l’Italie méridionale à la transmission des texts classiques, in A. JACOB et al., Histoire et culture dans l’Italie byzantine: Acquis et nouvelles recherches, Rome, 2006, p. 5–20, esp. p. 12; M. HERREN, Evidence for ‘Vulgar Greek’ from Early Medieval Latin Texts and Manuscripts, in The Sacred Nectar of the Greeks: The Study of Greek in the West in the Early Middle Ages, London, 1988, p. 57–84. 60 M. MCCORMICK, The Imperial Edge: Italo-Byzantine Identity, Movement and Integration, A.D. 650–950, in H. AHRWEILER (ed.), Studies on the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire, Washington, 1998. 55

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producing their own antiquarian histories with the stamp of Constantinople.61 Landolf’s manuscript would have been a shallow attempt at interacting with new literary trends, but like the Greek signatures in manuscripts, it could be effective mimicry at the local level. Very much in content and purpose, Landolf’s history was something akin to Michael Psellos’s instructive Historia syntomos, a self-asserted ‘short history of those who were rulers of ancient Rome and afterwards New Rome.’62 And like the contemporary Greek historian Leo the Deacon, Landolf considered history ‘by nature something useful and profitable’ since it “ordains for men to strive after and emulate some deeds, while rejecting and avoiding others.’63 Did he recognize, though, his project as something fashionable and conforming to the literary tastes of Byzantine elites? If so, Landolf’s project would have allowed the distant limbs of the Byzantine body politic in Campania to cue into the compilation culture at the empire’s centre. But, since Landolf’s sources were all Latin, only documented evidence of southern Italians acknowledging and interacting with the larger Byzantine literary culture of the day could prove this hypothesis. Leo’s Historia de preliis One overlooked contemporaneous comparandum for Landolf’s project, which needs to be placed in dialogue with the Historia Romana, is Archpriest Leo’s Latin translation of Pseudo-Callisthenes late antique Alexander Romance. The expressly historiographical and didactic work from tenth-century southern Italy endures as one of the few Latin texts from the region that shows crosspollination between provincial textual communities and the larger Byzantine Empire. As the original preface in the earliest eleventh-century copy (Staatsbibliothek Bamberg E.III.14) explains, ‘while the magnificent Christian emperors Constantine and his son Romanus (945–959) were reigning’ a certain archpriest Leo travelled at the behest of the dukes of Naples, John III and his son Marinus II, on an embassy to Constantinople. While passing through the same city he began to inquire about books to read. Among those [suggested] he discovered a history containing the battles and victories of King Alexander of Macedon. Having no neglect or sloth he copied it without delay. He carried it with him to Naples, to his aforementioned lords and to [the John’s] noble wife, Theodora a Senatrix of the Romans, a [woman] who meditated on sacred Scripture day and night. C. HOLMES, Byzantine Historians at the Periphery, in E. JEFFREYS and F. HAARER (eds), Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies: London, 21–26 August, 2006, vol. 1, Aldershot, 2006, p. 156–157. 62 W. AERTS (trans. and ed.), Michael Psellos. Historia Syntomos, Berlin, 1990, p. 3. 63 A.-M. TALBOT and D. SULLIVAN (trans.), Leo the Deacon. The History of Leo the Deacon: Byzantine Military Expansion in the Tenth Century, Washington, 2005. 61

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The copy, it seems, then went ignored until sometime after Theodora’s death, when John set about ordering their private library including having Leo translate the Alexander Romance into Latin.64 This fourth-century text has proven to be antiquity’s most popular ‘novel’ surviving today in almost eighty versions in twenty-four languages, with all the western versions stemming from Leo’s translation.65 To summarize the text briefly, it narrates Alexander’s life from sordid conception by his trickster-astrologer father and his conniving mother, to his major battles against the Persians, his wanderings in a phantasmagorical Orient, and finally his youthful demise at the hands of his own generals. The text was a Byzantine favorite of the period. Direct quotations and allusions to it appear across the spectrum of tenth and eleventh-century sources from patriarchal letters to saints’ lives.66 It is understandable why the locals recommended it to Leo. The text satisfied so many of the antiquarian trends du jour in Byzantium. It was part military history, part royal biography. It abounded in occult astrology, visions, and ethno-geographical portraits of distant lands. In readymade form it naturally complemented the explosion in the tenth-century antiquarian, technical literature and the renewed historiographical interest in giving richer psychological portraits of leaders.67 It also conformed with the revival of interest in the pre-Roman Hellenic past, in which the royal figure of Alexander became the ur-ruler testifying to the stability of Greek-speaking leadership.68 The earliest editors categorised Leo’s Latin translation, usually titled De preliis Alexandri magnis, as ‘a barbaric reworking and in part senseless mutilation of the known history of Alexander.’69 Sadly, Leo’s failure as a translator – or at times, it seems, as a Greek paleographer – has overshadowed his Leo of Naples, Historia de preliis Alexandri Magni, pro. 2, in F. PFISTER, Der Alexanderroman des Archipresbyters Leo, Heidelberg, 1913: Quo pergente in eandem Constantinopolitanam urbem coepit inquirere libros ad legendum. Inter quos invenit historiam continentem certamina et victorias Alexandri regis Macedoniae. Et nullam neglegentiam vel pigritiam habendo sine mora scripsit et secum usque Neapolim deduxit ad suos predictos excellentissimos seniores et ad praeclaram et beatissimam coniugem eius, Theodoram videlicet senatricem Romanorum, quae die noctuque sacrae scripturae meditabatur… 65 K. DOWDEN (trans.), Pseudo-Callisthenes. Alexander Romance, in B.P. REARDON, Collected Ancient Greek Novels, Berkeley, 20082, p. 650–735. Merkelbach remains the classic study of the ancient Alexander tradition: R. MERKELBACH, Die Quellen des griechischen Alexanderromans, Munich, 19772. For an overview of medieval Alexander literature, see R. STONEMAN, The Medieval Alexander, in H. HOFMANN (ed.), Latin Fiction: The Latin Novel in Context, New York, 1999, p. 201–214. See also D. KRATZ, The Romances of Alexander, New York, 1991. 66 S. GERO, The Alexander Legend in Byzantium: Some Literary Gleanings, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 46 (1992), p. 83–88. 67 See J. LJUBARSKIJ, Man in Byzantine Historiography from John Malalas to Michael Psellos, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 46 (1992), p. 177–186, at p. 184. 68 H. AHRWEILER, L’idéologie politique de l’Empire byzantin, Paris, 1975, p. 61. 69 PFISTER, Der Alexanderroman des Archipresbyters Leo, p. 1: “eine barbarische Umarbeitung und zum Teil sinnlose Verstümmelung der bekannten Alexandergeschichte.” 64

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intellectual agenda in translating the work.70 As Leo explains in his preface, the historia intended to inculcate practical wisdom through example. The battles and victories of excellent non-believers before the advent of Christ, although they lived as pagans, are good and useful for all Christians to hear and understand, as much by prelates as by their subjects, be they secular or religious, for such provokes them to better action.71

‘Reading’ and ‘considering’ the deeds of pagans ‘who served idols, but still lived chastely and faithfully’ could ‘sharpen men’s minds’ and likewise goad the faithful to ‘show themselves better in chastity, justice, and piety.’72 Leo calls on the members of the military elite in particular to avail themselves of so great a martial exemplar so that they might be better milites Christi. To elevate his patrons’ literary appreciation further, Leo makes a brief digression to catalogue the other noteworthy books in John and Theodora’s collection besides Christian scripture: “A Historiographia, or Chronographia, Josephus, Titus Livius, Dyonisius, the best preacher of the celestial virtues, and many other diverse teachers.”73 For the mapping of textual communities, the list is remarkable because the collection is so easily connected to other manuscripts from the region. John’s copy of De bello Judaico (MC 123) as well as two leaves from the first decade of his Livy (Univerzitní Karlova VII A 16/9) survive. Another eleventh-century Josephus survives from nearby Benevento (Naples V F 34), and a slightly later Beneventan script manuscript has a provenance of Viterbo (Paris lat. 5048), perhaps all emanating from the same local exemplars.74 The Alexander Romance was by far the most exotic text in the list. The Josephus was available in Latin at least by the age of Cassiodorus. Theophanes’s Chronographia and the Pseudo-Dionysius had been disseminated in Carolingian 70 See the general assessment in D. KRATZ, Leo of Naples’ Alexander Romance: Text and Translation, in Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 25 (1990), p. 225–234, at p. 225. 71 Leo of Naples, Historia de preliis Alexandri Magni, pro. 1: Certamina vel victorias excellentium virorum infidelium ante adventum Christi, quamvis exstitissent pagani, bonum et utile est omnibus Christianis ad audiendum et intelligendum tam praelatis quam subditis, videlicet saecularibus et spiritualibus viris, quia cunctos ad meliorem provocat actionem. 72 Leo of Naples, Historia de preliis Alexandri Magni, pro. 1: Nam prelati, id est rectores, legendo et considerando, quemadmodum praedicti pagani idolis servientes agebant se, caste et fideliter atque in omnibus se inreprehensibiliter ostendebant, per eorum exempla bonorum operum ita acuant mentes suas, eo quod fideles ut membra Christi esse videntur, ut multo magis meliores se illis demonstrent in castitate et iusticia atque pietate. 73 Leo of Naples, Historia de preliis Alexandri Magni, pro. 1: Maxime ecclesiasticos libros, Vetus scilicet atque Novum Testamentum, funditus renovavit atque composuit. Inter quos historiographiam videlicet vel chronographiam, Joseppum vero et Titum Livium atque Dyonisium, caelestium virtutum optimum predicatorem, atque ceteros quam plurimos et diversos doctores. 74 NEWTON, The Scriptorium and Library at Monte Cassino, p. 277–278; H. SCHRECKENBURG, Die Flavius-Josephus-Tradition in Antike und Mittelalter, Leiden, 1972, p. 56–62. The roughly contemporaneous Hebrew Sefer Josippon, a chronicle drawing on Josephus that narrates Jewish history from the creation of Adam to the siege at Messada, also draws from the manuscript families around southern Italy, cf. H. SCHRECKENBURG, Rezeptionsgeschichtliche und textkritische Untersuchungen zu Flavius Josephus, Leiden, 1977, p. 26–43.

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Italy for over a century. That three out of four were translations from Greek, like Leo’s historia, surely factored into the name-dropping. More importantly, the cited texts appealed to the most palpable expressions of Romanitas at the time, namely the historical city of Rome and the eastern Roman Empire John, for instance, had a copy of De bello Judaico of Josephus, an intimate of the Flavian emperors whose history of the Jews culminates with the Roman devastation of Judaea as well as a copy of Livy’s Ab urbe condita, the fragmentary history of early Rome; he also possessed Theophanes’s Chronographia, the same translated source of Roman / Byzantine history that Landolf used. Pseudo-Dionysius’ Celestial Hierarchy, translated by Johannes Scotus Eriugena, is the ostensible odd man out among the specifically historiographical tracts; yet, although it was a late antique neo-Platonic mystical treatise, not a history, the Celestial Hierarchy held specific political dimensions within Byzantine ideology. Its vision of the celestial hierarchy was understood as paralleling the earthly social pyramid. The imperial court reflected the angelic order. The emperor sat enthroned at Constantinople like God himself and his servants emanated from the regal centre across the Mediterranean.75 Moreover, Leo portrays his patron as an enlightened ruler, who, ‘like a philosopher anxiously seeking out whatever [books] he could hear or have,’ understood the value of this ancient knowledge. Any such books that John ‘discovered in his dominion, he renovated and improved.’ John cultivated his collection explicitly for those ‘labouring” and ‘teaching’, as much as ‘for the health of his [own] soul and the memory of his [own] name.’76 Forever, the readers of Leo’s text would know its patron, his cultured dukedom, and his close connection to Constantinople. Ironically enough, the other early copies of Leo’s work were stripped of the prologue and reworked into a historical compendium alongside the Historia Romana, which exalted instead the wise rulership of the Ottonian dynasty, after Otto I’s despoliation of the libraries of southern Italy. In this way, the Alexander Romance and the Historia Romana in Ottonian hands became weighty instruments for justifying the new translatio imperii from Rome to Germany.77 Conclusion Describing the pied and porous architecture of southern Italy, the philosopher Walter Benjamin observed a “passion for improvisation, which demands that AHRWEILER, L’ideologie politique, p. 136. Leo of Naples, Historia de preliis Alexandri Magni, pro. 2: Primum vero libros, quos in sua dominatione invenit, renovavit atque meliores effectus, deinde anxie inquirens sicut philosophus, quoscumque audire vel habere potuit … quod et factum est, sicuti sequentia docent, omnibus vero laborantibus tam doctoribus quam scriptoribus bonum retribuens meritum pro salute animae et memoria nominis sui. 77 M.T. KRETSCHMER, Rewriting Roman History in the Middle Ages: The Historia Romana and the Manuscript Bamberg, Hist. 3, Leiden, 2007, p. 56–62. 75 76

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space and opportunity at any price be preserved.”78 Ancient edifices, no matter how dilapidated, had inherent value on account of their age, but they could always be repurposed for modern aesthetics. The production of didactic histories in the Mezzogiorno reveals a similar penchant for local improvisation. Available Latin works could be easily re-forged into a novel leadership manual along local perceptions of Romanitas or a late antique classic could be translated from Greek into a new and personalised Latin mirror. The scribes observed in this essay transformed textual relics for the consumption of elite coteries as conspicuous display-pieces that broadcasted the continuity of wise leadership. After all, ‘to be aristocratic one needed the recognition of others.’79 In connecting their leaders to historical figures, especially those rulers of Rome, these works lent a timeless grace and nobility to any who produced, possessed, and patronised them. Bricolage was a natural habit for a region that reflected local Lombard, Latin, Carolingian, and Byzantine traditions. For instance, the monumental marble liturgical calendar, which Bishop Athanasius of Naples (849–872), son of Sergius I, erected in Naples’ San Giovanni Maggiore included both Latin and Greek saints’ days. Some saints by default then were celebrated twice.80 The see, as it were, organised its liturgical year in ways that blended east and west, giving no exact primacy to Rome or Constantinople. Local piety reflected the diverse populations of the region. Or, one could look to the Byzantine mosaics Abbot Desiderius (1058–1087) had constructed for the renovated abbey of Monte Cassino, the birthplace of Benedictine monasticism. Otherwise a typical eleventh-century building for the west, the mosaics gave the building an exotic majesty. Through the artists that Desiderius imported from Constantinople, the habits honed in the East were put to the local glorification of Christ.81 The monks of Monte Cassino who served as apprentices to the Constantinopolitan artisans, went on to construct the mosaics at nearby Salerno’s cathedral.82 Amid the height of the so-called Photian Schism, southern Italians were not loath to look to the East for artistic inspiration. All politics, as they say, is local. The southern Italian artifacts meant to overawe and impress, as well as to secure political relationships, only needed to be justified by local conventions. A long-standing scholarly tradition has interpreted the Mezzogiorno in terms of binary camps, e.g., Italian and Byzantine, 78 W. BENJAMIN and A. LACIS, Naples, in W. BENJAMIN, Reflections, trans. P. Demetz, New York, 1986, p. 166. 79 WICKHAM, Early Medieval Italy, p. 131. 80 D. MALLARDO, Il calendario marmoreo di Napoli, Rome, 1947. 81 Leo of Ostia, Chronicon monasterii Casinensis 3.27, in G.H. PERTS (ed.), Monumenta Germaniae Historica, vol. 9, Hannover, 1846, p. 551–727, at p. 718. 82 E. KITZINGER, The First Mosaic Decoration of Salerno Cathedral, in Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 21 (1972), p. 149–162.

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Latin and Greek. Only recently have modern scholars come to appreciate the hybridity of the area.83 This classical bifurcation, along modern nationalistic lines, missed the character of southern Italy. What held elites in places such as Benevento or Naples within the Byzantine sphere was not a military strong arm or ethno-linguistic affiliation, but a shared language of power that refracted Romanitas through a contemporary Byzantine lens. Romanitas along with Christianity was the ideological foundation for Byzantine self-representation, and those wishing to borrow imperial pretenses for their local aristocratic rivalries would also need to broadcast their Romanitas – at least as they understood it.84 The Latin elites of southern Italy like the Slavs or Bulgars under the Byzantine sphere of influence were a sort of ‘internal diaspora’ of empire. They had their own identities and culture, but they did not flinch to borrow aspects of Byzantine society for their own use.85 Lombardo-Latin figures like John III and Landolf were, in this way, just as much Byzantine lords as the Greek-speaking officials who populate Vera von Falkenhausen’s expansive study of Byzantine lordship in southern Italy.86 These lords and the aristocracies under them, so acculturated to Byzantine styles of leadership, were the precise targets of Liudprand of Cremona’s slanderous Embassy to Constantinople (968/9), which lifted a different mirror of Byzantium to its audience. It portrayed the Byzantine court as decadent, effeminate, and disdainful of the Empire’s Latin subjects87 The propagandistic account, as Henry Mayr-Harting has so elegantly explained, attempted to rally the southern Italian principalities to the Ottonian side as Otto and his successors made more inroads further south.88 In light of the cultural artifacts that survive, we might surmise that Liudprand had quite a task in scraping away the Byzantine flourishes that characterised the local political script.89 83 For an overview of the historiography, cf. G. RAVEGNANI, Orientamenti storiografici sull’Italia byzantina, in C. MALTEZOU and G. ORTALLI (eds), Italia-Grecia: Temi e storiografie a confront, Venice, 2001, p. 1–26. 84 I. STOURAITIS, Roman Identity in Byzantium: A Critical Approach, in Byzantinische Zeitschrift 107.1 (2014), p. 175–220. 85 MCCORMICK, The Imperial Edge; T. S. BROWN, Ethnic Independence and Cultural Deference: The Attitude of the Lombard Principalities to Byzantium c. 876–1077, in Byzantinoslavica 54 (1993), p. 5–12. 86 V. VON FALKENHAUSEN, Untersuchungen über die byzantinische Herrschaft in Süditalien vom 9. bis ins 11. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden, 1967. 87 See the translation in P. SQUATRITI, The Complete Works of Liudprand of Cremona, Washington, 2007. 88 H. MAYR-HARTING, Liudprand of Cremona’s Account of His Legation to Constantinople and Ottonian Imperial Strategy, in The English Historical Review 116 (2001), p. 539–556. For Ottonian advancements into Italy, see J. SHEPARD, Byzantium and the West, in T. REUTER (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. III: c.900–c.1024, Cambridge, 2005, p. 605–623. 89 See, for Instance, P. BROWN, Perceptions of Byzantine Virtus in Southern Italy, from the Eighth to Eleventh Centuries, in B. NEIL and L. GARLAND (eds), Questions of Gender in Byzantine Society, Burlington, 2013, p. 11–27.

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OBSERVING NEO-ASSYRIAN SCRIBES AT WORK Jacob LAUINGER In this paper, I attempt to observe Neo-Assyrians scribes at work producing multiple copies of a text known conventionally in the scholarship as ‘Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty’. Neo-Assyrian scribes needed to produce over one hundred copies of this lengthy text, written in Akkadian cuneiform on clay tablets, in perhaps only a month’s time. How did they accomplish this task? Did they copy the text by sight, or did someone dictate it to them? More importantly, how do we tell? In an attempt to answer these questions, I focus on the horizontal script density of the surviving tablets and fragments, and conclude that at least some of the copies were reproduced by sight. In keeping with the spirit of the conference at which the oral version of this paper was delivered, these written remarks are aimed at any scholar who shares an interest in issues of textual transmission and knowledge transfer in pre-modern societies; Assyriological minutiae are kept to a minimum.1 Conventionally beginning with the accession of Aššur-dan II in 934 BC, the Neo-Assyrian empire steadily expanded from a core territory in northern Iraq across the Euphrates River to the west and down it and the neighboring Tigris River to the south. Most of Iraq and Syro-Palestine was directly or indirectly under Assyrian control by the end of the eighth century, and the seventh century saw Assyria dominate its neighbors in Anatolia, Egypt, and Iran through a mixture of outright aggression and diplomacy.2 Much of our knowledge of the NeoAssyrian empire derives from thousands of clay tablets on which the Akkadian language is inscribed in the logo-syllabic cuneiform script. To be sure, the NeoAssyrian empire employed multiple languages and scripts on various media in its administrative operations,3 but the durability of the medium of clay – especially 1 The opportunity to listen to and learn from scholars outside of Assyriology who are immersed in these issues made the conference at which this paper was first presented a wonderful experience for me, and I am grateful to Malcolm Choat, Rachel Yuen-Collingridge, and Jennifer Cromwell for inviting me to participate. Readers who are interested in the Assyriological minutiae are referred to J. LAUINGER, Neo-Assyrian Scribes, “Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty,” and the Dynamics of Textual Mass Production, in P. DELNERO and J. LAUINGER (eds), Texts and Contexts: The Circulation and Transmission of Cuneiform Texts in Social Space (Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records 9), Boston – Berlin, 2015, p. 285–314. 2 For an eloquent historical sketch of the Neo-Assyrian empire together with a valuable discussion of its heritage and historiography, see K. RADNER, The Neo-Assyrian Empire, in M. GEHLER and R. ROLLINGER (eds), Imperien und Reiche in der Weltgeschichte. Epochenübergreifende und globalhistorische Vergleiche, Teil 1: Imperien des Altertums, Mittelalterliche und frühneuzeitliche Imperien, Wiesbaden, 2014, p. 101–119. 3 M. FALES, Multilingualism on Multiple Media in the Neo-Assyrian Period: A Review of the Evidence, in State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 16 (2007), p. 95–122.

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when accidentally or intentionally baked in antiquity – means that these documents form the majority of the textual evidence for studying the Neo-Assyrian empire at our disposal. These cuneiform texts inform us of the two means by which the Neo-Assyrian empire expanded and maintained its control, conflict and diplomacy. On the one hand, royal inscriptions attest to the practice of ‘calculated frightfulness’, in the memorable phrase of Olmstead, by which the Assyrians would make a horrific example out of one city – for instance, impaling or flaying its leaders – in order to induce nearby cities to submit without resistance.4 On the other hand, contemporary letters reveal the extent to which Neo-Assyrian kings relied on diplomacy as a cost-effective means of maintaining hegemony. In particular, the institution of the adê, according to which subordinate parties swore oaths of loyalty to the Assyrian king, is particularly well attested in letters. But the adê was much more than a simple loyalty oath.5 Rather, the oath formed part of a larger ceremony in which the subordinate party’s loyalty to the Assyrian king was projected into the divine realm and transformed into a cosmic destiny. This transformation was accomplished in part by inscribing a tablet with a series of stipulations to which the subordinate party had to adhere and then impressing into it a cylinder seal whose inscription identifies it as the chief god of Assyria Aššur’s Seal of Destinies. In this way, the tablet in question became a Tablet of Destinies, known elsewhere from Mesopotamian mythology, and the inscribed stipulations became divinely ordained. These ‘adê-tablets’, as they were called by the Assyrians, were themselves possessed of a divinity that may be conveyed by the English word ‘icon’.6 We are fortunate to possess the actual texts, either in whole or in part, of around a dozen of these adê.7 Most are found on archival unica produced by the Assyrian chancellery, but for one particular adê, the so-called Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty (hereafter, EST), we are fortunate to possess multiple exemplars of the actual ‘adê-tablet’ impressed with the Seal of Destinies. We have at least 11 exemplars: nine from the Assyrian city of Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), 4 A.T. OLMSTEAD, The Calculated Frightfulness of Ashur Nasir Apal, in Journal of the American Oriental Society 38 (1918), p. 209–263. 5 J. LAUINGER, The Neo-Assyrian adê: Treaty, Oath, or Something Else?, in Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte 19 (2013), p. 99–115. 6 H.U. STEYMANS, Die neuassyrische Vertragsrhetorik der “Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon” und das Deuteronomium, in G. BRAULIK (ed.), Das Deuteronomium, Frankfurt am Main, 2003, p. 89–152, at p. 93; K. RADNER, Assyrische ṭuppi adê als Vorbild für Deuteronomium 28, 20–44?, in M. WITTE et al. (eds), Die deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerke: Redaktions- und religionsgeschichtliche Perspektiven zur “Deuteronomismus” – Diskussion in Tora und Vorderen Propheten, Berlin – New York, 2006, p. 351–378, at p. 373. 7 For editions, see S. PARPOLA and K. WATANABE, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths, in State Archives of Assyria 2, Helsinki, 1988, and E. FRAHM, Historische und historisch-literarische Texte, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur literarischen Inhalts 3 (Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 121), Wiesbaden, 2009, p. 127–136.

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at least one from the Assyrian city of Assur, and one from the north Levantine city of Tell Tayinat (ancient Kullania), the capital of an Assyrian province of the same name.8 That so many ‘adê tablets’ of EST have survived to the modern day is probably no accident but rather a direct consequence of the great quantity that were produced in antiquity. In the spring of 672 BC, responding to either external or internal pressures, the Assyrian king Esarhaddon followed in the footsteps of his father Sennacherib and required the entire populace of Assyria to swear a loyalty oath and enter into an adê to support the accession of the new crown prince Aššurbanipal when Esarhaddon should die. With exemplars of EST recording adê’s of both provincial bureaucrats (the governor and his administrators who appear in the Tayinat tablet) as well as ‘vassal’ kings (the Median city-lords who appear in the Nimrud tablets), it is clear that Esarhaddon intended the oath to be sworn by those populations under both Assyria’s direct and also its indirect control. Consequently, an exemplar of EST was produced for each Assyrian province and ‘vassal’ kingdom. Furthermore, there is good reason to speculate that other exemplars were produced for members of the royal family and important occupational groups, such as chancellery scribes and scholars, in Assyria. Two recent estimates have hazarded a minimum total of 110 tablets and a more probable total of about 200.9 Some circumstantial evidence may suggest that production of the exemplars of EST began about a month before the ceremony establishing the adê occurred. Since each exemplar of EST is around 670 lines, the Assyrian chancellery would have been required to generate 70,000–135,000 lines of text in a month’s time. This total works out to 2,300–4,500 lines of text every day, not taking into account the time necessary to form and lay out the tablets on which the text of the adê was inscribed. In the words of one scholar, we encounter an episode of textual ‘mass production’.10 The exemplars of EST, then, provide a unique laboratory in which to watch ancient scribes practice their craft. In particular, this laboratory is one that may be well suited to addressing the vexing question of whether the scribes in question reproduced the exemplars of EST by means of copying (i.e., via visual access 8 LAUINGER, The Neo-Assyrian adê, p. 104. For a composite edition of the text that incorporates the exemplars from Nimrud and Assur, see PARPOLA and WATANABE, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths, No. 6. The Tayinat exemplar was excavated after the publication of this edition and therefore is not incorporated in it; for its edition, see J. LAUINGER, Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty at Tell Tayinat: Text and Commentary, in Journal of Cuneiform Studies 64 (2012), p. 87– 123. 9 For the first total, see LAUINGER, Neo-Assyrian Scribes, p. 289–291; for the second, see M. FALES, After Ta῾yinat: The New Status of Esarhaddon’s adê for Assyrian Political History, in Revue d’Assyriologie 106 (2012), p. 133–158, at p. 148 with n. 96. 10 K. WATANABE, Esarhaddon’s Succession Oath Documents Reconsidered in Light of the Tayinat Version, in Orient 49 (2014), p. 145–170, at p. 161.

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to a master copy) or dictation (i.e., via aural access to a master copy). The compressed time frame in which the exemplars were produced renders virtually null the possibility of significant redactional differences in response to changing historical circumstances, as occurs with Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions. Moreover, the methodological issue of the fixedness of an ancient text that rightly concerns studies of pre-modern texts, especially literary texts, is happily irrelevant: The exemplars of EST possessed a status as ‘Tablets of Destinies’, meaning that its text was in fact fixed. Nonetheless, hundreds if not thousands of small variants, both textual and physical, exist in the exemplars of EST, and we can hope that these variants may reflect the exceptional circumstances in which the Neo-Assyrian scribes laboured, and allow us to observe their method of textual reproduction. I follow previous scholars in attempting to reconstruct the process of the textual reproduction through an assessment of features that vary between the duplicate documents. Typically in such discussions, these features under examination are textual variants. But I am cautious in seeing textual variants as diagnostic of copying or dictation when studied in isolation. A phonetic variant may have been made by someone giving dictation but also by a scribe’s auto-dictation while copying from sight; an intelligible visual variant may have been made by a scribe copying from sight but also by someone giving dictation.11 A visual variant that is not intelligible should in theory be diagnostic of copying (presumably such a variant would not be read by someone giving dictation), but I also am cautious about assuming a priori what was or was not intelligible to an ancient reader. Ideally, any conclusions made on the basis of visual variants that are not intelligible are supported by evidence of another nature. Another approach is to study the physical, not textual, variants between duplicate documents. The physical form of a document, the layout of the text on the page, script density, the presence or absence of non-textual features such as line rulings or ticks marking line counts, and many other features all have the potential to reflect a text’s method of production. The utility of this method increases in potential when one feature varies dramatically between duplicate documents in the face of a physical uniformity that is otherwise widespread. For this reason, a focus on physical variants has great potential to illuminate the method by which EST was reproduced. As befitting documents that were ‘mass produced’, the tablets inscribed with EST show great physical uniformity. Although only a few tablets are preserved well enough for their height and width to be judged, these are all approximately 43 (height) × 20 (width) cm. On all the exemplars, the text is arranged in four columns by means of vertical rulings on both the obverse and the reverse; for all, the text on the tablet’s reverse is accessed by rotating the tablet around its vertical axis, which is quite atypical for 11 M. WORTHINGTON, Principles of Akkadian Textual Criticism (Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records 1), Boston – Berlin, 2012, p. 98–99, citing previous literature.

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Fig. 1. Variable horizontal script density of lines 85–89 in two Mss of EST (image © the Trustees of the British Museum)

cuneiform tablets. Around a third of the way down the obverse, all exemplars contain a space for seal impressions that is marked out by vertical and horizontal rulings and is roughly identical in size. From the manner in which text and seal impressions occasionally run over the rulings, it is also clear that the exemplars were created according to identical steps of production: 1. The tablet was formed; 2. The vertical and horizontal rulings were laid out; 3. The text was inscribed on the tablet; 4. The tablet was sealed. For all exemplars, the vertical script density is consistent at about 2.5 lines/centimetre. In the face of this overwhelming physical uniformity, one physical variant stands out: Horizontal script density is widely variable, as can be seen in Fig. 1. The figure juxtaposes lines 85–89 (according to the numbering of the composite text of EST) on two different exemplars. Although the left side of Ms 39 is broken, it is clear that the horizontal script density of the two exemplars is quite different. The script density of the two texts is comparable in line 85 but varies greatly in line 86. Ms 27 displays a relatively high density in contrast to Ms 39, and, as a result of this difference, line 86 of Ms 27 contains 17 signs while the same line of Ms 39 originally contained only 12. The variation in horizontal script density continues over the next three lines as well. It is high in Ms 27 until the end of line 89, while lines of high and low density alternate in Ms 39. If we assume that scribes maintained an average horizontal script density over the course of reproducing a document (with that average quantifying a variety of realities, such as a continually-high density, a continually-low density, a generallyhigh density with punctuated low density occurrences, as in Ms 27, or alternating high and low density lines as in Ms 39), then we expect that a scribe who wrote a script with a high average horizontal script density would utilize less of the surface of a tablet in reproducing the complete text than a scribe who wrote a script with a low average horizontal script density. A comparison of Mss 27 and 39 seems to confirm this assumption. Lines 85–89 of the composite text occur in column ii of both exemplars but in different places on the tablet. Although it is not entirely obvious from Figure 1, in Ms 27 – the exemplar with the higher average horizontal script density – the lines occur near the top of column, well above the seal impression that cuts across every tablet inscribed with EST about one-third of the way

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down the obverse, while in Ms 39 – the exemplar with the lower script density – this seal impression actually bisects the passage in question, since it occurs significantly further down column ii. But the assumption of regular script density over a manuscript is challenged when we compare this variable across all eight columns. To begin, we must clarify that measuring the horizontal script density of EST as a whole is not as simple as taking a ruler to the copies of the text that survive. Unfortunately, the nine exemplars of EST from Nimrud exist in the form of 92 distinct fragments. Although we know that these fragments comprise nine discreet manuscripts – because no line ever appears in more than nine fragments – we currently have no way of associating fragments with particular manuscripts. Therefore, although we could measure the horizontal script density of individual fragments, these measurements would tell us nothing about variation in that density over entire manuscripts. There is, however, another way to approach the issue. The text was written over eight columns for each tablet, and fortunately for us, the beginnings of these columns are preserved in at least five and as many as 11 fragments for each column. We are of course unable to associate these fragments with particular manuscripts. Nonetheless, we can compare the script density of the manuscripts to which the fragments originally belonged relative to each other by using the composite text as a benchmark, that is, by determining what line of the composite text is found in those fragments preserving the beginning of each column. Fig. 2 illustrates this process. The beginning of column vi of EST is preserved on only five fragments, which are gathered in this figure. As is clear, this column begins with a different line in each fragment, and we can locate these lines relative to each other by reference to the composite text. For instance, column vi of Ms x12 begins at line 455 of the composite text, while column vi of Ms 36 begins at line 390 of the composite text. Therefore, we can conclude that Ms x12 contained 65 more lines of the composite text – or almost 10% of the roughly 670 line text – in its first five columns than Ms x12. On the basis of the assumption discussed above, we expected that if horizontal script density remained constant during the process of reproducing the text, then a scribe with a narrow hand would complete the text using less of the surface of the tablet than a scribe with a wide hand. If this expectation is valid, it should manifest itself in the range between highest and lowest line of the composite text found for each column. Range should increase across columns as high-density scribes write relatively more text in each column at the same time as low-density scribe write relatively less. However, when we graph the range of lines of the composite text found at column beginnings across columns ii–viii, we get a different picture, as can be seen in Fig. 3.12 For the data on which the graph in Fig. 3 is derived, see LAUINGER, Neo-Assyrian Scribes, p. 312. 12

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Fig. 2. The five extant fragments preserving column vi of EST

Fig. 3. Chart showing range of lines of the composite text of EST found at the beginning of columns

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In accordance with our expectations, the range increases steadily over columns ii–iv. But contrary to our expectations, the range dips slightly at column v, rises to its highest measurement in column vi, and then decreases slightly in column vii and precipitously in column viii. This unexpected outcome signifies that the assumption underlying it – that horizontal script density remained constant during the process of reproducing an exemplar of EST – is false. In fact, this observation is quite meaningful for the larger question with which this paper is concerned, whether the manuscripts of EST were reproduced by copying or dictation. To begin, we should remember that the tablets on which EST was inscribed were all a standard size of about 43 (height) × 20 (width) cm, a size undoubtedly required in part by their function not just as bearers of text but, as discussed above, something approaching icons. In other words, the length of the text needed to accommodate the size of the tablet as much as the size of the tablet needed to accommodate the length of text. This realization, in turn, explains the decrease in range found in Figure 3 beginning at column vii: As the scribe with the wide hand approached the last quarter of the text, he increased his horizontal script density to ensure that he would be able to complete the text by the end of column viii, while the scribe with the narrow hand correspondingly reduced his horizontal script density in order to ensure that he would not finish reproducing the text before the end of column viii. The most obvious way for scribes to realize that only a quarter of the text remained to be reproduced is, of course, by having visual access to it, i.e., the method of reproduction was copying. However, it is conceivable that a scribe who was familiar with EST could have recognised that the end of the text was approaching via dictation since the final quarter of this text coincides roughly with the beginning of the so-called Ceremonial Curse section that concludes it. But the unexpected dip in range at the beginning of column v seems decisive for copying. On a tablet ruled with four columns on its obverse and reverse, column v is, significantly, the first column of the reverse. Strikingly, three of the 11 extant exemplars begin this column with line 336 of the composite text, the beginning of one of a series of stipulations prohibiting the fomenting of strife within the royal family. In other words, on three occasions, scribes chose to complete the obverse and turn to the reverse at the exact same place in the text. To do so, these scribes decreased their horizontal script density in column iv, which explains the corresponding decrease in range from column iv to column v found in the graph in Figure 3. The unremarkable nature of the preceding stipulations makes it much more likely that the scribes in question recognised that they were approaching line 335 – and thus what needed to be the final line of the obverse – by having visual rather than aural access to the text that they were reproducing. In conclusion, studying the physical features of the surviving exemplars of EST, and in particular horizontal script density, allows us to conclude that the Neo-Assyrian scribes employed copying in order to produce at least some of

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the exemplars.13 Hopefully future studies can prove or disprove whether the NeoAssyrian scribes who were so hard at work in the spring of 672 BC also used other methods of textual reproduction. Bibliography M. FALES, Multilingualism on Multiple Media in the Neo-Assyrian Period: A Review of the Evidence, in State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 16 (2007), p. 95–122. M. FALES, After Ta῾ yinat: The New Status of Esarhaddon’s adê for Assyrian Political History, in Revue d’Assyriologie 106 (2012), p. 133–158. E. FRAHM, Historische und historisch-literarische Texte, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur literarischen Inhalts 3 (Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen OrientGesellschaft 121), Wiesbaden, 2009. J. LAUINGER, Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty at Tell Tayinat: Text and Commentary, in Journal of Cuneiform Studies 64 (2012), p. 87–123. J. LAUINGER, The Neo-Assyrian adê: Treaty, Oath, or Something Else?, in Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte 19 (2013), p. 99–115. J. LAUINGER, Neo-Assyrian Scribes, “Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty,” and the Dynamics of Textual Mass Production, in P. DELNERO and J. LAUINGER (eds), Texts and Contexts: The Circulation and Transmission of Cuneiform Texts in Social Space (Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records 9), Boston – Berlin, 2015, p. 285–314. A.T. OLMSTEAD, The Calculated Frightfulness of Ashur Nasir Apal, in Journal of the American Oriental Society 38 (1918), p. 209–263. S. PARPOLA and K. WATANABE, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths, in State Archives of Assyria 2, Helsinki, 1988. K. RADNER, Assyrische ṭuppi adê als Vorbild für Deuteronomium 28, 20–44?, in M. WITTE et al. (eds), Die deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerke: Redaktions- und religionsgeschichtliche Perspektiven zur “Deuteronomismus” – Diskussion in Tora und Vorderen Propheten, Berlin – New York, 2006, p. 351–378. K. RADNER, The Neo-Assyrian Empire, in M. GEHLER and R. ROLLINGER (eds), Imperien und Reiche in der Weltgeschichte. Epochenübergreifende und globalhistorische Vergleiche, Teil 1: Imperien des Altertums, Mittelalterliche und frühneuzeitliche Imperien, Wiesbaden, 2014, p. 101–119. H.U. STEYMANS, Die neuassyrische Vertragsrhetorik der “Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon” und das Deuteronomium, in G. BRAULIK (ed.), Das Deuteronomium, Frankfurt am Main, 2003, p. 89–152. K. WATANABE, Esarhaddon’s Succession Oath Documents Reconsidered in Light of the Tayinat Version, in Orient 49 (2014), p. 145–170. M. WORTHINGTON, Principles of Akkadian Textual Criticism (Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records 1), Boston – Berlin, 2012.

13 This conclusion accords also with that of Schwendner, who, in his contribution to this book, surveys the physical evidence for the practice of copying in Didymus the Blind’s lectures on the Psalms.

WENAMUN: DIRECTIONS IN PALAEOGRAPHY AND STRUCTURE. A PRELIMINARY SURVEY Anthony SPALINGER and Tasha DOBBIN-BENNETT

Egyptological scholarship, largely interested in whether The Story of Wenamun was ‘truth’, ‘fiction’, or halfway in between, has not yet examined the physical papyrus with the same intensity. The present study functions as a prolegomenon to a forthcoming analysis concerned with the entire system of scribal idiosyncrasies in The Story of Wenamun. It was propelled initially by the oddities of scribal practice so evident in this manuscript: not merely the ‘inversion’ of verso-recto, but, more importantly, the use of the ‘verse points’ and ancillary dots in combination with the problems associated with the use of ink.1 While the issue has proved to be considerably more complex, and requires hands-on personal study of the papyrus, we outline here some of the complexities of the scribe’s practices in Wenamun, and their implications for our understanding of the text. 1. The interpretation of Wenamun The study of the literary text of Wenamun has encountered quite a number of conflicting scholarly interpretations, ones often verging on disputes of a serious nature.2 In particular, the emphasis of research has tended to concentrate upon the historical versus literary aspects of the narrative.3 As soon as the basic elements 1 See Section 4 below. At the outset of this study, we had only come across the important study of F. HOFFMANN, Beobachtungen zum ägyptischen Schreiberpensum in hieratischen und demotischen Papyri, in C. EYRE (ed.), Seventh International Congress of Egyptologists. Cambridge, 3–9 September 1995, Abstracts of Papers, Oxford, 1995, p. 84–85. Deborah Sweeney kindly reminds us of the remarks contained in M. MEGALLY, Considérations sur les variations et la transmission des formes hiératiques du Papyrus E. 3226 du Louvre (Bibliothèque d’Étude 49), Cairo, 1971, p. xxiv and passim. 2 It goes without saying that the two major works on the subject – M. KOROSTOVTSEV, Puteshestvie Un-Amuna v Bibl. Egipetskij ieraticheskij papirus no. 120 Gosudarstvennogo museya izobrazitel’nykh iskusstv im. A.S. Pushkina, Moscow, 1960, and B.U. SCHIPPER, Die Erzählung des Wenamun: Ein Literaturwerk im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Geschichte und Religion (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 209), Fribourg – Göttingen, 2005, – never cover this issue. The recent study of C. VANDERSLEYEN, Le rapport d’Ounamon (vers 1065 avant Jésus-Christ): Analyse d’une mission manquée, Brussels, 2013, is useful for its colour plates. 3 For a brief aperçu of Wenamun’s narrative structure, see J.E. JAY, Examining the ‘Literariness’ of Wenamon from the Perspective of the Grammar of Narrative, in F. HAGEN et al. (eds), Narratives of Egypt and the Ancient Near East: Literary and Linguistic Approaches (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 189), Leuven, 2011, p. 287–303. There is now a useful edited symposium volume on narratives in ancient societies: H. ROEDER (ed.), Das Erzählen in frühen Hochkulturen (Ägyptologie und Kulturwissenschaft 1), Munich, 2009. The issue of characterisation in Wenamun

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of the Polotskian grammar of Second Tenses had been brought into discussion by Charles Nims, it appeared as if we had entered into a field of historical analysis in which the exacting demands of chronology, dating and historical background mattered more that the story itself.4 John Baines subsequently placed much care in refuting Jaroslav Černý’s thesis that Wenamun was, in fact, a ‘real’ text, which was perhaps worked upon afterwards, but nevertheless a case of non-fiction; indeed, the papyrus was, at that time, assumed to be a report of a mission, partly based on a ship’s log, or so said the communis opinio.5 Černý, who significantly placed the papyrus to the 21st Dynasty (ca. 1069 BC), argued that the only parallels to Wenamun were to be found among Late Ramesside Letters, reports, and legal documents.6 These words summarise his final statement on the arrangement: when the supplier (or whomever) finished the job, he cut the roll, running from his left to his right. In this case, the cut was parallel to the joins. The scribe or artisan then turned the papyrus scroll along the new cut and wrote on what was, in actuality, the verso or rear. This side was the one that contained the horizontal fibres. By this method, the top of the verso became the bottom of the recto. Because the other cases assembled by Černý were mundane and reflect actual ‘real’ cases, Wenamun was assumed to be non-fiction, a true ship’s log. Baines, eloquently presenting the interpretation of fictionality, provided a strong case against Černý, even if the sound and fury over Wenamun’s literary outlook continued apace in the small professional Egyptological niche. In the midst of this discussion, Gerald Moers twice presented well-argued and cogently advanced cases for fictionality, the ‘Reise-motif’,7 and the contact with the outer world, the exotic faraway places with the native Heimat of Egypt.8 A recent has been discussed by C. DI BIASE-DYSON, Linguistic Insights into Characterisation. The Case Study of Wenamun, in Lingua Aegyptia 17 (2009), p. 51–64. 4 C. NIMS, Second Tenses in Wenamun, in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 54 (1968), p. 161–164. 5 J. BAINES, On Wenamun as a Literary Text, in J. ASSMANN and E. BLUMENTHAL (eds), Literatur und Politik im pharaonischen und ptolemäischen Ägypten: Vorträge der Tagung zum Gedenken an Georges Posener 5.–10. September 1996 in Leipzig (Bibliothèque d’Étude 127), Cairo, 1999, p. 209–233. We can now supplement this discussion with the important remarks of G. MOERS, Vom Verschwinden der Gewissheiten, in G. MOERS et al. (eds), Dating Egyptian Literary Texts (Lingua Aegyptia. Studia Monographica 11), Hamburg, 2013, p. 3–69, at p. 41, n. 206. 6 J. ČERNÝ, Paper and Books in Ancient Egypt, London, 1952, p. 21–22, with his Late Ramesside Letters (Bibliotheca Aegyptiaca 9), Brussels, 1939, p. xvii-xx. This work is epoch-making; his discussion of the sizes of papyrus sheets, the number of sheets per roll, etc., is especially important. These dimensions continued down to the Graeco-Roman Period of Egypt. See, as well, Alan Gardiner’s comments in his major transcription, A. GARDINER, Late-Egyptian Stories (Bibliotheca Aegyptiaca 1), Brussels, 1932, p. xii. 7 Pertinent is the analysis of A. LOPRIENO, La pensée et l’écriture: pour une analyse sémiotique de la culture égyptienne: quatre séminaires à l’École pratique des hautes études, Section des sciences religieuses, 15–27 mai 2000, Paris, 2001; add A. SPALINGER, A Garland of Determinatives, in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 94 (2008), p. 139–164. 8 G. MOERS, Fingierte Welten in der ägyptischen Literatur des 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr.: Grenzüberschreitung, Reisemotiv und Fiktionalität (Probleme der Ägyptologie 19), Leiden – Boston,

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volume by Camilla di Biase-Dyson provides the interested reader with the latest discussion of the same theme.9 Needless to say, the historical reflections of the story are still under examination, as witnessed by Edward Lipinski’s full-length volume devoted to Iron Age Canaan.10 Orly Goldwasser’s attempt11 to establish a ‘middle ground’ between the two opposed logging camps of Černý et al. and Baines, also et al., was based upon a speculation concerned with texts ‘that are written almost purely in the Low dialect’. Needless to say, the word ‘dialect’ is perhaps misapplied here,12 but more significantly, and seriously contradicting her supposition, is the date of Wenamun and the presence of a series of narrative presentation opposed to the genre of Late Egyptian Stories. In essence, Wenamun does not fit the Ramesside Age because it is not a Ramesside product. Soon after the proof of Wenamun’s fictionality, and its consequences within Egyptological studies, the manuscript was reiterated as being firmly a 21st Dynasty ‘product’, and not merely to be set at the immediate beginning of the postImperial era.13 Yet its historical setting still remained as an issue. One may view the repercussions of this important re-evaluation in two key articles of Arno Egberts.14 Note that we are referring to the dating of the extant papyrus or ‘text’ and are not discussing the temporal setting of the narrative. While certain linguistic 2001. Add his earlier chapter G. MOERS, Travel as Narrative in Egyptian Literature, in G. MOERS (ed.), Definitely: Egyptian Literature: Proceedings of the Symposium “Ancient Egyptian Literature: History and Forms”, Los Angeles, March 24–26, 1995 (Lingua Aegyptia. Studia monographica 2), Göttingen, 1999, p. 43–61. 9 C. DI BIASE-DYSON, Foreigners and Egyptians in the Late Egyptian Stories: Linguistic, Literary and Historical Perspectives (Probleme der Ägyptologie 32), Leiden, 2013. 10 E. LIPINSKI, On the Skirts of Canaan in the Iron Age: Historical and Topographical Researches (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 153), Leuven, 2006, p. 163–164. 11 O. GOLDWASSER, ‘Low’ and ‘High’ Dialects in Ramesside Egyptian, in S. GRUNERT and I. HAFEMANN (eds), Textcorpus und Wörterbuch. Aspekte zur ägyptischen Lexikographie (Probleme der Ägyptologie 14), Leiden – Boston, 1999, p. 327. 12 Essentially, the difficulty stems from the meaning of ‘dialect’: langue, parole, genre, and register? Can one actually (fairly and honestly, we mean), write ‘dialect’? See in this context O. GOELET, Writing Ramesside Hieratic: What the Late Egyptian Miscellanies Tell us about Scribal Education, in S.H. D’AURIA (ed.), Servant of Mut: Studies in Honor of Richard A. Fazzini, Leiden – Boston, 2008, p. 102–110, although the concept of the Miscellanies as ‘pure’ schoolboy-texts can be questioned. Mark Twain, a literary man, did write ‘dialect’. But how fairly? He attempted to produce at least four in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (first published in 1884), and virtually in his own words – the Missouri Negro dialect, the most extreme form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect, the ordinary ‘Pike County’ dialect, and four modified varieties of the last, see K. BUXBAUM, Mark Twain and the American Dialect, in American Speech 2 (1927), p. 233– 236. 13 In this context, see B. SASS, Wenamun and his Levant — 1075 B.C. or 925 B.C.?, in Ägypten und Levante 12 (2002), p. 247–255. I also owe this reference to Deborah Sweeney. 14 A. EGBERTS, The Chronology of The Report of Wenamun, in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 77 (1991), p. 57–67, and Hard Times: The Chronology of ‘The Report of Wenamun’ Revisited, in Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 125 (1998), p. 93–108.

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aspects could have been more prominently discussed, five linguistic characteristics apparent in the Wenamun Papyrus are not representative of Ramesside Age texts:15 the Demotic object pronouns;16 the wholesale avoidance of ḥr in the Non-Initial Main Sentence; the overt use of the –t in the status pronominalis; the writings of certain words: šm (‘to go forth’) and šmw (‘harvest season’) for example; 5) and, the clear-cut examples of Second Tenses.

1) 2) 3) 4)

Most certainly, other characteristics can be added. However, for our purposes none of these five can be seen working regularly – or effectively – within the corpus of Late Egyptian Stories. When first drawn up by Gardiner in his edition of the Late Egyptian Stories, the volume included Wenamun as well as the Story of Horus and Seth. These two texts were definitely the most recent ‘tales’ composed, and even then, or at least at the time when Fritz Hintze discussed these accounts, it was clear to him (and others) that Wenamun did not fit in at all with such literary narratives as The Doomed Prince or The Two Brothers.17 The same could be said for Horus and Seth. Indeed, Hintze noted its anomalous position within the entire corpus, a body of literary productions that was assumed to be part of a New Kingdom, post-Amarna genre. In fact, if we follow Jan Assmann, who postulated a cultural (linguistic as well as literary) diglossia between the 18th Dynasty of Egypt and earlier versus the Ramesside Age, Wenamun did not fit neatly into his discussion.18 15 Many of these facets were already recognised by GARDINER in his transcription in LateEgyptian Stories, p. 61–76.3. SCHIPPER, Die Erzählung des Wenamun, Chapter IV, covers these factors as well, but not in a deep linguistic fashion. See J. WINAND, Études de néo-égyptien, Liège, 1992. His subsequent article, Encore Ounamon 2.27–28, in Lingua Aegyptiaca 15 (2007), p. 299– 306, can also be cited. We also highly recommend J. WINAND, The Report of Wenamun: A Journey in Ancient Egyptian Literature, in M. COLLIER and S. SNAPE (eds), Ramesside Studies in Honour of K.A. Kitchen, Bolton, 2011, p. 541–559. 16 One can add here as well E. GROSSMAN, Protatic ỉỉr=f sḏm in the Report of Wenamun: a ‘proto-demotic’ feature, in Göttinger Miszellen 215 (2007), p. 49–55. 17 F. HINTZE, Untersuchungen zu Stil und Sprache neuägyptischen Erzählungen, 1–2, Berlin, 1950–1952. He noted the difference between Horus and Seth and all of the other Late Egyptian Stories save, of course, Wenamun. The latter posed serious difficulties for Hintze, ones that he could not resolve. It is still interesting to read John Wilson’s comments on the lack of ‘high literature, evidenced by these stories’ in his review of the aforesaid volume, J.A. WILSON, Untersuchungen zu Stil und Sprache neuägyptischer Erzählungen by F. Hintze, in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 11 (1952), p. 227–230, at p. 230. 18 The seminal discussion of this matter is to be found in J. ASSMANN, Gibt es eine ‘Klassik’ in der ägyptischen Literaturgeschichte? Ein Beitrag zur Geistesgeschichte der Ramessidenzeit, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft Supplement 6 (1985), p. 35–52. See now J. BAINES, Classicism and Modernism in the Literature of the New Kingdom, in A. LOPRIENO (ed.),

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For most Egyptologists, among whom we would include Gardiner, Wenamun remained distinct from the scholarly construction of a Late Egyptian Stories genre. The language of the narrative was different enough from Horus and Seth as well as The Domed Prince, not to mention the other fragmentary stories of the New Kingdom dated after Akhenaton, to allow one to posit a totally separate piece of literature, independent of New Kingdom fiction.19 Perhaps as a last recourse, one could argue once more for Wenamun as a ‘re-edition’ of an original naval log. However, the later analysis of Ursula Verhoeven demonstrated that Horus and Seth was totally different from the other Late Egyptian Stories and, thus, could not be viewed as a culturally-produced written product that was read and enjoyed by ancient Egyptians. It was akin to a ‘Miracle Play’.20 But there were key indications that Wenamun was a literary construction, as Alan Gardiner had originally assumed. To any person who reads Akkadian or knows Biblical history, the 1947 study of A. Leo Oppenheim adequately explained the fictionality of the Zakarbaal episode in his throne room, the occasion where the waves of the Great Green virtually beat at the king’s back.21 It does not take a sophisticated, or, indeed, raffiné attitude on the part of the reader or critic to see that the entire scene as a remarkably poetic evocation of space and, with Wenamun awaiting his fate, of time. Equally, the ‘botched’ up chronology at the beginning of the tale, the one that involves the famous message through the sky of the migratory birds, should have alerted many to the supposition that something is very wrong with Wenamun’s chronology.22 If the text was purported to be a real ship’s log, or else closely followed one, why this Ancient Egyptian Literature: History and Forms (Probleme der Ägyptologie 10), Leiden – New York, 1996, p. 157–174; and P. VERNUS, Langue littéraire et diglossie, in A. LOPRIENO (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature: History and Forms (Probleme der Ägyptologie 10), Leiden – New York, p. 555–566. 19 We would also include those tales, representative perhaps of ancient Egyptian ‘historical fiction?’, covered by C. MANASSA, Imagining the Past: Historical Fiction in New Kingdom Egypt, Oxford, 2013. See also WINAND, The Report of Wenamun. 20 U. VERHOEVEN, Ein historischer ‘Sitz im Leben’ für die Erzählung von Horus und Seth des Papyrus Chester Beatty I, in M. SCHADE-BUSCH (ed.), Wege öffnen. Festschrift für Rolf Gundlach zum 65. Geburtstag (Ägypten und Altes Testament 35), Wiesbaden, 1996, p. 347–363. 21 A.L. OPPENHEIM, The Shadow of the King, in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 107 (1947), p. 7–11. Surely, this study disproved the non-fictionality of the tale. Cf. the ‘shadow’ episode: H.M. JACKSON, The Shadow of Pharaoh, Your Lord, Falls upon You: Once Again Wenamun 2.46, in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 54 (1995), p. 273–286. 22 In particular, see E. EDEL, Zu den Inschriften auf den Jahreszeitenreliefs der ‘Weltkammer’ aus den Sonnenheiligtum des Niuserre II., in Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften Göttingen, phil. hist. Klasse 1963.4 (1964), p. 105–115, and O. GOELET, The Migratory Geese of Meidum and Some Egyptian Words for ‘Migratory Bird’, in Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar 5 (1983), p. 41–60 with p. 48–50 in particular. A. SPALINGER has discussed this matter in Nut and the Egyptologists, in Studien zur altägyptischen Kultur 41 (2012), p. 364–365, and also referred to the little known yet significant study of R.E. MURRAY, Migration as Seen in Egypt, in The Ibis 3 (1927), p. 443–468. Deborah Sweeney also refers us to R. BAILLEUL-LESEUR, Between Heaven and Earth: Birds in Ancient Egypt (Oriental Institute Museum Publications 35), Chicago, 2012.

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glaring error? Clearly, the author of the composition was removed, temporally speaking, from the actual (indeed assumed) historical backgrounding of the account, or else he was not an exacting student of Egyptian chronology. Finally, note the ‘youthful page in court’ setting, also at Byblos. Its parallel to David and Saul ought to be obvious to an unbiased observer, and its reflection of a topos self-evident.23 Bernd Ulrich Schipper presented a new and expanded commentary on the late Ramesside story of Wenamun.24 His volume, which became the most detailed and longest work in the debate, was built upon the work of a number of key authors. Schipper refers in particular to the commentary of Michail A. Korostovtsev, which in turn heavily utilised the work of Vladimir Semionovich Golenischeff. In addition, the reconstruction and commentary by Adolf Erman and the further reconstruction and transcription of hieratic into hieroglyph text presented by Gardiner formed a basis of study for Schipper. Yet, the interested scholar must bear in mind that not all of Schipper’s photographs are new ones, taken after those contained in the Korostovtsev edition of Moscow 1960 (from where the images reproduced here are taken). Caveat lector: one of Schipper’s plates exactly reproduces Korostovtsev’s.25 2. The format and layout of the papyrus The Report of Wenamun is currently held at The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow and has the appellation ‘Papyrus Moscow no. 120’. The fragments were purchased by the Russian archaeologist-Egyptologist Vladimir Golenischeff from an antiquities seller who operated in Cairo in the winter of 1891. The papyrus consists of four fragments, which Golenischeff published, as constituents of three sections. He placed two fragments (1 & 3: Table 1) in the first sheet and the third fragment as a separate sheet at the end. Max Müller, in his 1900 publication of the fragments, followed Golenischeff’s placement. However, that same year, Erman proposed a significant correction to the placement of the fragments and convincingly argued that the fragment that Golenischeff had assigned as Section 3, was actually the second fragment of Section 1. This correction was borne out by the translation of James Henry Breasted in 1908, and further supported by Gardiner in 1932. Therefore, the first sheet consists of three fragments, while the second is one continuous piece (see Table 1 and Figures 3–4). See now the comments of MANASSA, Imagining the Past, p. 27 and n. 72, with p. 250 (the protective ‘shade’ event). 24 SCHIPPER, Die Erzählung des Wenamun. 25 Schipper used Korostovtsev’s plates for his Plate III; a photograph of the verso is not included. 23

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Sheet

Fragment

Number of lines

1

1

1–23

2

24–35

3

36–59

1

1–83

2

193

Table 1: Section and Fragment Order, Pap. Moscow no. 120

One of the key peculiarities of the formation of the text is the layout upon the papyrus. The most common format for a New Kingdom literary text is as displayed in Fig. 1 below. Height

Width

Fig. 1. Traditional Papyrus Format

As a papyrus roll is made up of several sheets of papyrus glued together, the scribe writes from right to left, then down the sheet.26 The traditional scribal pose depicted in Egyptian sculptural art is of the seated, cross-legged scribe who has the papyrus laid out upon his lap. In reliefs and paintings, scribes are also depicted standing and writing on angled boards. As the scribe fills the papyrus, he unrolls with his left hand and re-rolls with his right. The scribe could write either in columns, or across the entirety of the papyrus. At the start of each papyrus roll, the scribe would attach a ‘tongue’ of approximately 8 cm. This additional papyrus-piece served as both a re-enforcer for the roll as well as facilitating handling. The scribe could easily hold the papyrus without damaging the writing. However, Wenamun is written in a different fashion (Fig. 2). 26 We are also dependent here upon a series of pertinent discussions with Lawrence Xu-Nan on this matter.

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Width

Height

Figure 2. Format of Pap. Moscow no. 120 (The Report of Wenamun)

The scribe who created the only extant copy of Wenamun rotated the papyrus 90 degrees and wrote right to left down the sheet. This format is not unknown in Egyptian writing, but was primarily used for historical accounts such as ship logs, financial accounts and workmen’s logs. As Wenamun has been conceived to be based on a historical ship’s log, the format would on the surface seem complementary. Nevertheless, the polished sophistication of the composition, grammar and style overtly indicate a literary piece.27 The text may contain historical information, perhaps based on real events, but the resulting extant copy suggests considerable literary re-work.28 After all, was it not found with the The Tale of Woe, yet a second post New Kingdom literary document? To quote Ricardo Caminos, this manuscript “was found in a clay vessel that also held two priceless manuscripts,” and one of them was the “best extant copy of the onomasticon of Amenemopet and the other the story of the misadventures of Wenamun.”29 Evidently, all three had to have been placed together by one hand 27 In the context of the grammar of this tale, we can refer back again to WINAND, The Report of Wenamun. 28 We should comment here on the steady nature of the scribal hand, which indicates, at very least, a re-copy. Had the papyrus been penned upon a ship, one would expect the movement of the ship to be reflected in the state of the penmanship. See VANDERSLEYEN, Le rapport d’Ounamon, p. 17, on the scribe’s literary hand. 29 R. CAMINOS, A Tale of Woe from a Hieratic Papyrus in the A.S. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, Oxford, 1977, p. 1.

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into this urn and at one time; all three are definitely literary. The location was Teudjoy (el-Hibeh) in the very north of Upper Egypt lying in the border zone region between the theocratic Theban domain of Upper Egypt and the Deltacum-northern Upper Egypt control zone of the Tanite pharaohs.30 Moreover, the strategic positioning of Teudjoy immediately led it to become a fortress-city, one where administration of both military and political matters was paramount. The combined weight of the evidence presented by Baines, Moers, and Schipper (for example), alongside the discovery, and physical characteristics of the papyrus do strongly suggest a literary composition. In consequence, Wenamun is the only literary account set out in this manner. One, then, may speculate on the format of the text. Utilising the papyrus in the manner of Fig. 2 for a literary text has a number of benefits. First, the scribe would accurately be able to estimate how much papyrus was needed for the copy. The downward style of the composition would mean that the scribe would have written continuously, without having to break-off to account for a section, as noted in Fig. 1. Furthermore, if the scribe had been working with a limited surface, then this format would facilitate an easier copy. The scribe needed only approximately 30 cm of work surface, rather than the 50 cm required if he was writing as in Fig. 1. It is self-evident that the issue of arrangement has nothing to do with the reuse of papyrus or its purported high cost. In fact, Wenamun was originally a ‘clean document’. The systematic arrangement which is identical to letters and reports may at first indicate that the author felt the contents of the narrative to be reflected best by this procedure rather than utilising the expected recto-verso set-up of (fictional) literary documents. If so, then there would have been yet another fiction: the inverse of what an Egyptian would have expected when first encountering a literary manuscript. (Note that the story would have been completed on page three of the papyrus roll.31) We must keep in mind that the papyrus roll was placed horizontally on the lap of the scribe, and the scribe would easily use the inside of his folded leg as a writing medium and thus unroll the papyrus with the left hand as needed.32 If the scribal statues are any indication, the papyrus can be placed flat on the legs due to the tension that is created in the fabric of the scribe’s kilt as he sits cross-legged. (Of course, scribal statues may be deceptive in their depiction of the writing act, but, in essence, we can accept this evaluation as correct.) In a 30 Conveniently, see K.A. KITCHEN, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (110–650 B.C.), Warminster, 1973, p. 248–250. 31 GARDINER, Late-Egyptian Stories, p. xii. 32 Once more, Lawrence Xu-Nan has provided a keen analysis of this situation. See as well T.C. SKEAT, Two Notes on Papyrus. 1. Was Re-rolling a Papyrus Roll an Irksome and Timeconsuming Task?, in G. GERACE, S. PERNIGOTTI and G. SUSINI (eds), Scritti in onore di Orsolina Montevecchi, Bologna, 1981, p. 373–378.

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vertical scenario, however, such a placement is uncomfortable at best because, if the papyrus is placed on the lap, then unless folded neatly, the extra portions of the roll will be pushed up against the man’s stomach, thereby creating an awkward space for the scribe to work with. This would be especially problematical if the scribe had to unroll his papyrus with the left hand from bottom to top. The position is not only uncomfortable, but the scribe would also lose momentum when he was unrolling. Hence, in order for a scribe to write vertically, it is likely that a tablet or some mounted object was used as a writing medium or board. The tomb of Mereruka provides excellent reliefs of this situation.33 We, therefore, feel that it is not unduly speculative to argue that at least some writers of letters could have used a support medium such as a small flat table.34 Indeed, there are useful representations of such objects in private tombs, especially of the Old Kingdom: stands for leaning papyrus rolls and hand-held small tablets may be seen. The considerably more vertical arrangement of their missives and the presumed ‘irregular’ method of writing on them, a system that can be found as well as in reports/letters35 and legal documents, can better explain the unexpected ‘inverse of reality’. Moreover, Teudjoy was a military fortress in which, we argue, it would have been of particular importance for the scribes to employ some type of support for their activities.36 Yet we should note that the palaeography of the account betrays a keen literary hand. 33 It may come as no surprise that on the dust jackets of two Egyptological works one can see the famous scene of Mereruka’s scribes holding tablets or leaning their rolls against an inclined board: C. EYRE, The Use of Documents in Pharaonic Egypt, Oxford, 2013, and W.K. SIMPSON, The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and Poetry, Vols 1–2, New Haven, 1972–1973, – drawings rendered by Susan Weeks. Of course, see THE SAKKARAH EXPEDITION, The Mastaba of Mereuka I (Oriental Institute Publications 31), Chicago, 1938, Pls 50–51, for a good example. 34 But note, in contrast, B.M. METZGER, When did Scribes Begin to Use Writing Desks?, in B.M. METZGER, Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian, Grand Rapids, 1968, p. 123–137: fourth century AD onwards. Add G.M. PARÁSSOGLOU, ΔΕXΙΑ ΧΕΙΡ ΚΑΙ ΓΟΝΥ: Some Thoughts on the Postures of the Ancient Greek and Romans When Writing on Papyrus Rolls, in Scrittura e Civiltà 3 (1979), p. 5–22. Yet, see W.A. JOHNSON, Column Layout in Oxyrhynchus Literary Papyri: Maas’s Law, Ruling, and Alignment Dots, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 96 (1993), p. 212, a critique of Parássoglou’s evidence insofar as it does not include the professional scribes. 35 For the correspondence of the 21st Dynasty from el-Hibeh, see these basic studies: W. SPIEGELBERG, Briefe der 21. Dynastie aus El-Hibe, in Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache 53 (1917), p. 1–30, and M. MÜLLER, Ägyptische Briefe aus der Zeit der XVIII. Dynastie and Agyptische Briefe vom Beginn der XXI. Dynastie, in B. JANOWSKI and G. WILHELM (eds), Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments, N.F. Vol. 3: Briefe, Gütersloh, 2006, p. 314–339, and The El-Hibeh Archive: Introduction & Preliminary Information, in G.P.F. BROEKMAN, R.J. DEMARÉE and O.E. KAPER (eds), The Libyan Period in Egypt, Historical and Cultural Studies into the 21st-24th Dynasties: Proceedings of a Conference at Leiden University 25–27 October 2007 (Egyptologische uitgaven 23), Leiden – Leuven, 2009, p. 251–264. 36 Lest we be misunderstood, it is not argued here that Egyptian army scribes, in the field or in a camp, necessarily used tables or stands, although for the Egyptian army it might be surmised. Yet, even so effective a campaigner and writer as Caesar probably dictated his activities to Roman scribes who wrote on wax tablets. Later, after the season of campaigning was over, Caesar then reused those dictated accounts as the basis of his ‘real’ work, Commentarii de Bello Gallico.

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It is telling that the other two literary documents from the el-Hibeh ‘cache’ present their texts in the normal fashion. And, as we have noted, at least two of them (Woe and Wenamun) have striking similarities in their narrative presentation. Indeed, on the verso of the latter there is a jotting that is purely mundane and economic in orientation.37 The same may be said with respect to the Tale of Woe. On its verso, three separate jottings38 occur that are upside-down if we follow the arrangement of the literary piece on the recto. Note that these additions were presented rapidly, and not by the same person who drew up The Tale of Woe. Caminos, in fact, felt that this minor section could be assigned to the Libyan Period, by which he meant an era commencing with the 22nd Dynasty (under Sheshonk I).39 Nonetheless, they are definitely not simple ordinary economic transactions. We can conclude that in both cases a second scribe attached a few remarks to the original by, logically to him at least, using the verso. Thus, both literary compositions were not kept ‘pristine’ after being completed. It is interesting to explore this ‘new’ or unexpected system of presenting a literary narrative. First, Wenamun, it must be kept in mind, is a lengthy composition. Although the end is missing, a significant number of pages are still present, which allows one this speculation. Second, it is not composed of a series of small pieces such as love poems or fictional letters. In no way is Wenamun a compilation of various miscellanies, or tractates of numerous sorts that are well presented in the well-known corpus of Late Egyptian Miscellanies. Therefore, we can argue that the extant copy of the entire literary composition was conceived and planned to be written down on a papyrus roll in a certain specified manner. That is to say, the irregular means of presentation was purposely executed. Because of this, we feel that the original copyist, whom we assume was not the author, was used to legal and administrative documents at the key military and administrative centre of Egypt in the middle of the 21st Dynasty. It was not a case of his having to scrounge around for papyri of all shapes or sizes. Quite to the contrary, the extant material definitely shows a purposeful means of approach by the writer. The sheets are nicely formed and in no way vary from one another to any significant degree as, for example, those of P. Sallier III do.40 Caminos, who also discussed this narrative in light of his edition of The Tale of Woe, further remarked that the three Teudjoy manuscripts – Wenamun, The Tale of Woe, and the Onomasticon of Amenemope – provide great calligraphic Conveniently, GARDINER, Late-Egyptian Stories, p. 76.2–3. See as well P.W. PESTMAN, Who Were the Owners, in the ‘Community of Workmen,’ of the Chester Beatty Papyri?, in R.J. DEMARÉE and J.J. JANSSEN (eds), Gleanings from Deir el-Medina (Egyptologische uitgaven 1), Leiden, 1982, p. 159. 39 CAMINOS, Tale of Woe, p. 73. 40 See Chapter I of A. SPALINGER, The Transformation of an Ancient Egyptian Narrative: P. Sallier III and the Battle of Kadesh (Göttinger Orientforschungen. IV. Reihe Ägypten 40), Wiesbaden, 2002. 37 38

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affinities among themselves.41 In fact, from a simple glance at the excellent plates which Caminos provided in his editio princeps, it is clear that the scribe of The Tale of Woe possessed a writing style close to that of Wenamun’s copyist. Caminos further added in a significant passage, one that we believe to be overlooked, that “the three texts, though each written by a different hand, are products of the same scribal school or copying office and very much of the same age.”42 We should also add that, as early as 1977, Caminos had proved Wenamun to belong to either the middle of the 21st Dynasty or even later, within the 22nd Dynasty (ca. 945–712 BCE). However, his remarks appear not to have been immediately recognised. The use of particular grammatical formations in Wenamun and The Tale of Woe are very close as well.43 Hence, we feel that it is not unreasonable to assume that a group of Teudjoy copyists, either high military individuals or, more probably, administrators at the fortress, possessed these important literary documents. One is reminded of the penchant, if that is the correct word, of the Sallier-Anastasi group of papyri which were found at Saqqarah and buried with their owners, most of whom were treasury officials.44 The two stories or tales can be classified as follows: 1. Tale i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. ix. 2. Tale i. ii.

of Wenamun: A literary narrative45 which is exotically oriented. Foreign locals provide the setting: e.g., Dor, Byblos, and Cyprus. Overt emphasis placed on the god Amun; first shown in the dating to the Renaissance Era, as well as in the name of the protagonist. The narrative is formed around a ‘ships’ log’, but the framework is not rigorously followed. The format is in the first person. The plot structure is that of a simple narrative; direct speech abounds. The protagonist is dispossessed. The plot is engendered by the cult of Amun. Hence, it is the deity who, essentially speaking, initiates the tale as his barque needs new wood. The protagonist travels far away from Egypt, and his journey is replete with complications and beset by many difficulties. of Woe: This is also a literary narrative. Some foreign places are specifically required for the plot: the Great Oasis, Libya (Thenu), Naharain (Nahar).46

CAMINOS, Tale of Woe, p. 3–6. CAMINOS, Tale of Woe, p. 3. 43 CAMINOS, Tale of Woe, p. 6–7. 44 S. QUIRKE, Archive, in LOPRIENO (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature: History and Forms, (Probleme der Ägyptologie 10), Leiden – New York, 1996, p. 379–401. 45 This aspect is summarised by SCHIPPER, Die Erzählung des Wenamon, Chapters III–IV. 46 Yet, see CAMINOS, Tale of Woe, p. 67, and note the ‘outskirts’ to the east of Palestine when Se’ir is mentioned (CAMINOS, Tale of Woe, p. 68). 41 42

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iii. The orientation of the protagonist Wermai is northern: Re-Atum at Heliopolis. iv. The framework is that of a letter, and thus purports to be an ‘official’ report. Although it is, of course, personal. v. The format is in the first person. vi. The plot structure is also narrative with direct speech. vii. The protagonist is also dispossessed. viii. It has been argued that the flight of Wermai’s fate is directly connected to incorrect behaviour associated with a divine decree.47 ix. The travelling is also intricate and beset by difficulties. To quote Caminos: “Wermai had a restless devious journeying through Egypt.”48 It is correct that there are major differences between the two plots, not the least of which is Wermai’s resultant ‘injustice, oppression, and want in his newly found home’ of the Oasis Major.49 Moreover, the two papyri are considerably different, physically speaking. Following Černý, the standard size of a papyrus was ca. 32 cm in height for office rolls.50 If 16 cm was the basic height for Middle Kingdom literary texts, the then contemporary full size for office rolls varied between 29 and 33 cm. During the New Kingdom, those literary texts apparently would be just over 21 cm in height. The Tale of Woe is only 22 cm. Therefore, it ‘fits’ the expected dimension. For Wenamun, the scribe wrote inside of his ‘book’ on the horizontal fibres with a 24 cm height good for the vertical lines. Section 1

Lines

Height

Width

Top margin

Fragment 1

1–23

44 cm

23 cm

8 cm

Fragment 2

24–35

18 cm

20 cm

Fragment 3

36–59

34 cm

23 cm

96 cm

~23 cm

109 cm

23 cm

205 cm

~23 cm

Section 1 Total Section 2 Totals

1–83

Bottom Margin

2 cm

2.5 cm

4.5 cm

Table 2. Papyrus Moscow no. 120 Measurements (following Korostovtsev)51

47 H.-W. FISCHER-ELFERT, Vom Fluch zur Passion. Zur literarischen Genese der ‘Tale of Woe’ (Pap. Pushkin 127), in G. BURKARD et al. (eds), Kon-Texte: Akten des Symposions “Spurensuche - Altägypten im Spiegel seiner Texte”, München 2. bis 4. Mai 2003 (Ägypten und Altes Testament 60), Wiesbaden, 2004, p. 81–89. 48 CAMINOS, Tale of Woe, p. 77. 49 CAMINOS, Tale of Woe, p. 77. 50 ČERNÝ, Paper and Books in Ancient Egypt, p. 14–17. 51 KOROSTOVTSEV, Puteshestvie Un-Amuna.

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Fig. 3. Papyrus Moscow no. 120: Section 1, Fragments 1-3

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Fig. 4. Papyrus Moscow no. 120: Section 2 & Verso

201

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A. SPALINGER AND T. DOBBIN-BENNETT

In the 19th and 20th Dynasties (ca. 1300/1292–1077 BCE), the full width of a papyrus roll was approximately 40–42 cm. Full-sized rolls were predominately used for accounts as their size could make them unwieldy. Half-width rolls (20–24 cm) are also extant for this period and were used primarily for accounts. Literary texts were generally transcribed onto quarter-width rolls (10–11cm). Papyrus Moscow no. 120 is approximately 23 cm in width, suggesting a halfwidth format. Korostovtsev noted that Section 1, Fragment 1 consisted of three glued pieces. The first was the 8 cm top margin. To this margin was attached an 18 cm piece, onto which was attached another 18 cm piece. The total height for this section is 44 cm. Unfortunately, Korostovtsev does not supply any information regarding the composition of Section 2. However, as the papyrus was created as a single document, one could extrapolate that the section division in Section 2 might be similar. The height of Section 2 is recorded at 109 cm. Removing the top and bottom margins (2.5 cm and 4.5 cm respectively) leaves 102 cm. This figure is cleanly divided by six, resulting in a probable piece size of 17 cm. Consequently, Pap. Moscow no. 120 was most likely constructed from four margins and nine papyrus sections. Although Korostovtsev did not discuss the composition of the papyrus pieces in Section 1 (fragments 1 and 3) and Section 2, he did note that the papyrus of fragment 2 (Section 1) was considerably darker. As the papyrus used in Pap. Moscow no. 120 was of half-width, each whole roll was cut. As nine halfwidths were used to create the body of the papyrus, one half-width is remaining. It appears that the remaining half-width was cut down again to use as reinforcement of the margins. Two whole papyrus rolls measuring 46 cm by 18 cm and three whole papyrus rolls measuring 46 cm by 17 cm were employed in making Pap. Moscow no. 120. Korostovtsev in his 1960 commentary noted the following aspects pertaining to Pap. Moscow no. 120: 1. The text is written perpendicular to the direction of the fibres of the papyrus (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5. Example of text vs. fibre direction from Pap. Moscow no. 120

2. The top margins of section 1 and 2 have been glued as a separate piece to their corresponding sheets. The direction of the fibres in these two margins run parallel to the text rather than perpendicular (Fig. 6 and 7).

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Fig. 6. Top margin from section 1

Fig. 7. Top margin from section 2

3. The writing on Section 1 is approximately twice the size as the writing on Section 2. 4. The text is predominately written in black ink with no punctuation. Red ink is found on lines 1,1; 1,6; 1,8; 1,38 (1,X+3); 1,47 (1,X+12); 1,57 (1,X+22). On lines 1,1; 1,6; and 1,8 the red ink is used to highlight dating. On the remaining lines, the red ink is used to highlight a sub-ordinate clause preceding a major point; in affect introducing a new episode in the report (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8. Red ink usage highlighting dates in lines 1,1; 1,6; 1,8

3. The ever-present use of dots (see Fig. 9–13) Unlike The Tale of Woe, Wenamun abounds in these squat black/red ‘attachments’, akin to modern bullet points, ones that reflect the use of dictation (or literary construction).52 Furthermore, there are additional dots that mainly serve 52 R.B. PARKINSON, Reading Ancient Egyptian Poetry: Among Other Histories, Chichester – Malden Mass., 2009, p. 184–185. He refers to the earlier studies of Assmann and Goelet. But see

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as space fillers and thus present a neat calligraphic style, one that (again) reveals the ancient Egyptian stylistic element of horror vacui. With regard to the first, there is little we can add to the stately analysis of Richard Parkinson: “… these red points were arguably recitation aids that had been introduced as the old metrical structure became more obscure.”53 Of course, the argument implies that the change of pronunciation, or to be more exact, accentual and tonal emphasis that lead to the necessity of indicating, especially in the New Kingdom, where clauses ended, or where pauses were intended. One can follow the oft-ignored theories of Gerhard Fecht at this point for further elucidation because his presupposition on the change of accept and tone fit it neatly with the increasing demand, on the part of literary scribes, of these ‘verse points’.54 Parkinson correctly observed that in the New Kingdom these so-called ‘verse points’ were not infrequently misplaced. This observation, perhaps, gives further credence to Fecht’s position, now supported by Antonio Loprieno, that the major changes in Egyptian phonology were at the basis of this somewhat demanding requirement to segment the clauses of the language more effectively, as well as the requirement of ‘teaching’.55 Because this preliminary analysis is not directly concerned with the use of the red demarcations, we can first commence with the highly significant name of the chief god Amun. Note the problems with the present transcriptions: perhaps surprisingly, not all are correct. But the use of the dot here has a parallel to the use of the ‘verse points’, merely because both were written the same way. Yet, it is one of the distinctive characteristics of the literary hand of Wenamun to have expanded this minor repertoire greatly. The other uses are commonplace – see the dot above a whole series of such arrangements, ones that Gardiner already saw and briefly commented upon.56 now the latter’s study, O. GOELET, Reflections on the Format and Palaeography of the Kemyt. Implications on the Format and Dating of Middle Egyptian Literature in the Ramesside Period, in G. MOERS (ed.), Dating Egyptian Literary Texts (Lingua Aegyptia. Studia Monographica 11), Hamburg, 2013, p. 111–121. 53 PARKINSON, Reading Ancient Egyptian Poetry, p. 184. 54 Classically, see G. FECHT, Wortakzent und Silbenstruktur. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der ägyptischen Sprache (Ägyptologische Forschungen 21), Glückstadt – New York, 1960; add his later overview G. FECHT, Stilistische Kunst, in H. ALTENMÜLLER et al. (eds), Literatur (Handbuch der Orientalistik I. Der Nahe und der Mittlere Osten I. Ägyptologie), Leiden – Cologne, 19702, p. 19–51. J. OSING, Die Nominalbildung des Ägyptischen, Mainz am Rhein, 1976, is more demanding on this issue. The basic study, however, still remains that of N. TACKE, Verspunkte als Gliederungsmittel in ramessidischen Schülerhandschriften (Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altägyptens 22), Heidelberg, 2001. In the literature one sometimes can see the antiquated theory that ‘verse points’ always reflect schoolboys and their learning. 55 A. LOPRIENO, Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge, 1995, Chapter 3, especially p. 36–37 (section 3.4.3) and p. 39–40 (section 3.5.3); add C. PEUST, Egyptian Phonology: An Introduction to the Phonology of a Dead Language (Monographien zur ägyptischen Sprache 2), Göttingen, 1999, passim, but especially p. 176–188 (versus Fecht, and correctly). For the ‘verse points’, see p. 292–293, referring to an unpublished oral presentation of Jürgen Zeidler. 56 GARDINER, Late-Egyptian Stories, p. xii.

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205

Table 3 below and Figures 9–13 effectively cover this situation. The additional red and black boxes as well as the demarcation zones will be explained in Section 4 below. Dot above Ἰmn Line Number

P. Moscow

Gardiner

Schipper

1,1

Wn-Ἰmn

no

no

1,1

Ἰmn

no

no

1,2

Ἰmn-Rꜥ

no

no

1,4

Ἰmn-Rꜥ

no

no

1,40

Ἰmn

no

no

Dot above consonant cluster including mn Line Number

P. Moscow

Gardiner

Schipper

1,2

Rꜥ (Ἰmn-Rꜥ)

yes

yes

1,4

Rꜥ (Ἰmn-Rꜥ)

yes

yes

1,5

Rꜥ (Ἰmn-Rꜥ)

yes

yes

1,14

Rꜥ (Ἰmn-Rꜥ)

yes

yes

1,37

mnt

Noted as a t

but is a dot, so not clear.

Dot above other consonant clusters Line Number 1,3 1,5

P. Moscow spr ḏd

Gardiner

6c1,975

yes

yes

no

no

1,5

ἰry

yes

yes

1,7

ἰrm

yes

yes

1,7

hꜢἰ

yes

yes

1,8

spr

yes

yes

1,9

Ḏ-r

yes

yes

1,9

Ṯ-k-r

yes

yes

1,9

B-d-r (damaged)

yes

yes

1,9

50

no

no

1,9

ἰrp

no

no

1,10

wꜥr

yes

yes

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A. SPALINGER AND T. DOBBIN-BENNETT

Line Number 1,11 1,11 1,12

P. Moscow ṯb ḥḏ ḥḏ

Gardiner

6c1,975

no

no

no

no

no

no

1,12

ḏwn

yes

yes

1,12

dwꜢ

yes

yes

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

1,13 1,13 1,14 1,14 1,14 1,14

ḏd ṯwἰ (but

in hieratic)

pꜢy=ἰ in hieratic) (but ḥḏ ἰr ḥḏ

1,14

n(y)-sw

yes

yes

1,14

n(y)-sw

no

no

1,15

N(y)-sw-bꜢk-nb-ḏd

yes above

yes above

no above

no above

1,15

n(y)-sw

yes

yes

1,16

Kmt

yes

yes

1,16

W-r-t

yes

yes

1,16

n(y)-st

yes

yes

1,16

n(y)-st

yes

yes

1,16-1,17

Ṯ-kꜢ-r-bꜥ-l

no over yes over

no over yes over

no

no

no

no

&

1,17 1,18

ḏd ḏd

&

1,18

n(y)-sw

no

no

1,19

br

yes

yes

no

no

yes

yes

no

no

yes

yes

1,19 1,19 1,19 1,20

ḥḏ ḏbꜢ pꜢy n(y)-sw

WENAMUN: DIRECTIONS IN PALAEOGRAPHY AND STRUCTURE

Line Number

P. Moscow

Gardiner

6c1,975

1,21

br

yes

yes

1,21

ἰw=ἰ (but

no

no

in hieratic)

1,22

tꜢy=ƒ

no

no

1,22

šmἰ

yes

yes

1,22

ḳꜢἰ

yes

yes

1,22

bwpw

no

no

no

no

1,22

ḥḏ

1,26

šmἰ

yes

yes

1,28

Ḏ-r

yes

yes

1,28

Ḏ-r

yes

yes

1,29

Ṯ-kꜢ-r-bꜥ-l

no over yes over

no over yes over

no

no

no

no

1,30 1,31

ḥḏ ḥḏ

&

1,34

hꜢb

yes

yes

1,35

hꜢb

yes

yes

1,37

ἰrἰ

no

no

1,37

nw

yes

yes

1,37

hꜢb

yes

yes

1,38

sw

no

no

1,39

ἰnἰ

no

no

1,40

ἰw=ƒ

Noted on second

but not on first

1,41

br

yes

yes

1,42

kkw

yes

no

1,43

ἰyἰ

yes

yes

1,44

nw

yes

yes

1,44

ἰyἰ

yes

yes

1,45

br

yes

yes

1,45

ἰ.gm=ἰ

yes

yes

1,45

šmἰ

yes

yes

no

no

yes

yes

1,45 1,47

ḏd hꜢb

Table 3: The Presence of the Dots

207

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4. The use and reuse of ink The excellent plates of Korostovtsev – not those of Schipper – provide basic guidelines for analysis, but only a hands-on approach in Moscow will resolve the quandaries.57 The recent study of James Allen on ‘brush usage’ is however extremely valuable for our undertaking.58 In our estimation – and admiration – he was the first Egyptologist to devote a considerable amount of time, and ink, on the vexed issue of how long it took for the scribe to ‘refill’ his pen. The red boxes on Figures 14–18 indicate where there is a specific change in the thickness of the ink and where we believe that the present state of the papyrus has not given a false impression. The reader will observe that there are clusters of these boxes and we maintain, at these positions the scribe stopped and ceased his work, albeit temporarily. Thus, we have spaced out a series of zones for future work, whilst agreeing with a potential sceptic that the present stage of investigation is very tentative. The black boxes represent possible redipping. Finally, note that the evidence presented by 1,24 to 1,35 – Schipper’s plate is identical to Korostovtsev’s at this point – was too difficult to trust. One tentative conclusion seems to be that the copyist had to restart when he was close to the right of one of his pages, and that it was usually after the equivalent of one line was copied. On the other hand, there are many questions that can be raised at this point, and these marked-up figures are presented only as a first level analysis. We have specified by blue and red circles the dots (see above, Section 3), in order to aid the reader of the hieratic palaeography. For the moment, let us signal the following tentative results: 1. Note the breaks in ink retention and the ‘sections’ of words. By this, we mean that often the copyist stopped and refilled his ‘pen’ at a point when a word ended; check the use of the ‘verse points’. 2. The changes of dipping appear somewhat in the middle of the lines. 3. The small red rectangular boxes provide some of the ‘clues’, although we do not believe that all of these are due to the (extreme) thinning of the ink. 57 One issue must be squarely faced: Schipper’s photographs are very good but Korostovtsev’s are better. Of course, the latter show the state of the manuscript in 1960, many years ago, and over more than a half-century before Schipper’s. Yet, the Russian edition still allows one to see how much degeneration has occurred during the intervening years. VANDERSLEYEN, Le rapport d’Ounamon, Pls I–V, now supplements these earlier photographs, but their main importance lies in their colour reproduction. 58 J.P. ALLEN, The Heqanakht Papyri, New York, 2002, Chapter 3 and Appendix B (‘Brush Usage’). The writing is Early Middle Kingdom hieratic. Both Allen and Hoffmann’s studies (see n. 1 above for the second; add Megally’s comments) are very important for the length of time it took to write hieratic and demotic. His work therefore has major implications for hypotheses regarding alphabetic writing and the rise of thought; see E.A. Havelock, The Literate Revolution in Greece and Its Cultural Consequences, Princeton, 1982.

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4. Personal inspection of the papyrus should confirm whether the redippping occurs after the writing of complex words and not simple ones (such as etc.). However, from these plates, an argument can be made in support of this hypothesis. Figures 14–18 cover this preliminary inspection. Note that ‘segments’ of the papyrus have been sequestered off owing to the faint ink. There were zones to which we paid great attention as well as careful evaluation in order to determine if those fainter hieratic signs were due to loss of ink or, as is all too often the case, the state of the papyrus. One can immediately see the rapid decrease in the thickness of the black in line one on Figure 14 and the similar situation in the following line. Equally, observe the thinning on Figure 15 at roughly the same areas. This ‘rule’, however, is not to be slavishly adhered to. See, for example, line 1,14 and then compare the black rectangular box on line 1,12. The latter may indicate a rapid loss of ink, but we are not sure. On Fig. 16, the situation of thinning may be felt to be clearer, and Fig. 17, as well, is useful for additional evaluation. By and large, we have paid attention to those assumed cases of loss of ink with great caution. In sum, the Story of Wenamun reveals in its palaeography and organization a concatenation of perplexing issues, ones that are products of its writer. We have outlined these problems in order to show, in as clear a manner as possible, what can be accomplished by a careful evaluation of the scribal set-up. Only a new examination of the papyrus with a light table will solve many of the perplexities discussed here, and that is what we hope to accomplish in the future. This presentation, commenced many years ago,59 began as a lengthy study of the palaeography of the Story of Wenamun but ended up achieving many different things. None of them, however, can be claimed to be final. Rather, we have highlighted the somewhat remarkable, or ‘peculiar’, use of dots in combination with the present scholarly analyses of these markings. In addition, following upon Allen’s excellent study of the re-use of ink in hieratic documents, a preliminary analysis has been given here. Yet surely it is the unexpected inverse arrangement of versus-recto that is troubling to most. Because the hypothesis of an actual ship’s log being employed has been effectively refuted for many years, the Egyptologist is left with a quandary that might be best resolved by assuming shear wilfulness or sloppiness even though such a serious misapplication of normal ancient Egyptian writing on papyri is surely more than a result of a mere apprentice’s blunder or carelessness. Wenamun is written in a beautiful and mature hand, after all. It is hoped that a complete study of the scribal hand will provide some answers to the present vexing situation of Wenamun’s written account. 59 The most recent studies of Wenamun have not analysed any of these aspects, and thus we have not included them. In fact, the scribal-palaeographical background of this literary text seems to have been overlooked during so many recent years of mature literary analysis.

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Figure 9. Papyrus Moscow no. 120, 1, 1–9, showing the use of dots

Figure 10. Papyrus Moscow no. 120, 1, 8–18, showing the use of dots

WENAMUN: DIRECTIONS IN PALAEOGRAPHY AND STRUCTURE

Figure 11. Papyrus Moscow no. 120, 1, 18–27, showing the use of dots

Figure 12. Papyrus Moscow no. 120, 1, 24–35, showing the use of dots

211

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Figure 13. Papyrus Moscow no. 120, 1, 36–48, showing the use of dots

Figure 14. Papyrus Moscow no. 120, 1, 1–9, showing the use and reuse of ink

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213

Figure 15. Papyrus Moscow no. 120, 1, 8–18, showing the use and reuse of ink

Figure 16. Papyrus Moscow no. 120, 1, 18–27, showing the use and reuse of ink

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Figure 17. Papyrus Moscow no. 120, 1, 36–48, showing the use and reuse of

Figure 18. Papyrus Moscow no. 120, 1, 48–59, showing the use and reuse of ink

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215

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N. TACKE, Verspunkte als Gliederungsmittel in ramessidischen Schülerhandschriften (Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altägyptens 22), Heidelberg, 2001. THE SAKKARAH EXPEDITION, The Mastaba of Mereuka I (Oriental Institute Publications 31), Chicago, 1938. C. VANDERSLEYEN, Le rapport d’Ounamon (vers 1065 avant Jésus-Christ): Analyse d’une mission manquée, Brussels, 2013. P. VERNUS, Langue littéraire et diglossia, in A. LOPRIENO (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Literature: History and Forms (Probleme der Ägyptologie 10), Leiden – New York, 1996, p. 555–566. U. VERHOEVEN, Ein historischer ‘Sitz im Leben’ für die Erzählung von Horus und Seth des Papyrus Chester Beatty I, in M. SCHADE-BUSCH (ed.), Wege öffnen. Festschrift für Rolf Gundlach zum 65. Geburtstag (Ägypten und Altes Testament 35), Wiesbaden, 1996, p. 347–363. J.A. WILSON, review of Untersuchungen zu Stil und Sprache neuägyptischer Erzählungen by F. Hintze, in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 11 (1952), p. 227–230. J. WINAND, Études de néo-égyptien, Liège, 1992. J. WINAND, Encore Ounamon 2.27–28, in Lingua Aegyptiaca 15 (2007), p. 299–306. J. WINAND, The Report of Wenamun: A Journey in Ancient Egyptian Literature, in M. COLLIER and S. SNAPE (eds.), Ramesside Studies in Honour of K. A. Kitchen, Bolton, 2011, p. 541–559.

INSCRIPTIONAL COPIES FROM THE ARCHAIC TO THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD* Julia LOUGOVAYA

Introduction “The concept of a literal copy (ἀντίγραφον) is alien to the ancient Greek world,” states Emilio Crespo in a recent article dealing with some Athenian inscriptions of the 5th century BC.1 To support the claim, he refers to Günther Klaffenbach’s discussion of the topic a half-century earlier, which the latter summarises thus: “Für sie [sc. die Griechen] kam es allein auf den Inhalt an, und die Form trat hinter ihm zurück. Der Wortlaut brauchte durchaus nicht in allen Einzelheiten identisch zu sein, vorausgesetzt, daß alles Wesentliche gesagt war.”2 Angelos Chaniotis agrees with this position,3 and Benjamin Meritt in his edition of a copy of a previously known inscription notes “[t]he duplicate copies of the texts represented on these two stelai show many variations, in additions, omissions, and phraseology. They are an excellent illustration of the fact that ancient copies of official documents did not have the high standard of accuracy that we today might expect, and that in the archives of Athens the emphasis was on preserving the meaning rather than the exact wording of an original.”4 The objective of this paper is to qualify these statements, which, as cited, are neither right nor wrong unless and until some definitions and limitations are imposed. Indeed, what Crespo calls ‘the ancient Greek world’ in his paper is limited to * This paper was delivered in the Fall of 2014 at the workshop ‘Creating Authority: Documents as Artifacts in the Greco-Roman World’, a joint event of the University of Heidelberg’s CRC 933 Material Text Cultures, which is funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and Knowledge Transfer and Administrative Professionalism in a Pre-Typographic Society: Observing the Scribe at work in Roman and Early Islamic Egypt Project, an Australian Research Council project. The article was completed in 2015 and does not take into account scholarship published after that year. 1 E. CRESPO, The Language Policy of the Athenian State in the Fifth Century BC, in Incontri linguistici 29 (2006), p. 91–101, at p. 95, n. 2. 2 G. KLAFFENBACH, Bemerkungen zum griechischen Urkundenwesen (Sitzungsberichte der deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zur Berlin, Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst 6), Berlin, 1960, p. 34. 3 “[W]ie G. Klaffenbach gezeigt hat, war nicht die Form, sondern nur die sinngemäße Wiedergabe des Inhalts für die Authentizität der griechischen Urkunde entscheidend,” A. CHANIOTIS, Die Verträge zwischen kretischen Poleis in der hellenistischen Zeit, Stuttgart, 1996, p. 79. 4 B.D. MERITT, Greek Inscriptions, in Hesperia 32 (1963), p. 1–56, at p. 30. For this difficult case see the reedition of the text in J. OLIVER, The Areopagus and the Whole City Honor M. Ulpius Eubiotus Leurus, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 38 (1980), p. 107–114, who distinguishes between stonecutter’s mistakes and deliberately made or ordered changes, p. 111– 112.

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Classical Athens;5 Chaniotis deals with treaties between Cretan poleis in the Hellenistic period; the text Meritt discusses is an Athenian decree honoring Marcus Ulpius Eubiotus Leurus and dating to ca. AD 230; Klaffenbach speaks of inscriptional copies in general, while confining more concrete analysis to a peculiar type of contract in Hellenistic Egypt. Thus, the instances of ‘copying’ upon which the above cited observations are made span three quarters of a millennium and concern a variety of documentary types. Nor is it quite clear whether the postulated inaccuracy of copying is fundamental to ancient attitudes or a characteristic of certain types of copies, in these cases inscriptional. Klaffenbach is in fact concerned with the former, that is, conceptual aspect, when he emphasises the latter, that is, that the text inscribed on stone presents a more-or-less abbreviated version of the document deposited in the archive, and yet has no less authority. It is to explain this equation of the archived document and its shortened inscribed version that he postulates a lax attitude towards copying in general,6 the proof of which he finds in divergences between inscriptional copies and in the evolution of the so-called Ptolemaic Doppelurkunde. In these documents, whose development now is much better understood than it was in Klaffenbach’s day, the inside text (scriptura interior), which was sealed and not to be seen unless necessitated by special circumstances, was initially a copy of the outside one (scriptura exterior); over time it deteriorated in format and legibility, until, after 125 BC, it became an abbreviated version of the scriptura exterior.7 The question that remains unaddressed, however, is whether a similar process of abbreviation and transformation can be postulated not only for the differences between the archived document and its inscriptional publication, but also for the differences between inscriptional publications in cases where more than one was intended. A step towards answering this question may be made by analysing the differences in inscriptional copies. Whether trying or not (I am not) to reconstruct the Urtext behind a set of inscriptional copies, one can hope to detect at what stage in the inscriptional process what kind of divergence might occur – from omissions and differences in spelling to compositional variations. It is also possible to test whether the types of divergences vary according to types of documents, or reflect a uniform attitude towards copying. In order to do so, I have compiled a survey, by types of documents, of surviving inscriptional copies and examined the divergences they contain.8 Besides copies that were probably erected 5 In particular, it is limited to the so-called Athenian Standards Decree (IG I3 1453), to which I return at the end of this paper. 6 The validity of this equation is well worth questioning, but this is not a place to address it. 7 U. YIFTACH-FIRANKO, Who killed the double document?, in Archiv für Papyrusforschung 54 (2008), p. 203–218. For a general overview with further bibliography, see idem, Doppelurkunde, in R.S. BAGNALL et al. (eds), Encyclopedia of Ancient History, Malden Mass., 2012, p. 2209–2210. 8 In my assessment of differences, I am very much influenced by L. ROBERT’s views on flaws of inscribing as opposed to phonetic and spelling variations, as well as by his conclusion that normally “dans les inscriptions officielles le travail du lapicide était d’abord préparé avec soin,

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within a short period of each other or simultaneously, the survey includes sets that derive from special circumstances, cases where an inscription was begun and abandoned, or destroyed and restored; it does not include the crux of inscriptional copies, the Athenian Coinage, or Standards, decree, for which some observations are offered in the conclusion. The material is limited to the earliest attestations through the Hellenistic period; hence all dates are BC unless otherwise stated. Scribal practices as well as principles of public textual display seem to change in the Imperial period and warrant a separate study. The overview presented here has no claim on being exhaustive,9 but it is hoped that it is representative of a variety of types. A. Begun and Abandoned Inscriptions A.1. Accounts for the statue of Athena Parthenos. Athens, Acropolis, 440/3910 IG I³ 458 IG I³ 459 IG I3 459 is an almost exact copy of the prescript of IG I3 458, but it breaks off after the word παρά in line 5; enough of the stone survives to show that the text was never continued. The aborted copy opens with an invocation, θεοί ⁝ Ἀθενᾶ ⁝ Τύχε, which is absent in the longer version, but, as Reginald Percy Austin argues, it would hardly be a reason to abandon the inscription since the line could easily be erased. It is likelier that the stone was rejected because the inscribing was coarse and non-stoichedon, whereas IG I3 459 is cut neatly and in stoichedon.11 The unfinished copy in this case is thus probably a result of the mason’s failure to meet the expectations of whoever was in charge of assessing the quality of his product. B. Destroyed and Restored Inscriptions B.1. Athenian dedication after the victory over the Boiotians and the Chalkidians. Athens, Acropolis IG I3 501 A. Ca. 505? IG I3 501 B. Ca. 455? et puis révisé,” Épigraphie et Paléographie, in Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 99.2 (1955), p. 195–222, at p. 218. 9 Thus, it mostly leaves out duplicate short dedicatory inscriptions, such as two pairs of inscriptions in the sanctuary in Narmouthis in Egypt (I.Fay. III 158 and 159; SEG 59.1767 A and B), which may not offer much help in understanding the copying process in general, but should perhaps be studied in the context of inscriptional practices in a given sanctuary. 10 I give all information shared by copies within one set in the heading to each entry. Thus, the date and provenance may be recorded in the heading, if they are shared by all copies, or be supplied separately with each inscription if they differ. 11 R.P. AUSTIN, The Stoichedon Style in Greek Inscriptions, New York, 1973, p. 62–63.

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There survive fragments attesting two versions of this inscription, which stood on the base of the monument commemorating the victory of the Athenians over the Boiotians and the Chalkidians in ca. 506 BC. In what appears to be an earlier inscription (A), the hexameters in verses 1 and 3 are reversed in relation to the version transmitted by Herodotus, 5.77. The remnants of inscription B are in fact compatible with either version of the epigram and are too scant for us to detect other differences from A. Thus, two possibilities present themselves: either B was a copy of A, or B reversed the order of the hexameters and thus was a result of a conscious editorial change of A. Because of the evidence of Herodotus, it has been generally accepted that the latter was the case.12 B.2. Athenian monument for Choregic victory of Kallias son of Telekles IG I³ 969bis A. Found in Thebes, originally Athens, before 415 IG I³ 969bis B. Athens, Acropolis, end of the 5th century The copy found in Thebes (A) was probably among many Athenian inscriptions that had been moved when Othon de la Roche was Duke of Athens (1205– 1225) and held court at Thebes; it was erected in Athens by Kallias son of Telekles (brother-in-law of the orator Andokides) before his exile in 415. The copy excavated on the Acropolis (B) comes from the restored monument that was set up after his return and archonship in 406/5. It replaced the earlier monument destroyed in connection with the Herms affair.13 The texts of the two copies, where they survive, are identical although the layout is slightly different: the stone in Thebes divides Kallias’s name and patronymic between two lines, while that in Athens keeps them on a line.14 C. International Relations C.1. Athenian Alliance with Chios. Athens, Acropolis IG II2 34. 384/3 IG II2 35. 384/3 or later 12 For a concise discussion cf. ML 15 and IG I3 501. A recent treatment of the monuments and their inscriptions along with a survey of scholarship, see S. BERTI, La dedica degli Ateniesi per la vittoria su Beoti e Calcidesi del 506 a.C. (IG I3 501) e la sua collocazione topografica, Milan, 2012. 13 A.N. OIKONOMIDES, Attic Choregic Inscriptions, in Ancient World 3 (1980), p. 17–22, at p. 17–19. 14 The editors of IG I³ 969bis B (= IG II2 3018, EM 8974) print a double-dot punctuation mark at the end of line 3. However, in his edition of the Theban copy P. ROESCH (Une inscription athénienne au musée de Thèbes, in Archaiologika analekta ex Athenon 6 [1973], p. 142–145) includes a photo of the Athenian stone, which shows no punctuation there, nor does Roesch print it. What may look like the lower dot is part of the lower right-hand stroke of the last alpha.

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Although it has been generally accepted that the fragmentary IG II2 35 comes from a copy of the same document, a treaty between the Athenians and the Chians, which was inscribed on IG II2 34, some doubts regarding this identification have been expressed.15 One reason for these doubts is linguistic, the other is the fact that IG II2 34 has a provision for the publication of one stele on the Acropolis, the findspot of both IG II2 34 and 35; the publication clause of the latter is lost. Where the inscriptions overlap, the following differences can be observed or restored: IG II2 34 fr. a–d. stoich. 30 4. ησιν μέμνην[ται διαφυλάξεν καθάπερ] 5. Ἀθηναῖοι τὴν ε[ἰρήνην καὶ τὴν φιλίαν]

IG II2 35 fr. a. stoich. 34 2. [μνηνται διαφυλάξει]ν καθάπερ Ἀθηνα[ῖ]οι τ3. [ὴν ἐρήνην καὶ τὴν φι]λίαν καὶ τὸς ὅρκος καὶ

16. εῖσ[θα]ι [Χί]ος ἐπ’ ἐλευ[θε]ρίαι καὶ αὐτον- 12. [σας, συμμάχος δὲ ποιεῖσθα]ι Χίο[υ]ς ἐπ’ ἐλε[υ]θ 18. τήλαις γεγραμμένων [π]ερὶ τῆς ἐρήνης 14. [ῶν ἐν ταῖς στήλαις γεγραμμέ]νων περὶ τῆ[ς ε]15. [ἰρήνης μηδὲν, μηδ’ ἐάν τις ἄλλ]ος παραβα[ίνη]-

While the restoration of the missing letters is insured by the stoichedon arrangement, some uncertainty remains because an iota may share its stoichos with another letter.16 It follows, that, for example, line 4 in IG II2 34 may have had διαφυλάξειν, not διαφυλάξεν. But even if all the cases tabulated above were certain, the discrepancies would be confined to the alternative spellings ου/ο and ει/ε. Since both spellings as well as their alternation within one document are extremely common in Athenian inscriptions in the late 5th and first half of the 4th century, the differences in the two texts by no means allow of the proposition, once argued by Silvio Accame, that IG II2 34 is to be dated earlier than 35.17 The fact that the publication clause provides for one stele but fragments of two were found on the Acropolis is indeed puzzling, but there exist other instances where two copies of an inscription that mandated the setting up of only one survive, see below under E.1 and E.2.18 It is not impossible, of course, See S. ACCAME, La lega ateniese del secolo IV a.C., Roma, 1941, p. 9–13 and 34f. Sporadic in the fifth century, it becomes common practice in the decrees in the 4th and 3rd c., cf. AUSTIN, Stoichedon, p. 38–39. 17 The views on inscribing practices as well as scholarly understanding of concurrent variations in spelling, i.e. of Attic and Ionic forms, have changed significantly since 1941 when ACCAME, La lega, was published and hardly anybody today would use the latter as a precise dating tool. It is thus somewhat puzzling to find Slobodan Dušanić claim that “IG II2 35, discovered under the Propilaea, obviously belonged to a later inscription (of 378 BC?), which was partly modelled upon IG II2 34 (lines 7–25)” without any explanation why it is obvious, S. DUŠANIĆ, The Attic-Chian Alliance (IG II2 34) and the ‘Troubles in Greece’ of the Late 380’s BC, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 133 (2000), p. 21–30, at p. 21, n. 1. 18 It cannot be ruled out that one of the copies was not completed for some reason and disposed of; and sometimes publication clauses were not carefully followed: for example, a treaty 15 16

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that the two inscriptions diverged in the lost parts and were in fact records of two different decrees, one based on the other, but nothing in the surviving parts can support this assumption. C.2. Treaty of Alliance between the Aitolians and Akarnanians, 263/2 IG IX.1² 1.3. Thermos in Aitolia IvO 40. Olympia A small fragment of a bronze tablet in Olympia preserves remnants of seven lines of an inscription recording a treaty concerning a border alliance between the Aitolians and Akarnanians. The same treaty is recorded also on a bronze stele found in Thermos, which is now kept in Athens (NM inv.12228). Whatever little survives on the tablet in Olympia shows no difference from the text on the stele from Thermos. C.3–8: Treaties Involving Cretan Poleis C.3. Alliance between Polyrrhenia and Phalasarna, first quarter of the 3rd c. SEG 50.936. Phalasarna SEG 50.887 (supersedes CHANIOTIS, Verträge 1, I.Cret. II XI 1). Diktynnaion The discovery of SEG 50.936 in a sanctuary at Tyliphos near Phalasarna permitted better understanding of the very fragmentary inscription now known as SEG 50.887, which was found in the Diktynnaion, the sanctuary of Diktynna, apparently under control of Polyrrhenia.19 The two stelai record a treaty of alliance between Polyrrhenia and Phalasarna in Western Crete. It is difficult to ascertain differences between the two texts because of the state of preservation of the Diktynnaion copy, which is no longer legible, but divergences appear to be minimal.20 between Maroneia, Ainos and Rome in 167 BC, which survives on a stone stele (SEG 53.658), mandates its publication on a bronze tablet, lines 41–43: ταύτην τὴν συμμαχίαν γραφῆναι εἰς χάλκωμα καὶ ἀνατεθῆναι ἐ μὲν Ῥώμῃ ἐν τῷ Καπετωλίῳ, ἐν δὲ Μαρωνείαι ἐν τῶι Διονυσίωι, “this treaty is to be inscribed on a bronze tablet and to be set up in Rome in the Capitolium and in Maroneia in the sanctuary of Dionysos.” 19 Cf. Strabo, 10.4.13, πρὸς ἑσπέραν δ᾽ ὅμοροι τοῖς Κυδωνιάταις Πολυρρήνιοι, παρ᾽ οἷς ἐστι τὸ τῆς Δικτύννης ἱερόν, “to the west the territory of Kydonians borders the Polyrrhenians, in whose territory is the sanctuary of Dictynna.” 20 Thus, line 5 of the Phalasarna copy reads πόλιν καὶ γᾶν ἔχοντας αὐτοὺς τὰν αὐτῶν ἑκατέρους (SEG 50.936.5), while the pronoun may have been omitted in the Diktynnaion copy, [πόλι]ν καὶ [γᾶν ἔχοντας] τὰν αὐτῶν ἑκατ[έ|ρους] (SEG 50.887.5). The restoration without αὐτούς, however, results in a shorter line of 55 letters, as opposed to 61 in the preceding and following lines of that inscription, suggesting that perhaps the word, which is exactly six letters long, was in fact not omitted. Another discrepancy might be in line 7, where SEG 50.936 reads ἂν παραγένωνται,

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C.4. Alliance between Gortyn and Hierapytna and Priansos, ca. 200 SEG 53.942. Gortyn SEG 53.947 (supersedes CHANIOTIS, Verträge 27). Found in Venice, originally Hierapytna These are copies of a treaty between the already allied cities of Gortyn and Hierapytna with Priansos. The copy, now in Venice, likely originated in Hierapytna, but displays the same dialect of Gortyn as the Gortyn copy. There are two types of discrepancies between the texts. One contains trivial differences, such δέ/δ’ and Πριανσιεῦσι/Πριανσιεῦσιν in lines 3 and 7 of SEG 53.942 and SEG 53.947, respectively. Other divergences, however, are in content. Thus, the invocation in the Gortyn copy seems to be [Ἀγαθᾶι] θύχαι καὶ ἐπ[ὶ σωτηρίαι· Γόρτυνι μὲν ἐπὶ τῶν], as opposed to a longer version in the Hierapytna copy: [Θεὸς ἀγαθ]ός· [Τύχαι ἀγαθᾶι καὶ ἐπὶ σωτηρίαι∙ - - - ].21 Yet, more interesting is the difference in the beginning of the actual agreement, where the Gortyn copy states that the Priansians are to follow the Gortynians, while that from Hierapytna seems to mention both the Gortynians and Hierapytnians, cf. SEG 53.942.8–11 (Gortyn):

10

καὶ οἱ Πριανσιέες [τ]οῖς Γορτυνίοις καὶ τοῖς Ἱεραπυτνίοις· συμμ[α][χ]ησῆν ἀλλάλοις τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον ἁπλό[ω]ς καὶ ἀδόλως καὶ ἑψῆθθαι τοῖς Γορτυνίοις vacat [το]ὺς Πριανσιέας καὶ πολέμω καὶ ἱρήνας … and the Priansians (sc. swore) to the Gortynians and the Hierapytnians: they should forever be allies with each other honestly and without fraud, and the Priansians ought to follow the Gortynians both in war and in peace …

and SEG 53.947.7–9 (Hierapytna):

8

οἱ Πριανσιέες τοῖς Γορτυνίοις καὶ το] [ῖ]ς Ἱεραπυτνίοις· συμμαχη[σῆν ἀλλάλοις τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον ἁπ]λόως καὶ ἀδόλως καὶ ἑψ[ῆθθαι τοῖς Γορτυνίοις καὶ τοῖς Ἱεραπυτνί][ο]ις καὶ πολέμω καὶ ἱρήνας … and the Priansians (sc. swore) to the Gortynians and the Hierapytnians: they should forever be allies with each other honestly and without fraud, and ought to follow the Gortynians and the Hierapytnians both in war and in peace …

The Hierapytna copy is very fragmentary, which renders restorations in many places uncertain, while the Gortyn copy breaks off in line 26. The two differences while Margherita Guarducci in I.Cret. II XI 1 prints καὶ παργένωνται; Chaniotis suggests that ἂν κα παργένωνται may have been meant (cf. SEG 50.887), but κα παργένωνται is also conceivable. 21 Τύχαι ἀγαθᾶι of course may have been reversed, i.e. ἀγαθᾶι τύχαι.

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just discussed, however, are perhaps likelier the result of conscious editing than cutting or scribal flaws: since Gortyn and Hierapytna held uneven positions in the treaty with Priansos, with Gortyn being predominant, the Hierapytnians may have been interested in emphasising themselves in their copy.22 One may wonder, however, whether another discrepancy between the two versions, the reference to the reciprocal duty of the Priansians to the Gortynians and the Hierapytnians, which is present in the copy in Gortyn (SEG 53.942.21– 24) but omitted in that from the Hierapytna, is a mistake or a deliberate abbreviation of the text.23 C.5 and C.6 C.5. Agreement between Lato and Olous to submit to arbitration by Knossos, Feb/March 116 CHANIOTIS, Verträge 55 A. Delos CHANIOTIS, Verträge 55 B. Dera (Sta Lenika), Crete C.6. Agreement to grant an extension for arbitration by Knossos, Sept/Oct 116 CHANIOTIS, Verträge 56 A. Delos CHANIOTIS, Verträge 56 B. Dera (Sta Lenika), Crete Two stelai, one in Delos and one in Dera, bear copies of a decree in which the Cretan cities of Lato and Olous agree to a renewal of the arbitration by Knossos of their conflict over the sanctuary of Ares and Aphrodite in Dera (55 A and B) and a rider to that decree, in which the limit for arbitration is extended from six months to a year (56 A and B). The differences between the texts 55 A and 55 B, and 56 A and 56 B are mostly in spelling (such as the usage of iota adscriptum and assimilation of final consonants) and, in one place, there is a change of construction. Thus, where the Dera copy has ὥστε σταθῆι στάλα ἐς ἃν ἀνγραφῆι τὰ δεδογμένα (55 B.14), the Delian copy reads ὥστε στᾶ|[σα]ι στάλαν ἐς ἃν ἀναγραφησηι (l. ἀναγραφησεῖ?) τὰ δεδογμένα (55 A.18–19), both meaning that a stele be set up, on which the agreement is to be inscribed.24 Another difference Cf. CHANIOTIS, Verträge 27 and notes in SEG 53.942. κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ δὲ καἴ τίς κα πολεμῆι τοῖς Γορτυνίοι[ς] | [ἢ το]ῖς Ἱεραπυτνίοις, βοαθησάντων Πριανσιέες ἀδό|[λως κ]αὶ ἀπροφασίστως καὶ κατὰ γᾶν καὶ κατὰ θάλα[θ]|[θα]ν· (“… and under the same terms if anybody wages a war against the Gortynians or the Hierapytnians, let the Priansians come to aid without fraud and excuse, both on land and sea…”). C. KRITZAS, Nuova copia da Gortina del trattato fra Gortinii, Hierapytnii e Priansii, in Epigraphica. Atti delle giornate di studio di Roma e di Atene in memoria di Margherita Guarducci, 1902–1999 (Opuscula epigraphica 10), Rome, 2003, p. 107–125, at p. 110, believes that the omission was that of the stonecutter. 24 It seems that there may have been a preference in Delian inscriptions for an active construction in the publication clause; one may wonder whether the common expression for setting up any 22

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between the texts is in the ending of 56 A and 56 B. The copy in Delos has (56 A) δόντων δὲ Λάτιοι καὶ Ὀλόντιοι τούτω τῶ ἐνγρόφω ἑκάτε|ροι χέρα τᾶι τῶν Κνωσίων πόλει καὶ αὐτοσαυτοῖς (“the Latians and the Olontians should each give a copy to the city of Knossos and to each other”), whereas the text in Dera (56 B) omits καὶ αὐτοσαυτοῖς (‘to each other’), which may have been considered self-evident in the local copy. The major difference between the stelai, however, is not in the texts of the decree (55) and its rider (56), but in what other texts they include. In the Delian version of the inscription, the rider is preceded by a preamble that includes a date according to the Athenian archon Sarapion and lists the representatives of the parties concerned, while in the version in Dera the rider is given directly following the earlier decree. The stele in Dera, on the other hand, gives the texts of the judgement by the Knossians and of the Roman ratification of this judgement, the latter apparently incised by a different mason. C.7. Treaty between Lyttos and Olous, 111/10 CHANIOTIS, Verträge 60 A. Athens CHANIOTIS, Verträge 60 B. Rhodos A fragmentary copy found on the Acropolis in Athens (A) contains the terms of the treaty and is dated by a reference to the Athenian archon Sosikrates (111/10). The Rhodian copy (B) preserves only the oath of the Lyttians, which is also recorded on A, fr. c, lines 4–16. The only discrepancy between the copies occurs in the clause regarding current and future oaths. In the copy from Rhodos it reads, as restored, καὶ ἐμμ[ε]νίω ἐ[ν τοῖ]ς συνκε[ι]μέ[νοις ὅρκοις καθώς κα συνθι]|ώμεθα (B.11–12), “I shall abide by the agreed upon oaths, whatever we should agree on,” while the Athenian copy seems to have [κα] |[αἱ πό]λιες συ[νθίωνται] (A.fr. c. 13–14), ‘whatever the cities should agree on’. C.8. Treaty between Lato and Olous, 109/108 CHANIOTIS, Verträge 61 A. Venice CHANIOTIS, Verträge 61 B. Souda (Kydonia) The copy in Venice (A) is fragmentary, while the stele found in Souda near Kydonia (B), which was also transferred to Venice, is now lost; it is known from a transcription made by Domenico Molin in 1623. Although the transcription is probably not entirely reliable, it is clear that besides smaller discrepancies there were significant divergences in content between the two texts. Thus, the monument in the sanctuary, which normally involved the verb (ἀνα)θεῖναι + direct object, could have affected this preference.

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copy from Souda had a longer invocation, a fuller dating clause that included the names of the officiating phylae, and a preamble introducing the oaths (B.171– 174). D. Financial Documents D.1. Athenian Decree concerning paradosis. Athens, Acropolis, 365/4 IG II2 216+261 IG II2 217 There survive parts of two copies of an inscription pertaining to the handover of the sacred objects on the Acropolis by the treasurers to their successors (paradosis). Where the inscriptions overlap, the differences amount to those of Attic versus Ionic spelling with no apparent preference in either text, as each preserves two of each (τούς, τοῦ, Καλλέο, and παραδναι in IG II2 216 versus τός, τ, Καλλέου, and παραδοῦναι in IG II2 217). IG II2 216.12 also has μέν where IG II2 217.12 has μέμ, i.e. changing the nu to mu before the word beginning with a labial pi. D.2. Athenian decree on weights and measures. Athens, last quarter of the 2nd c. IG II2 1013. Acropolis Athenian Agora XVI no. 322. Agora The Agora fragment partially preserves lines 49–62 of the longer Acropolis copy which is now lost. The overlapping texts might diverge in the omission of the article τῶν in line 14 of the Agora fragment, if the article was in fact written in line 62 of the Acropolis copy. The relevant part of the line of that copy, however, was not preserved when Michel Fourmont made his transcription of the stone, and thus it is impossible to ascertain whether the article should or should not be restored there.25 D.3. List of contributions for the restoration of the temple of Artemis Proseoa at Artemision on Euboia, late 2nd c. SEG 34.909 (A). Histiaia26 IG XII.9 1189 (B). Artemision 25

Meritt in the ed. pr. opts not to restore the article in IG II2 1013.62 in accordance with the text of the Agora copy (B.D. MERITT, Greek Inscriptions, in Hesperia 7 [1938], p. 77–160, at p. 131), whereas A.G. WOODHEAD in the Athenian Agora XVI no. 322 retains the article on the assumption that copies could diverge in details. 26 For discussion of the finding spots of both copies, see F. CAIRNS, A ‘Duplicate’ Copy of IG XII 9,1189 (Histiaia), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 54 (1984), p. 133–144, at p. 137.

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The texts on the two stelai differ mostly in some minor instances of spelling, thus (Artemision vs Histiaia copies): Πύρου vs Πύρρου (l. 11), Κλιμακῶν vs Κλειμακῶν (l. 25), Τυδείας vs Τυδήας (l. 29), and Παλληνίτης vs Παλληνείτης (l. 38). In line 23, however, the copies disagree in the demotic of Apollodoros son of Apollodoros, who is said to be ἐκ Μαιόνων in the Artemision stele, but in the copy from Histiaia he is recorded as ἐκ Μελαττόνων. The demotic ἐκ Μελαττόνων occurs further down in the same inscription (lines 48–49, probably two brothers), showing that it is a genuine demotic, but this does not necessarily mean that ἐκ Μαιόνων is a mistake. Francis Cairns, the editor of the Histiaia copy, suggests that it is possible to learn which demotic of Apollodoros is correct on the basis of determining the relationship between the two copies. He compares the headers of the two inscriptions and analyses the differences in the formatting. I reproduce the texts side by side in a table SEG 34.909 (A) Histiaia 1

5

ἀγαθῆι τύχηι· ἱεροθ]ύτου Δη[μοκρίτου οἵδε ἐπ]ηγγείλαντο [καὶ εἰσήνεγκαν ε]ἰς τὴν ἐπανόρθ[ωσιν τοῦ ἱεροῦ τ]ῆς Ἀρτέμιδος τῆ[ς Προσηώιας καὶ] κατασκευὴν τοῦ [ἀγάλματο]ς·

IG XII.9 1189 (B) Artemision 1

5

ἀγαθῆι τύχηι. ἱεροθύτου Δημοκρίτου, οἵδε ἐπηγγείλαντο καὶ εἰσήνεγκαν εἰς τὴν ἐπανόρθωσιν τοῦ ἱεροῦ τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος τῆς Προσηώιας καὶ κατασκευὴν τοῦ ἀγάλματος

Cairns notes that in the text of A ἐπανόρθ|[ωσιν] and τῆ|[ς] are divided against conventional syllabic division, while in B the conventions are observed. He believes that both inscriptions were cut by the same mason and he finds it plausible that the mason first cut a text without paying attention to the word divisions, but then was corrected by a supervisor and consequently cut the second copy more carefully. Executing a second copy after the revision would give him the opportunity to correct Apollodoros’s patronymic. Thus, Cairns concludes, ἐκ Μαιόνων should be the correct demotic. The argument, however, is open to challenge: it is far from clear that the inscriptions were cut by the same mason; in fact, comparison of such letters as epsilon, nu, or omega, among others, suggests the opposite.27 The apparently unconventional word division in A might be caused by an intention on the part of the cutter to have a carpeting effect, that is, to have letters occupy all the available space, with the last word in the last line, ἀγάλματος, set off with vacat’s on both sides. This would be a viable and not uncommon aesthetic choice. The cutter of the Artemision copy (B), on the other hand, opted to have conventional word divisions which has led to leaving out small vacat’s at the ends of lines 3, 5, and 6, something avoided in A. Thus, I 27 CAIRNS, A ‘Duplicate’ Copy, Tafel III, conveniently prints two photos side-by-side, but the captions should be reversed.

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believe that it is not possible to determine which design is more competent and, as a result, what the reason behind the different demotics of Apollodoros could be. E. Honorary Decrees E.1. Athenian decree granting honors and proxeny to Lykon of Achaia. Athens, Acropolis, 425–410? IG I³ 174 IG I³ 175 IG I3 174 preserves the first 17 lines of a decree in honor of Lykon of Achaia, and there has been a lot of debate whether eight lines surviving in IG I3 175 come from a copy of the same decree or from a decree passed on the same day and honoring another man of Achaia. The argument for the latter has been twofold: the longer inscription, IG I3 174, repeats twice the location of the stele, ἐμ πόλει in lines 9 and 11, which would be a cutting mistake that would not be repeated in a copy, and if it were not copy, then the name of the honorand would have to be longer than that of Lykon to fit the space; secondly, the surviving publication clause of IG I3 175 provides for only one copy.28 After reviewing these arguments, David Whitehead demonstrates that the name Lykon fits precisely in the restored part of the missing honoring clause in IG I3 175 (both inscriptions are in stoichedon) and adduces the parallel case of IG II2 479 and 480, both of which were found on the Acropolis, although the publication clause of the decree provides for the setting up of only one inscription (see E.2 below).29 He thus arrives at a convincing conclusion that the two texts are copies of the same decree with no divergences in the overlapping parts of the preserved text.30 E.2. Athenian decree honoring Pyr- of Herakleia. Athens, Acropolis, 305/304 IG II2 479 IG II2 480 The better preserved inscription, IG II2 479 provides for the publication of a copy on the Acropolis, where both stones were found, which led Stephen Tracy to suggest that one of them was privately commissioned.31 The two inscriptions 28 For a detailed survey of the arguments, see D. WHITEHEAD, IG I3 174 and 175: One Decree or Two?, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 118 (1997), p. 165–169. 29 IG II2 34 and 35 might well be yet another case of a similar conundrum, even if in a different type of a decree (see C.1 above). 30 WHITEHEAD, IG I3 174 and 175, p. 168–169. 31 S.V. TRACY, Athens and Macedon: Attic Letter-Cutters of 300 to 229 B.C., Berkeley, 2003, p. 52–55, and cf. WHITEHEAD, IG I3 174 and 175, p. 168–169.

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overlap in only 7 lines (IG II2 479.2–8 and 480.18–24), but there seems to be a discrepancy in the omission of the word ἀργυρίου, ‘silver’, after the sum of three talents which the honorand provided to the city, in line 5 of IG II2 479 as opposed to line 21 of IG II2 480. E.3. Athenian decree honoring and granting citizenship to Strombichos, 266/5 IG II3 918 (supersedes IG II2 666). Athens, Acropolis IG II3 919 (supersedes IG II2 667). Athens, Agora Two copies of a decree honoring Strombichos, a mercenary commander who fought for Athenian liberty in the revolt against Demetrios Poliorketes are inscribed by the same stonecutter (the cutter of Agora I 3238) and diverge only in one place, where IG II3 919 omits the word ἀπροφασίστως, present in line 21 of the Acropolis copy: τὰς λοιπὰς χρείας ἀπροφασίστως παρασχόμενος [διατ]|22ετέλεκεν ‘he continued to provide unhesitatingly the remaining needs’). E.4. Athenian decree honoring Komeas of Lamptrai, 280/79 IG II3 884 (supersedes IG II2 672). Athens, south slope of the Acropolis IG II3 885 (supersedes SEG 38.74). Athens, north slope of the Acropolis Two fragmentary inscriptions partially preserve three decrees in honor of Komeas of Lamptrai, hipparch on Lemnos, who as envoy to king Selekos rendered service to Athenian liberty. IG II3 885, which preserves only parts of the first eleven lines of the first decree, records a date in the month of Elaphebolion, which is wrong, instead of Mounichion, which is correct and is attested in IG II3 884.32 Further, 885 must have omitted τεῖ βουλεῖ in line 5 (although the relevant part of the line is lost, restoration is made on the basis of the stoichedon arrangement), which is present in 884, line 4. If the two texts are indeed copies, the differences, especially the mistake in the dating clause, are unusually significant.33 E.5. Honorary decree of the priests of Apollo at Halaisa in Sicily for Nemenios, first half of the 1st c. BC SEG 59.1100 A and B Two similar bronze tablets were found inscribed with a decree in which the priests of Apollo honor Nemenios son of Nemenios. Differences in the shape of 32 M. OSBORNE, Months, Prytanies and the Meeting Times of the Athenian Assembly (300/299– 228/7), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 183 (2012), p. 141–170, at p. 151 nos. 24–25. 33 Of minor divergences, there is a spelling difference in the patronymic, Ἀντιγένου (884.4) and Ἀντιγένους (885.5), which appears to be used interchangeably in Attic inscriptions.

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some letters suggest that the tablets were cut by different engravers; as far as the discrepancies in the texts go, there are four instances of variation in spelling: τρόπῳ/τρόπωι (A.16–17 vs B.16), τειμάν/τιμάν (A.20 vs B.20), εἰκόνα/ἰκόνα (A.24 vs B.23), and αὐτῷ/αὐτῶι (A.32 vs B.30). E.6. Decree of the Eretrians honoring gymnasiarch Theopompos, ca. 100 IG XII.9 236 + SEG 38.875. Eretria IG XII Suppl. 553. Amarynthos The copy in Eretria, which according to the text was set up in the gymnasium, preserves the full text of a decree honoring Theopompos, son of Archedemos, while that from the sanctuary of Artemis in Amarynthos is fragmentary and contains remnants of about 40 lines. The texts diverge in minute details which can be best explained by oversights in the process of inscribing, e.g., in the copy in Eretria the cutter mistakenly inscribed τε in line 27, probably because of the τε in the preceding line; the Amarynthos copy has the correct reading ἀεί in this position: 27

ζηλωταί τε πολλοὶ τῶν ὁμοίων γίνωνται τιμωμένων {τε} τῶν καλῶν καὶ ἀγαθῶν ἀνδρῶν·

26-27 τιμωμένων ἀεί IG XII Suppl. 553.12

… and (in order that) many good and noble men would always strive to emulate those who are honored in a similar way

Other differences include the variation ὅπως ἐκ|φανὴς ὑπάρχῃ (IG XII.9 236.39–40) versus ὅπως ἐπιφανὴ|[ς ὑπάρχῃ (IG XII Suppl. 553.24–25), ‘so that it be manifest’, referring to the generosity of Theompompos, and an omission of κατ’ ἐνιαυτόν, ‘every year’ in IG XII.936 (cf. IG XII Suppl. 553.30-31). E.7. Decree of the Ionian koinon honoring Hippostratos of Miletos, 289/8 SEG 56.999 (supersedes SEG 35.926). Chios SIG3 368. Miletos I.Smyrna 577. Smyrna The decree honoring this officer of king Lysimachos is attested by three copies, of which only the one in Miletos gives the full text. Where parallel texts survive, the most significant differences are found in the headers, which are reproduced below in the apparatus to the Smyrna text (I.Smyrna 577.1–11): ἔδοξεν Ἰώνων τῶι κοινῶι τῶν τρε[ισκαί]δεκα πόλεων· ἐπειδὴ Ἱππόστρατος Ἱππ[οδή]μου Μιλήσιος φίλος ὢν τοῦ βασιλέω[ς Λυσι]μάχου καὶ στρατηγὸς ἐπὶ τῶμ πόλε[ων]

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10

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τῶν Ἰάδων | κατασταθείς, οἰκείως κ[αὶ φι]λανθρώπως καὶ ἰδίαι ἑκάστηι τῶμ π[όλεων] καὶ κοινῆι Ἴωσι χρώμενος διατελεῖ, ἀγα[θῆι τύ]χηι, δεδόχθαι τῶι κοινῶι, ἐπαινέσαι Ἱππ[όστρα]τον Ἱπποδήμου Μιλήσιον ἀρετῆς ἕνεκ[ε καὶ] εὐνοίας ἣν ἔχων διατελεῖ πρὸς τὸ κοιν[ὸν τὸ] Ἰώνων, . . .

1-2 τῶν τρε[ισκαί]|δεκα πόλεων om. SEG 56.999, SIG3 368 2 [Ἱπποδ]άμου SEG 56.999 4-5 ἐπὶ τῶν πόλεων τῶν Ἰώνων SIG3 368.3, [ἐπι τ]ῶν πόλεων τῶν [- - -] SIG3 368.4 5 οἰκείως I.Smyrna 577, SIG3 368, οἰκεῖος ὢν SEG 56.999 8 τῶι κοινῶι τῶι Ἰώνων SIG3 368, SEG 56.999 9 Ἱπποδάμου SEG 56.999, Μιλήσιον om. SIG3 368

Resolved by the koinon of the thirteen poleis of the Ionians: Since Hippostratos, son of Hippodemos, of Miletos, a friend of King Lysimachus and appointed strategos in charge of the Ionian cities, continues to treat in a friendly and beneficent way each city individually and the Ionians as a whole, with good fortune, be it resolved by the koinon to praise Hippostratos son of Hippodemos of Miletos for his virtue and the good-will which he continues to hold toward the koinon of the Ionians…

The copy from Smyrna specifies that the Ionian koinon unified thirteen cities and uses a somewhat loftier expression to describe the appointment of Hippostratos as strategos over ‘the Ionian cities’ (τῶμ πόλε[ων] τῶν Ἰάδων) where the other two copies have the ‘cities of the Ionians’ (ἐπὶ τῶν πόλεων τῶν Ἰώνων). This special pride may have derived from the recent inclusion of Smyrna in the koinon, which was effected by the benefaction of Lysimachos and his wife Arsinoe.34 Elsewhere, the copies in Smyrna (line 9) and Chios (lines 9–10, although restored, are quite certain) agree in repeating the ethnic of Hippostratos, Milesian, which the copy in Miletos omits at that place; but the copy from Smyrna agrees with that of Miletos in spelling the name of Hippostratos’ father with an eta (῾Ιππόδημος), which is unusual for this name even in the areas of Ionic dialect; the Chios copy displays a more conventional version of ῾Ιππόδαμος. Finally, while the text in Smyrna introduces the decision simply as δεδόχθαι τῶι κοινῶι (line 8), the copies in Miletos and Chios repeat δεδόχθαι τῶι κοινῶι τῶι Ἰώνων (lines 6–7 and 8 respectively). Such verbal differences seem to reflect considered choices and editorial intervention in composing the text to be inscribed at each city. That this is likely to be so is further confirmed by the fact that on the stele in Miletos the decree of the koinon is followed by two other documents recording the decisions of the people and council of Miletos and pertaining to implementation of the decree of the koinon (including such provisions as depositing of a copy of the decree honoring Hippostratos in the state archive and expediting the financial 34 Vitruv. IV. 1: postea regis Lysimachi et Arsinoes beneficio Smyrnaeorum civitas inter Iones est recepta. Cf. ed. pr. of the Miletos copy, C. FREDRICH, Hippostratos von Milet, in Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 25 (1900), p. 100–106, at p. 103.

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arrangements for setting up the bronze equestrian statue of Hippostratos in the Panionion), all clearly incised at once.35 If decrees inscribed in other cities of the koinon had similar riders, they would have had to be phrased differently. F. Royal Decrees and Ordinances (diagrammata and prostagmata) F.1. Diagramma of king Philip V concerning the mobilization of troops in 197 (?) SEG 49.722. Kassandreia SEG 49.855. Drama Two copies of this royal regulation overlap mostly in the part where various possible age and family circumstances of the conscripts are detailed. The discrepancies are minor and all relate to cutting errors. Thus, there is a case of haplography in SEG 49.722.22 (τοὺς πελτα]|στὰς {τας}), while SEG 49.855.B omits νεώτερος in line17 and records a singular verb instead of the plural λαμβανέτω⟨σαν⟩ in line 22. F.2. Diagramma of Philip V concerning garrison duty, late 3rd/early 2nd c. SEG 51.640bis. Kynos (Eastern Lokris) IG XII Suppl. 644. Chalkis The copy from Kynos preserves the end of the diagramma, or ordinance, that survives in its entirety in the Euboian inscription. The differences between the two copies are minor variations (ἐπιστείλῃ and εἰστήλην in lines 7 and 10 of the Kynos text; ἐπιστείληι and εἰς στήλην in lines 44 and 48 in Chalkis). There is also a mistake at the end of the inscription in Kynos where in line 15 καὶ τὸ διάγραμμα τοῦτο was inscribed instead of κατὰ τὸ διάγραμμα τοῦτο, ‘in accordance with this diagramma’, which is correct in the Chalkis copy (line 55). F.3. A Letter of Antigonos Gonatas, ca. 277–239 SEG 48.783. Dion SEG 51.796. Apollonia What survives of the two copies of this letter of Antigonos Gonatas to Agasikles concerning a grant of land to a certain Noumenios shows flawless and identical texts. 35

FREDRICH, Hippostratos von Milet, p. 104–105 and Tafel IV.

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F.4. Decree of Ptolemy X Alexander granting the right of asylum to the temple of Isis in Theadelphia, 19 of February, 93 I.Fay. II 112 and II 113 The copies of this decree were meant to mark boundaries of the sanctuary and must have originally been four in number. I.Fay. II 112 in two instances mistakenly omits a letter: εἰσιναι for εἰσιέναι (lines 22) and θεότατε for θειότατε (lines 16), but otherwise has no flaws. I.Fay. II 113 has numerous crude omissions and mistakes, and it also repeats the two flawed spellings of II 112 in lines 18 and 25. Altogether, it seems that the person cutting II 113 either followed the same draft as the cutter of II 112, or even cut it after that inscription, but he probably could not understand Greek well and thus introduced numerous cutting mistakes that resulted in nonsense words. The Egyptian priests of the sanctuary either did not care or were not in a position to check the result. F.5. Decree of Berenice IV granting the right of asylum to the sanctuary of the Crocodile God Pnepheros in Theadelphia, 22 of October, 57 I.Fay. II 116–118 Three copies (out of an original four) of this decree have the same spelling flaw, ἀσυλίαι for ἀσυλία, i.e. with the so-called iota-parasite (II 116.36, 117.34, 118.30), while diverging in some other minor ways, such as Σωκράτηι (II 116.41, 117.39) versus Σοκράτηι (II 116.34); omission of ἱεροῦ in II 117.4; and ἐπὶ βορρᾶν (II 116.24–25, 117.23) versus ἐπὶ βορρᾶ (II 118.21). The latter variants are both exceedingly common in Egypt during this period. One interesting difference is the fact that only II 118 records the exact measurement of the West to East boundary of the asylum as one hundred and seventeen cubits (πήχεις) (II 118.20–21), while in other copies the space for the distance is left blank. Presumably the number was supplied in paint once it had been determined (other points of the limits were described topographically and thus required no measurements), which must have happened by the time II 118 was incised. Conclusion This overview suggests that the rigor of precision in inscriptional copies varied, but overall there is an observable effort to create an accurate, verbatim copy. Most divergences are those of alternative spellings; it is impossible to determine whether they already existed in the intermediate stage, i.e. in the texts on the portable medium, which were based on the text deposited in the archive but may not have been identical with it and which served as musters for the masons, or

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were introduced by the mason or masons as they cut copies of the inscription from the same intermediate stage copy. Another type of difference comprises negligent omissions; such omissions have little effect on the content (e.g. ἀργυρίου, E.2; κατ’ ἐνιαυτόν, E.6; ἀπροφασίστως, E.3), which may mean that they resulted from deliberate abbreviating of the text; yet, precisely because they belonged to formulas that may have been repeated even within that very text, they are perhaps likelier to be accidental flaws. This is somewhat supported by those cases where omissions are certainly due to negligence (e.g. ἱεροῦ, F.5; νεώτερος, F.1). To the same kind of negligence should be relegated such mistakes as καί in place of κατά (F.2), or ἐπιφανής instead of ἐκφανής (E.6). Quite another type of divergence occurs in some of the documents concerned with international relations or simply involving parties of an alliance, such as a koinon. There, an invocation to the deities or the header could differ; one copy might contain a section that is entirely missing in the other; the same decree can be accompanied by different texts. An illustrative example is furnished by the two stelai bearing a decree with a rider concerning the arbitration of the Knossians in the conflict between Olous and Lato over the sanctuary in Dera (C.5 and C.6). The copy found in Dera omits a preamble with a dating clause according to an Athenian archon, which is included in the copy in Delos. In the latter location, where dating by Athenian archons was conventional, the preamble was appropriate, but on Crete it must not have made much sense. On the other hand, the stele in Dera, in addition to the copy of the decree and its rider, displays two more documents pertaining to the settlement of the conflict in question, one of which is cut by the same mason as the decree and the rider. The case of the decree of the Ionian koinon honoring Hippostratos of Miletos attests a similar situation in which accommodation is made for the particular needs, or tastes, of the city in which an inscriptional copy was displayed (E.7). What these differences reflect seems to be not a lax attitude to copying aimed at approximately the same content, but an editorial process during which decisions are made regarding certain constituent elements of a text as well as the assemblage of texts to be published and displayed on a given stele. And at least some differences between copies of inscriptions concerned with international relations clearly result from conscious adjustment of a text of the document to the place for which that particular inscriptional copy was meant. The attempt at accuracy in most copies should not surprise us once we consider the effort put in to the verification of copying attested in such documents as the Paros archive decree.36 The decree, dating to the first half of the 2nd century, outlines a set of reforms of public archives in Paros and stipulates various 36 W. LAMBRINUDAKIS and M. WÖRRLE, Ein hellenistisches Reformgesetz über das öffentliche Urkundenwesen von Paros, in Chiron 13 (1983), p. 283–368, reported as SEG 33.679.

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procedures aimed at safeguarding documents against tampering, something that had apparently been a problem. Among other things, it endows the archon with the tasks of registering the deposition of copies in the state archive and of verifying that the copies were identical to the originals (lines 42–43, καθάπερ καὶ ἐκεῖνα). Although the decree is not concerned with copies inscribed on stone, the painstakingly detailed description of procedures meant to guarantee accuracy of documents militates against the long-standing presumption that the ancients had a lax idea of a copy. Careful duplication of the content was clearly a concern; and so was following a certain deposition procedure: upon verifying the accuracy of the content and registering the copies, archons were to deliver the duplicates to the mnemones who deposited and sealed them in special jars. This protocol can be seen as analogous to a notarial verification that attests the accuracy of a copy in content, which may differ in format. It is in fact remarkably similar, pace Klaffenbach, to the modern procedure: one’s diploma or birth certificate looks quite different from its notarised copy; while the latter normally repeats the content, it often changes the format and leaves out some of the ornamental features of the original document. Note on the Athenian Standards Decree (IG I3 1453) The above conclusions (1) that inscriptional copies reflect an effort at accuracy, (2) that the differences, when not those of spelling or negligent omission, tend to result from conscious editing and occur mostly in documents dealing with international affairs that were set up at different locations, have obvious bearing on by far the most famous case of an inscriptional copy, namely the so-called Athenian Standards Decree. The decree, which Aristophanes made fun of in the Birds (lines 1040–1041), enforced usage of the Athenian coins, weights, and measures across the allied states; seven fragmentary inscriptions have been recognised as bearing copies of the text (IG I3 1453). The fragments come from six coastal locations: Odessa, Smyrna, Cos, Syme, Syphnos, and Aphytis. All of them are in the Ionic script except that from Cos, which is in Attic. Until recently most efforts of scholars went into establishing the so-called composite text, i.e. the text of the original decree that was passed at a certain, albeit hotly disputed, date in Athens and copied on those stelai that survive in fragmentary form. Then a second fragment from the Aphytis stele was located.37 It turned out to preserve the end of the inscription making it clear that the Aphytis copy could not have had a text identical to that in Smyrna, since the reference to an earlier decree by Klearchos present in the latter does not appear in the former. Furthermore, there 37 M.B. HATZOPOULOS, Νέο ἀπότμημα ἀπὸ τὴν Ἄφυτι τοῦ ἀττικοῦ ψηφίσματος περὶ νομίσματος, σταθμῶν καὶ μέτρων, in Horos 14–16 (2000–2003), p. 31–43; M.B. HATZOPOULOS, The Athenian Standards Decree: The Aphytis Fragments, in Τεκμήρια 12 (2013–2014), p. 235–269. For a thorough discussion of the impact of the new fragment on understanding of the decree, see R. STROUD, Athenian Empire on Stone: David M. Lewis Memorial Lecture Oxford 2006, Athens, 2006, p. 18–26.

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are some places where the text of the new Aphytis fragment cannot by reconciled with what survives in other copies, although in many places verbatim parallels can be seen or plausibly established. In a recent re-examination of the subject Ron Stroud also notes that the so-called composite text tends to be significantly longer than estimated restorations of some given copies,38 and concludes: I believe that the way forward in understanding the Athenian Coinage Decree is to abandon the ‘composite text’ method entirely … very different copies of the Athenian Coinage decree were set up at least in Aphytis and in the unknown polis represented by the Smyrna fragment, and possibly elsewhere. Given what we know about the intricate financial organization of the Athenian Empire and the detailed information revealed by other documents…, it would not be surprising if Athens tailored some of the rules in these decrees to fit other local conditions .… Perhaps we should be searching for more than one date – possibly for more than one decree.39

Stroud’s conclusions are based on his study of the fragments connected to the Standards Decree as well as on his understanding of the workings of the Athenian Empire, and they are remarkably aligned with what our examination of inscriptional copies suggests, namely that documents pertaining to international relations could be tailored to local circumstances; that is, an inscription in a given city was cut after a version of the text tailored to this particular city. Is it possible that the Standards Decree actually gives explicit evidence for this? The new fragment from Aphytis attests a publication clause unparalleled (or lost) in other copies: ἀναγράψα]ι δὲ τὸ ψήφ[ι][σμα τόδε τοὺς ἄρχοντας ἐν ταῖσι πόλεσι κ]αθ’ ἕνα ἕκασ[τον · θ󰯐ναι δὲ ἐν στήληι λιθίνηι ἐν τῆι ἀγ]ορᾶι τέλεσι [ἑκάστης πόλεως

28

… and the archons in the cities are to have this decree inscribed each separately and set it up on a stone stele in the agora at the expense of each city …

The expression καθ’ ἕνα ἕκαστον is noteworthy; it can be translated as ‘one by one’ and thus ‘each’, but it has a strong connotation of ‘each separately’, or ‘individually’.40 Here, it ought to refer not to each city, since πόλις is feminine, but to each and every separate official (ἄρχων) in charge of recording (ἀναγράψαι) the text. Could it then be that the archon, likely an Athenian official,41 in each city was in fact expected to draw the version of the text to be inscribed in that STROUD, Empire on Stone, p. 24. STROUD, Empire on Stone, p. 26. 40 One can compare Xen. Hel. 1.7.23, where the expression comes up in the appeal to the Athenians to judge the generals of the battle at Arginussae separately one by one, not all together, τῷ νόμῳ κρινέσθων οἱ ἄνδρες κατὰ ἕνα ἕκαστον διῃρημένων τῆς ἡμέρας τριῶν μερῶν. Cf. also the heading of the citizenship grant from Dyme in Achaia, SGDI II 1612, dated to 219/218, where the polis is said to have examined the newly enfranchised citizens one by one. 41 Cf. HATZOPOULOS, The Athenian Standards Decree, p. 245. 38 39

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city and thus enjoyed what we may call editorial privileges? Just as in the case of the Cretan treaties, somebody must have decided what precisely goes on display, even if the same agreement lay at the core or formed part of the inscription. If so, the unfortunate conclusion would be that differences in versions of the Standard Decree may or may not indicate derivation from more than one decree by the Athenians. The positive conclusion, though, is that a study of an inscriptional copy should not merely be a means of reconstructing an Urtext, but rather an attempt to reconstruct the circumstance in which that particular inscription was set up. Abbreviations Athenian Agora XVI = A.G. WOODHEAD, The Athenian Agora Volume XVI: Inscriptions: The Decrees, Princeton, 1997. I.Fay. = E. BERNAND, Recueil des inscriptions grecques du Fayum, I– III, Paris, 1975–1981. IG = Inscriptiones Graecae, I–XIV, Berlin, 1873– I.Smyrna = G. PETZL, Die Inschriften von Smyrna, I–II, Bonn, 1982–1987. IvO = W. DITTENBERGER and K. PURGOLD, Die Inschriften von Olympia (Olympia 5), Berlin, 1896. ML = R. MEIGGS and D. LEWIS, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century BC, Oxford, 1969. SEG = Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden, 1923– SGDI = H. COLLITZ and F. BECHTEL, Sammlung der griechischen DialektInschriften, I–IV, Göttingen, 1884–1915. = W. DITTENBERGER, Sylloge inscriptionum Graecarum, I–IV, LeipSIG3 zig, 1915–1924.

Bibliography S. ACCAME, La lega ateniese del secolo IV a.C., Roma, 1941. R.P. AUSTIN, The Stoichedon Style in Greek Inscriptions, New York, 1973. S. BERTI, La dedica degli Ateniesi per la vittoria su Beoti e Calcidesi del 506 a.C. (IG I3 501) e la sua collocazione topografica, Milan, 2012. F. CAIRNS, A ‘Duplicate’ Copy of IG XII 9,1189 (Histiaia), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 54 (1984), p. 133–144. A. CHANIOTIS, Die Verträge zwischen kretischen Poleis in der hellenistischen Zeit, Stuttgart, 1996. E. CRESPO, The Language Policy of the Athenian State in the Fifth Century BC, in Incontri linguistici 29 (2006), p. 91–101. S. DUŠANIĆ, The Attic-Chian Alliance (IG II2 34) and the ‘Troubles in Greece’ of the Late 380’s BC, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 133 (2000), p. 21–30. C. FREDRICH, Hippostratos von Milet, in Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 25 (1900), p. 100–106. M.B. HATZOPOULOS, Νέο ἀπότμημα ἀπὸ τὴν Ἄφυτι τοῦ ἀττικοῦ ψηφίσματος περὶ νομίσματος, σταθμῶν καὶ μέτρων, in Horos 14–16 (2000–2003), p. 31–43. M.B. HATZOPOULOS, The Athenian Standards Decree: The Aphytis Fragments, in Τεκμήρια 12 (2013–2014), p. 235–269.

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G. KLAFFENBACH, Bemerkungen zum griechischen Urkundenwesen (Sitzungsberichte der deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zur Berlin, Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst 6), Berlin, 1960. C. KRITZAS, Nuova copia da Gortina del trattato fra Gortinii, Hierapytnii e Priansii in Epigraphica. Atti delle giornate di studio di Roma e di Atene in memoria di Margherita Guarducci, 1902–1999 (Opuscula epigraphica 10), Rome, 2003, p. 107–125. W. LAMBRINUDAKIS and M. WÖRRLE, Ein hellenistisches Reformgesetz über das öffentliche Urkundenwesen von Paros, in Chiron 13 (1983), p. 283–368. B.D. MERITT, Greek Inscriptions, in Hesperia 7 (1938), p. 77–160. B.D. MERITT, Greek Inscriptions, in Hesperia 32 (1963), p. 1–56. A.N. OIKONOMIDES, Attic Choregic Inscriptions, in Ancient World 3 (1980), p. 17–22. J.H. OLIVER, The Areopagus and the Whole City Honor M. Ulpius Eubiotus Leurus, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 38 (1980), p. 107–114. M. OSBORNE, Months, Prytanies and the Meeting Times of the Athenian Assembly (300/299–228/7), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 183 (2012), p. 141– 170. L. ROBERT, Épigraphie et Paléographie, in Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 99.2 (1955), p. 195–222. P. ROESCH, Une inscription athénienne au musée de Thèbes, in Archaiologika analekta ex Athenon 6 (1973), p. 142–145. R. STROUD, Athenian Empire on Stone: David M. Lewis memorial lecture Oxford 2006, Athens, 2006. S.V. TRACY, Athens and Macedon: Attic Letter-Cutters of 300 to 229 B.C., Berkeley, 2003. D. WHITEHEAD, IG I3 174 and 175: One Decree or Two?, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 118 (1997), p. 165–169. U. YIFTACH-FIRANKO, Who killed the double document?, in Archiv für Papyrusforschung 54 (2008), p. 203–218. U. YIFTACH-FIRANKO, Doppelurkunde, in R.S. BAGNALL et al. (eds), Encyclopedia of Ancient History, Malden Mass., 2012, p. 2209–2210.

PROFESSIONAL SCRIBES AND LETTER-CUTTERS IN ARCHAIC GREECE Elena MARTÍN GONZÁLEZ

The publication in 1970 of an inscribed semicircular bronze plate acquired by the British Museum broke new ground in our knowledge about the figure of the professional scribe in Archaic Greece.1 Dated back to the end of the sixth century BC on palaeographic grounds, the boustrophedon inscription running along both sides of the document records the agreement between a scribe named Spensithios and the city of Datala in central Crete. The main duties of the scribe are summarised at the beginning of the text after the enactment formula of the decree (A, ll. 4–5): πόλι τὰ δαμόσια τά τε θιήια καὶ τἀνθρώπινα ποινικάζεν τε καὶ μναμονεύϝην To write and record for the city public matters, divine as well as human.

The inscription elaborates the benefits conceded by the Dataleis to the socalled poinikastas Spensithios and his descendants.2 First, the city will cover their living expenses and will grant them complete tax exemption (A, ll. 2–4). Second, the charge of public scribe and recorder will be practiced exclusively by Spensithios and his descendants (A, ll. 5–10). There follows the annual The first edition by L.H. JEFFERY and A. MORPURGO-DAVIES, Ποινικαστάς and ποινικάζεν: BM 1969.4-2.1, A New Archaic Inscription from Crete, in Kadmos 9 (1970), p. 118–154 (cf. SEG 27.631) continues to be the primary reference work for this text. It is based on a careful autopsy of the almost illegible bronze surface and contains a thorough commentary of the language and content of the decree. See also the recent revised edition of the text by M. GAGARIN and P. PERLMAN, The Laws of Ancient Greece, Oxford, 2016, p. 181–196. Among the abundant bibliography generated by the inscription, see H. VAN EFFENTERRE, Le contrat du travail du scribe Spensithios, in Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 97 (1973), p. 31–46, for an analysis of the content and phraseology of the decree; see also A.J. BEATTIE, Some Notes on the Spensitheos Decree, in Kadmos 14 (1975), p. 8–47, with important corrections on the text of the editio princeps; and more recently G. MARGINESU, Prestigio dello scriba e autenticità dello scritto: il caso di Spensithios, in Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene 84, 3.6.1 (2006), p. 381–416, for an analysis of the social role of the scribe in his community, with previous bibliography. 2 For the etymology and interpretation of the hapax ποινικαστάς, the expert on φοινίκεια γράμματα (i.e., the alphabet, or writing in general, cf. Herodotus 5.58–59), see P. CHANTRAINE, À propos du nom des Phéniciens et des noms de la pourpre, in Kadmos 14 (1975), p. 7–15, and G.P. EDWARDS and R.B. EDWARDS, The Meaning and Etymology of POINIKASTAS, in Kadmos 16 (1977), p. 131–140 (contra BEATTIE, Spensitheos Decree, p. 28 and 30), and now CH. KRITZAS, Φοινικηία Γράμματα: Νέα Αρχαϊκή Επιγραφή από την Έλτυνα, in G. RETHEMIOTAKIS and M. EGGLEZOU (eds), Το Γεωμετρικό Νεκροταφείο της Έλτυνας. Παράρτημα, Heraclion, 2010, p. 1–26, at p. 14– 17. 1

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amount that the scribe will receive in payment for his services, 50 jugs of must (A, ll. 11–13). From that point onwards, the text becomes quite uncertain due to the metal’s poor state of preservation. On the other side of the document, the scribe is given the authority to assist the kosmos or chief magistrate in his functions (B, ll. 1–4). He is also entitled to sacrifice public victims, in case there is no specific priest (B, ll. 4–5), and to receive a share of the public income from sacred land (B, l. 6). The text ends with some specific regulations regarding the scribe’s rights in court (B, ll. 6–11) and his contribution to the andreion (B, ll. 11–17). The importance of this epigraphic find cannot be overemphasised.3 Ever since its publication, Spensithios’ contract has become the epicentre of every discussion about the figure of the public scribe in Archaic Greece.4 The detailed exposition of Spensithios’ duties, rights, and privileges supplies invaluable information about the relevant role of the scribe in a small community and sheds new light on the largely unknown figure of the professional text-keeper in sixth century BC Greece.5 Unfortunately, though, the Cretan decree does not contribute to fill one of the most important gaps in our knowledge of the Archaic public scribe, namely, the instruction of those professionals in charge of remembering and recording public matters. Even more excruciating is the silence of the Archaic sources about the work of the scribes in the private sphere. As a result, we are left with no information about the origin and development of the scribal profession in Archaic Greece, nor about the early scribes’ training, level of literacy or social background. All the same, we ignore the details of their work, whether they were mere secretaries and copyists or, as with Spensithios, they all received high official recognition for their skills. In addition, the organization of the public On the relevance of this epigraphic find, see J.K. DAVIES, Greek History: A Discipline in Transformation, in T. WISEMAN (ed.), Classics in Progress. Essays on Ancient Greece and Rome, Oxford, 2002, p. 225–246, at p. 238–240. 4 The cursive and hasty engraving of the scribe’s appointment, especially on side A of the document, diverges from the contemporary Cretan legal inscriptions, which were carefully cut on stone (JEFFERY and MORPURGO-DAVIES, Ποινικαστάς and ποινικάζεν, p. 120–121). GAGARIN and PERLMAN, The Laws of Ancient Greece, p. 182, suggest that it was Spensithios’ personal copy, probably made by his own hand. 5 See CH. PÈBARTHE, Spensithios, scribe ou archiviste publique? Réflexions sur les usages publiques de l’écriture en Crète dans l’époque archaïque, in Temporalités 3 (2006), p. 37–55, for a detailed analysis of Spensithios’ office and its cultural milieu. To be sure, public magistrates with similar titles and tasks are attested in other legal inscriptions of the late Archaic and early Classical period, like the mnamones in the Gortyn Law Code (IC IV 72, IX l. 32 and XI ll. 16 and 53), the hieromnamones in Mycenae (IG IV 493), the phoinikographeis in Teos (SEG 31.985 D ll. 19–21) and the grapheus Patrias in Olympia (IvO 2), but the succinct information they provide is nowhere near the exhaustive enumeration of Spensithios’ duties and privileges. See F. REICHE, Grammateis und Mnamones, PhD diss., Münster, 2006, who offers a comprehensive analysis of the figure of the public scribe and recorder, and its evolution during the Archaic and Classical periods, with discussion of all testimonies at p. 21–206. For the role of these public officials in the legal apparatus of the early poleis, see Z. PAPAKONSTANTINOU, Lawmaking and Adjudication in Archaic Greece, London, 2008, p. 76–79. 3

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(and private) archives in the Greek cities before the Classical period remains also largely unknown.6 As for the archaeological record, the representation of scribes is quite a rare motif in Archaic Greek art. A preeminent place among the scanty evidence is occupied by the well-known votive group from the Acropolis of Athens, consisting of three statues of scribes at work, seated in a four-legged chair with writing tablets.7 Another votive sculpture, thought to represent a scribe, comes from Cyprus. The figure holds a writing tablet in his left hand, where Kilikas’s votive inscription to Apollo has been carefully incised in Cypriot syllabic script.8 The last examples are more humble: a limestone figurine also from Cyprus9 and a terracotta figurine from Boeotia,10 both equipped with a writing tablet and stylus. Given the lack of further evidence on the professional scribe’s work, both in the public and the private sphere, we have to turn our attention to the information provided by the physical practice of writing documents, that is, the inscriptions of the Archaic period in which hints of the different stages of the writing process can be detected. The earliest epigraphic testimonies of alphabetic Greek date 6 The archival practices in the Greek world, mainly in Athens, have been the subject of extensive scholarship during the last decades. For the Archaic archives, see, among others, R. THOMAS, Literacy and the City-State in Archaic and Classical Greece, in A.K. BOWMAN and G. WOOLF (eds), Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, Cambridge, 1996, p. 33–50; J.P. SICKINGER, Public Records and Archives in Classical Athens, Chapel Hill – London, 1999, p. 35–61; L. BOFFO, Per una storia dell’archiviazione pubblica nel mondo greco, in Dike 6 (2003), p. 5–85, at p. 6–14; and M. FARAGUNA, Citizen Registers in Archaic Greece: The Evidence Reconsidered, in A.P. MATTHAIOU and N. PAPAZARKADAS (eds), ΑΞΩΝ: Studies in Honor of Ronald S. Stroud, vol. B, Athens, 2015, p. 649–668. 7 A.E. RAUBITSCHEK, Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis, Cambridge Mass., 1949, p. 10– 12, no. 6, and I. TRIANTI, Παρατηρήσεις σε δύο ομάδες γλυπτών του τέλους του 6ου αιώνα από την Ακρόπολη, in W.D.E. COULSON et al. (eds), The Archaeology of Athens and Attica under the Democracy. Proceedings of an International Conference Celebrating 2500 Years Since the Birth of Democracy in Greece, Held at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, December 4–6, 1992, Athens, 1994, p. 83–91. Recently, M.S. JENSEN, Writing Homer. A Study Based on Results from Modern Fieldwork, Copenhagen, 2011, p. 363–387, has connected this particular votive group with the codification of the Homeric poems under the Pisistratids. 8 O. MASSON, Les inscriptions chypriotes syllabiques, Paris, 1961, p. 265–266, no. 251. 9 A. HERMARY, Catalogue des antiquités de Chypre. Sculptures, Paris, 1989, p. 292, no. 589. The statuette, probably a priest-scribe, wears what seems to be a falcon-mask, an Egyptianising iconographic motive, see F. FAEGERSTEN, The Egyptianizing Male Limestone Statuary from Cyprus. A Study of Cross-Cultural Eastern Mediterranean Votive Type, Lund, 2003, p. 16, n. 31, and p. 245. For an overview of the evidence of the scribes’ work in Cyprus, see A.-M. COLLOMBIER, Écriture et société à Chypre à l’âge du fer, in C. BAURAIN et al. (eds), Phoinikeia Grammata, Liège – Namur, 1991, p. 425–447, at p. 444–446, and G. PAPASAVVAS, Writing on Cyprus: Some Silent Witnesses, in Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 2003, p. 79–94. 10 S. MOLLARD-BESQUES, Catalogue raisoné des figurines et reliefs en terre-cuite grec, étrusques et romains I, Paris, 1954, p. 20, cat. B114, pl. 15. This miniature scribe is represented sitting on a fourlegged stool, writing in an open diptych. For archaeological evidence of similar writing tablets in the Greco-Roman world, see G. PAPASAVVAS, A Writing Tablet from Crete, in Mitteilungen des Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 118 (2003), p. 68–89, at p. 76–83.

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back to the eighth century BC and consist mostly of casual inscriptions of private nature, such as ownership inscriptions, with irregular lettering, scratched on pottery or stone, which seem to be produced in most of the cases by individuals barely trained in the use of the alphabet.11 It is only a century later, from the middle of the seventh century BC onwards, when the first testimonies of inscriptions produced by craftsmen specialising in lettering are attested, which means that a copy of the text was produced beforehand, for them to cut on metal or stone. Besides the scribe responsible for copying the text and the letter cutter who inscribed it, the production of these inscriptions could eventually include a draft with the specific layout of the text to be engraved,12 although this option does not seem to have been much exploited, at least among the letter cutters of Athens.13 The technical evolution of professional letter-cutting is not exactly uniform and there are substantial differences among the local scripts, as we shall see below, but in general terms the Archaic inscriptions cut by professional engravers present an increasing level of precision in the execution of the letters over hard surfaces. Lettering evolved from the large, unsteady, irregular examples of the seventh century BC, to the more precise and regularised style that prevailed at the end of the sixth century and ultimately evolved into the famous stoichedon style of Classical Athens.14 The legal inscriptions from Gortyn, on Crete, illustrate this evolution of Archaic lettering from the early texts, inscribed in tall, serpentine letters on the walls of the temple of Pythian Apollo, to the Great Code, an impressive legal inscription from the mid-fifth century BC that consists of six hundred lines neatly inscribed on the walls of a public civic building in the city’s agora.15 11

Prominent examples among the earliest epigraphic testimonies constitute the Dipylon oinochoe from Athens (P.A. HANSEN, Carmina epigraphica graeca saeculorum VIII–V a.Chr.n., Berlin, 1983, no. 432) and Nestor’s Cup from Pithekoussai (SEG 53.1084, with previous bibliography). More recent discoveries include the eighth-century graffiti on pottery from Kommos (SEG 55.998) and Methone (SEG 62. 424). 12 See B.H. MCLEAN, An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy of the Hellenistic and Roman Period: From Alexander the Great to the Reign of Constantine (323 B.C.–A.D. 337), Ann Arbor, 2002, p. 9–13, for a brief introduction to the engraving process based on later evidence, which for the most part could apply to the Archaic period. 13 S.V. TRACY, Athenian Lettering of the Fifth Century B.C. The Raise of the Professional Letter Cutter, Berlin – London, 2016, p. 27–28. 14 For this evolution, see L.H. JEFFERY’s monumental work The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (revised edition with a supplement by A. JOHNSTON, Oxford, 1990), the seminal study of Archaic lettering, passim, for instance at p. 236 and 301. For the origins of the stoichedon style, see P.A. BUTZ, The Art of the Hekatompedon Inscription and the Birth of the Stoikhedon Style, Leiden – Boston, 2010, p. 77–103. 15 The legal inscriptions from Archaic and early Classical Gortyn have been thoroughly studied. A useful overview of their content and disposition, with previous bibliography and a list of the inscriptions, can be found in P. PERLMAN, The Laws from the Temple of Apollo Pythios, in T.H. NIELSEN (ed.), Even More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis, Stuttgart, 2002, p. 187–228, and M. GAGARIN, Writing Greek Law, Cambridge, 2008, p. 122–144.

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Still, the epigraphic documents produced by professional masons before 500 BC, albeit a rich source of first-hand information for engraving techniques and trends, reflect only indirectly the scribe’s (and the transcriber’s) work during the initial stages of the inscribing process. In what follows, we will focus on those technical aspects of the Archaic epigraphic material which may relate to scribal practices: the errors and corrections attested in the texts and the different factors involved in the choice of letter shapes. 1. Errors and corrections Public documents, primarily legal in nature, together with long private inscriptions that accompany votive and funerary monuments are amongst the most frequent epigraphic categories cut by professionals in non-perishable materials that survive from the Archaic period.16 Brief and concise in their phraseology, these epigraphic documents have been carefully carved and only very rarely contain errors.17 The best attested phenomena, dittography and the omission or misspelling of a single letter, more often than not, can be explained either on contextual or linguistic grounds. However, some of the mistakes may originate in the copying process. This is the case of the confusion of triangular letters (A, Δ, Λ), which is quite common in later inscriptions, as well, since it seems to reflect the difficulties faced by the engraver in deciphering capital letters with similar form from a draft.18 Some of these minor errors were already detected and corrected after engraving by means of incising the correct form over the erroneous one. In the rare event that an entire word had been omitted, it could be added afterwards in the interlinear space.19 An interesting example can be found in the oldest Greek 16 S.V. TRACY, Athenian Lettering, p. 17, argues that the work of the Archaic lettering professionals can be best traced in the earliest decrees and laws. Painted inscriptions written by professionals constitute a different category that requires individual analysis, since the use of the brush on clay or wood produces faster, smaller and more cursive letters than those incised with the chisel on metal or stone. The painted inscriptions on hard surfaces of the Archaic period present a tendency towards simplification in the letter forms. These are attested only later in cut inscriptions but must have been shared by contemporary texts written on soft surfaces, such as leather or papyrus. See JEFFERY, Local Scripts, p. 63–65, and below. 17 See R. WACHTER, Der Informationsgehalt von Schreibfehlern in griechischen und lateinischen Inschriften, in Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft 18 (1992), p. 17–31, for the (mainly linguistic) information yielded by recurrent errors in Greek and Roman inscriptions. 18 See, for instance, ΣΥΜΛΧΙΑΣ for ΣΥΜΑΧΙΑΣ in a law on Olympic wrestling, S. MINON, Inscriptions éléennes dialectales (VIe–IIe siècle avant J.-C.), Geneva, 2007, p. 38–47, no. 5, l. 5. Nevertheless, as L. ROBERT warns in Épigraphie et paléographie, in Comptes rendues de l’Academie des Inscriptions 99.2 (1955), p. 195–222, at p. 218–219, we should refrain from blaming the transcribers for misreading the draft (and, consequently, from extracting general conclusions about their level of literacy), before ensuring that the alleged errors are not the product of an inaccurate reading of the inscription. 19 A perplexing exception is a recently discovered bronze inscription from Thebes where, according to the editor, A.P. MATTHAIOU, Four Inscribed Bronze Tablets from Thebes: Preliminary

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legal inscription, discovered in the Cretan city of Dreros and dating back to the seventh century BC, where the word θιοσόλοιον was inscribed in smaller letters, between the first and the second line of the inscription.20 In the case of stone surfaces, the final painting applied to the monument and the letters was an effective tool for camouflaging corrections. Although the role of painting in corrections is obscured by the present state of the stones, where merely faint traces, if any, of the original colour have survived, a black-figured funerary plaque from Athens illustrates its potential.21 Thus, the incised draft (dim, but still visible) and the final, painted version of the text, differ in three important aspects: punctuation has been included both before and after the funerary formula, the ephelcystic nu of the verbal form has been deleted, and the initial form ΣΕΣ has been modified into the correct ΣΕΜΑ (i.e., σῆμα) in the dipinto. Although there is not sufficient evidence to decide who is responsible for the errors and corrections during the inscribing process, it seems clear that the Archaic inscriptions carved by letter-cutters were submitted to a careful process of revision. In the case of private inscriptions, the workshop must have assigned this task to any of the professionals engaged in the production of the text, either the scribe, the engraver, or the transcriber, before delivering the monument to the client. In the case of the public inscriptions, though, the very authorities that commissioned the inscription were involved in the modifications, as evidenced, among other things, by the sporadic erasures (and additions) attested in legal dispositions, probably as a consequence of changes to the law. A telling example survives in a fragmentary legal text from Eretria, where the name of the goddess Hera, to whom originally some fines were to be paid, has been thoroughly erased.22 2. Local and personal factors in the choice of letter shapes The dispersed, fragmentary, and heterogeneous character of the Archaic epigraphic material makes it difficult to extract any definitive conclusion about the individual work of the first professional letter-cutters, all the more so because the technical details about the engraving of the texts have not received close attention.23 Even in Archaic Attica, the only region that has attracted scholarly Notes, in N. PAPAZARKADAS (ed.), The Epigraphy and History of Boeotia, Leiden – Boston, 2014, p. 211–222, at p. 215, two words have been left incomplete (B, ll. 3 and 5), while some letters and relevant details of the text have been omitted. 20 We follow here the first editors’ hypothesis for this controversial hapax, cf. P. DEMARGNE and H. VAN EFFENTERRE, Recherches à Dréros II. Les inscriptions archaïques, in Bulletin de correspondance héllenique 61 (1937), p. 333–348, with discussion of the form at p. 339–340. For the text and content of the Dreros law, see also H. VAN EFFENTERRE and F. RUZÉ, Nomima. Recueil d’inscriptions politiques et juridiques de l’archaïsme grecque I, Rome, 1994, p. 306–309, no. 81. 21 HANSEN, Carmina epigraphica graeca, no. 29 (SEG 33.49). 22 EFFENTERRE and RUZÉ, Nomima I, p. 330–333, no. 91, l. 4. 23 S.V. TRACY and C. PAPAODYSSEUS, The Study of Hands on Greek Inscriptions: The Need for a Digital Approach, in American Journal of Archaeology 113 (2009), p. 99–102, offer an interesting reflection on the history of the study of hands in Greek epigraphy and its methodology.

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interest in masons’ techniques due to its outstanding production of inscribed funerary and votive monuments,24 the identification of inscriptions by the same hand presents formidable obstacles.25 The wide diversity of letter shapes among the local alphabets (or even within the same alphabet) and the problems regarding the dating of the early inscriptions are two of the more prominent challenges. In addition, the distinctive large lettering employed by the majority of Archaic masons, which demanded greater care in their execution and a deeper cut, reduces even more the chances of recognizing the personal traits observable in smaller letters.26 Finally, the lack of material not only from the same hand, but also from the same region and time, raises doubts about whether the idiosyncratic execution of a letter constitutes a personal choice, a local trend, or merely an error.27 Nevertheless, some local tendencies regarding lettering can be recognised among the early masons. While the inscriptions cut by craftsmen in mainland Greece and some of the Aegean islands before 500 BC use tall, large, carefully carved letters, the Ionic inscriptions from Asia Minor prefer smaller, cursive, shallow-cut letters, comparable to the lettering used in the dipinti.28 This style of writing has been considered an early influence of the cursive letters employed for writing on soft materials, like leather, a well known practice in Archaic Ionia, according to the famous passage of Herodotus (5.58), where the historian states that books were called diphtherai, that is skins, by the Ionians of Asia Minor.29 The recent discovery of private letters on lead in the Milesian colonies of the Black Sea, dating back to the sixth century BC and with similar cursive lettering, 24 For a general overview of the Attic masons’ techniques in the Archaic and early Classical period, see U.K. DUNCAN, Notes on Lettering by Some Attic Masons in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries B.C., in Annual of the British School of Athens 56 (1961), p. 179–188, Pls 30–31; C.G. HIGGINS and W.K. PRITCHETT, Engraving Techniques in Attic Epigraphy, in American Journal of Archaeology 69 (1965), p. 367–371, Pl. 97–100; and now TRACY, Athenian Lettering. For the lettering and cutters’ practices of the votive inscriptions, see RAUBITSCHEK, Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis, and L.H. JEFFERY, Inscribed Gravestones from Archaic Attica, in Annual of the British School at Athens 57 (1962), p. 115–153, for the funerary ones. 25 As C.M. KEESLING reminds in Patrons of Athenian Votive Monuments of the Archaic and Classical Periods, in Hesperia 74 (2005), p. 395–426, at p. 409–410, the two leading scholars on early Attic lettering, Raubitschek and Jeffery (see previous note), could barely agree in assigning different inscriptions to the same cutter. 26 See the useful remarks on this matter by S.V. TRACY, Attic Letter-Cutters of 229 to 86 B.C., Berkeley – Los Angeles, 1992, p. 5–6. 27 A letter carved as a double circle, resembling the number 8, in an inscription from Phleious, illustrates this difficulty. According to JEFFERY, Local Scripts, p. 147, it may be an idiosyncratic way of expressing omega, while for R.L. SCRANTON, Correction of an Inscription from Phlius, in Hesperia 10 (1941), p. 371–372, it is a mason’s correction, who re-carved the omikron in the right position, after cutting it first below the line. 28 JEFFERY, Local Scripts, p. 327. 29 For the role of the different surfaces (and writing tools) in the development of writing styles in Archaic Greece see A. JOHNSTON, Straight, Crooked and Joined-up Writing: An Early Mediterranean View, in K.E. PIQUETTE and R.D. WHITEHOUSE (eds), Writing as Material Practice. Substance, Surface and Medium, London, 2013, p. 193–212, with discussion of the earliest samples of cursive lettering in Archaic Ionia at p. 200.

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seems to support the hypothesis that the Ionians were familiar at an earlier period with writing on soft materials.30 Unfortunately, further details of this regional development are unknown, due to the limitations imposed by the surviving material. However, a closer look at contemporary private inscriptions reveals the existence of more restricted local trends in lettering, along with the aforementioned general tendencies, which could have been adopted by professional letter-cutters as well. A case in point is the isolated use of ligatures and elaborate letters with curly ends in some of the numerous names carved in the rocks of Archaic Thera, a passing trend attested in a small number of private inscriptions, which soon fell into disuse.31 Besides the general trends and local usages, the individual preferences of the writing professionals contributed to the wide variety of letter shapes observable in the Archaic inscriptions, although again it is difficult to assess whether the specific lettering was the scribe’s, the transcriber’s or the cutter’s choice.32 In this respect, a curious phenomenon that has received little attention is the sporadic use, in the same inscription, of different shapes for the same letter, as in the case of gamma on sides A and B of Spensithios’ decree33 and also of theta in three Archaic dedications from the Acropolis, where the dotted and the crossed types coexist.34 Even more interesting is the case of the epigram preserved in the monumental polyandreion from Ambracia (SEG 41.540A), where the same mason not only employed at the same time boustrophedon and stoichedon, but also cut the same letters with a slightly different shape in the first and the second part of the inscription.35 Last but not least, the engraving surface, the tools and the very competency of the cutters were determinant factors for the final appearance of the letters, as manifested, particularly, in the case of the circular letters. Since carving circular letters was particularly difficult on stone or metal surfaces, the wide variety of techniques applied to the execution of circumferences in the Archaic inscriptions can be used as a scale to test the engraver’s skills and ability. The Black Sea documents have been conveniently gathered and discussed by M. DANA, Lettre sur plomb d’Apatorios à Leanax. Un document archaïque d’Olbia du Pont, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 148 (2004), p. 1–14, and Lettres grecques dialectales nord-pontiques (sauf IGDOP 23–26), in Revue des études anciennes 109.1 (2007), p. 67–97. For the content and cultural context of the early Greek letters, see also P. CECCARELLI, Ancient Greek Letter Writing. A Cultural History (600 B.C.–150 B.C.), Oxford, 2013, p. 35–47, with texts and previous bibliography in Appendix 1. 31 Cf. JEFFERY, Local Scripts, p. 319. 32 According to Tracy’s analysis, the letter shapes of the earliest Attic decrees are primarily the cutter’s choice, cf. TRACY, Athenian Lettering, p. 28. 33 Cf. JEFFERY and MORPURGO-DAVIES, Ποινικαστάς and ποινικάζεν, p. 146, and GAGARIN and PERLMAN, The Laws of Ancient Greece, p. 182. 34 See IG I3 618, 775 and 832, with RAUBITSCHEK’s comments on letter shapes, Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis, nos. 6, 233, 296 respectively. 35 See the detailed description of the epigram in J. BOUSQUET, Deux épigrammes grecques (Delphes, Ambracie), in Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 116 (1992), p. 585–606, at p. 597–599. 30

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The most common option, and the one that eventually prevailed in Classical Greece, was to cut the circular letters freehand with the chisel. As a result, these letters were frequently carved in smaller size in the early inscriptions, and, in addition, their tracing could be irregular or incomplete, albeit there are also examples of surprising accuracy that bear witness to the high level of competence achieved by some masons already at the end of the sixth century BC. Nonetheless, Archaic masons had at their disposal instruments for the mechanical engraving of more accurate specimens of circular letters. The use of a compass to incise the circumferences before chiselling is the oldest attested. Its presence is revealed by the central dot remaining at the pressing point, when it has not been erased. During the sixth century BC, the more skilled mason’s tool box was supplemented with cutting compasses, as well as tridental and tubular drills, which hollowed out deeper, wider circles into the stone surface.36 In addition, the use of ring-punches to produce the circular imprints for letters and punctuation is well attested in metal inscriptions of the seventh century BC.37 A more primitive way of carving circular letters on hard surfaces is by joining together a series of punch-joints, which has been applied to a restricted number of professional, mainly private, inscriptions.38 Albeit far more laborious than the previous techniques and less harmonious from an aesthetic point of view, it still allowed the less skilled Archaic mason to produce elaborate circles. A more radical solution was found by masons who evaded altogether the demanding task of carving curved lines by applying a square or rhomboid type to the circular letters, which appear sporadically in Archaic inscriptions cut by professionals.39 As R.G. Woodard points out, the fact that in some instances the square or rhomboid types for the circular letters coexist with curved lines in other letters in the same inscription enhances the possibility that the mason was guided by aesthetic criteria rather than constricted by his limited engraving skills.40 This seems to be the case of a mason from Eleutherna, in Crete, who apparently developed a taste for rhomboid letters.41 See A.E. RAUBITSCHEK, The Mechanical Engraving of Circular Letters, in American Journal of Archaeology 55.4 (1951), p. 343–344, with previous bibliography, examples and a description of the technical details of each instrument. 37 S. CASSON, Early Greek Inscriptions on Metal: Some Notes, in American Journal of Archaeology 39.4 (1935), p. 510–517, at p. 511–514. 38 See CASSON, Early Greek Inscriptions on Metal, p. 515–517, with examples of private inscriptions on stone and metal. For an example of a public inscription of the Archaic period, see the commentary on the lettering of a stele from Chios with legal texts by JEFFERY, Local Scripts, p. 336. 39 Among the 395 early dedications from the Athenian Acropolis gathered by RAUBITSCHEK (Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis, p. 451) there are only three testimonies of circular letters engraved in a rectangular shape (nos. 2, 107 and 258). 40 R.D. WOODWARD, The Textualization of the Greek Alphabet, Cambridge, 2014, p. 53–56. The popularity of rhomboid letter shapes during the Roman period provides further support to this interpretation. 41 See P. PERLMAN, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor: The Economies of Archaic Eleutherna, Crete, in Classical Antiquity 23.1 (2004), p. 95–137, at p. 100, n. 24. 36

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In spite of the restrictions imposed by the surviving evidence, a geographical and chronological distribution of the aforementioned techniques can be detected. Thus, the incising compass is favoured by Attic masons from the early Archaic period, but the use of the cutting compass, and the tridental and tubular drills, is much more restricted, being attested mainly from the second half of the sixth century to the beginning of the fifth century BC.42 The Peloponnese, on the other hand, presents a wider and earlier use of special instruments to cut circular letters. Professional masons from Central Greece, and also from the Peloponnese, seem to have a stronger preference for ring-punches, and from an earlier date, than masons in other regions.43 Finally, punch-joints and square or rhomboid letter forms constitute rarely used options in professional inscriptions all over the Greek world. 3. Conclusion Besides the scanty testimonies about public scribes that survive in the textual and archaeological sources, the inscriptions themselves constitute the sole evidence of the writing professionals’ work in Archaic Greece. Consequently, the scribes’ contribution to the composition and final disposition of the epigraphic documents is difficult to assess, inasmuch as the direct information on lettering and layout provided by the inscriptions emerges from the last stage of the inscribing process, that is, the actual practice of cutting letters on hard surfaces by moreor-less skilled craftsmen. Only the occasional errors and corrections detected in the early inscriptions allow a glimpse into scribal practice and the earlier stages in the production of epigraphic documents. Despite the fragmentary state of the extant evidence, the lettering of the inscriptions reflects the increasing level of technical expertise achieved by the professional letter-cutters through the early centuries. The development of mechanical aids for the engraving of more elaborate letter shapes, especially for circular letters, is especially representative. Moreover, the geographical and chronological distribution of the practice of inscribing before 500 BC indicates a general tendency among the early masons, paralleled by regional and perhaps individual trends, towards the regular, small lettering style of the Classical period, a process of which the Ionians of Asia Minor seem to have been the pioneers. Bibliography A. J. BEATTIE, Some Notes on the Spensitheos Decree, in Kadmos 14 (1975), p. 8–47. L. BOFFO, Per una storia dell’archiviazione pubblica nel mondo greco, in Dike 6 (2003), p. 5–85. 42 43

RAUBITSCHEK, The Mechanic Engraving of Circular Letters, p. 343. CASSON, Early Greek Inscriptions on Metal, p. 514.

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J. BOUSQUET, Deux épigrammes grecques (Delphes, Ambracie), in Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 116 (1992), p. 585–606. P.A. BUTZ, The Art of the Hekatompedon Inscription and the Birth of the Stoikhedon Style, Leiden – Boston, 2010. S. CASSON, Early Greek Inscriptions on Metal: Some Notes, in American Journal of Archaeology 39.4 (1935), p. 510–517. P. CECCARELLI, Ancient Greek Letter Writing. A Cultural History (600 B.C.–150 B.C.), Oxford, 2013. P. CHANTRAINE, À propos du nom des Phéniciens et des noms de la pourpre, in Kadmos 14 (1975), p. 7–15. A.-M. COLLOMBIER, Écriture et société à Chypre à l’âge du fer, in C. BAURAIN et al. (eds), Phoinikeia Grammata, Liège – Namur, 1991, p. 425–447. M. DANA, Lettre sur plomb d’Apatorios à Leanax. Un document archaïque d’Olbia du Pont, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 148 (2004), p. 1–14. M. DANA, Lettres grecques dialectales nord-pontiques (sauf IGDOP 23–26), in Revue des études anciennes 109.1 (2007), p. 67–97. J.K. DAVIES, Greek History: A Discipline in Transformation, in T. WISEMAN (ed.), Classics in Progress. Essays on Ancient Greece and Rome, Oxford, 2002, p. 225– 246. P. DEMARGNE and H. VAN EFFENTERRE, Recherches à Dréros II. Les inscriptions archaïques, in Bulletin de correspondance héllenique 61 (1937), p. 333–348. U.K. DUNCAN, Notes on Lettering by Some Attic Masons in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries B.C., in Annual of the British School of Athens 56 (1961), p. 179–188, pl. 30–31. G.P. EDWARDS and R.B. EDWARDS, The Meaning and Etymology of POINIKASTAS, in Kadmos 16 (1977), p. 131–140. H. VAN EFFENTERRE, Le contrat du travail du scribe Spensithios, in Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 97 (1973), p. 31–46. H. VAN EFFENTERRE and F. RUZÉ, Nomima. Recueil d’inscriptions politiques et juridiques de l’archaïsme grecque I, Rome, 1994. F. FAEGERSTEN, The Egyptianizing Male Limestone Statuary from Cyprus. A Study of Cross-Cultural Eastern Mediterranean Votive Type, Lund, 2003. M. FARAGUNA, Citizen Registers in Archaic Greece: The Evidence Reconsidered, in A.P. MATTHAIOU and N. PAPAZARKADAS (eds), ΑΞΩΝ: Studies in Honor of Ronald S. Stroud, vol. B, Athens, 2015, p. 649–668. M. GAGARIN, Writing Greek Law, Cambridge, 2008. M. GAGARIN and P. PEARLMAN, The Laws of Ancient Crete c. 650–400 BCE, Oxford, 2016. P.A. HANSEN, Carmina Epigraphica Graeca saeculorum VIII–V a.Chr.n., Berlin, 1983. A. HERMARY, Catalogue des Antiquités de Chypre. Sculptures, Paris, 1989. C.G. HIGGINS and W. K. PRITCHETT, Engraving Techniques in Attic Epigraphy, in American Journal of Archaeology 69 (1965), p. 367–371, pl. 97–100. L.H. JEFFERY, Inscribed Gravestones from Archaic Attica, in Annual of the British School at Athens 57 (1962), p. 115–153. L.H. JEFFERY, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (revised edition with a supplement by A. JOHNSTON), Oxford, 1990. L.H. JEFFERY and A. MORPURGO-DAVIES, Ποινικαστάς and ποινικάζεν: BM 1969.4-2.1, A New Archaic Inscription from Crete, in Kadmos 9 (1970), p. 118–154. M.S. JENSEN, Writing Homer. A Study Based on Results from Modern Fieldwork, Copenhagen, 2011.

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A. JOHNSTON, Straight, Crooked and Joined-up Writing: An Early Mediterranean View, in K.E. PIQUETTE and R.D. WHITEHOUSE (eds), Writing as Material Practice. Substance, Surface and Medium, London, 2013, p. 193–212. C.M. KEESLING, Patrons of Athenian Votive Monuments of the Archaic and Classical Periods, in Hesperia 74 (2005), p. 395–426. CH. KRITZAS, Φοινικηία Γράμματα: Νέα Αρχαϊκή Επιγραφή από την Έλτυνα, in G. RETHEMIOTAKIS and M. EGGLEZOU (ed.), Το Γεωμετρικό Νεκροταφείο της Έλτυνας. Παράρτημα, Heraclion, 2010, p. 1–26. G. MARGINESU, Prestigio dello scriba e autenticità dello scritto: il caso di Spensithios, in Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene 84, 3.6.1 (2006), p. 381–416. O. MASSON, Les inscriptions chypriotes syllabiques, Paris, 1961. A.P. MATTHAIOU, Four Inscribed Bronze Tablets from Thebes: Preliminary Notes, in N. PAPAZARKADAS (ed.), The Epigraphy and History of Boeotia, Leiden – Boston, 2014, p. 211–222. B.H. MCLEAN, An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy of the Hellenistic and Roman Period: From Alexander the Great to the Reign of Constantine) (323 B.C.–A.D. 337), Ann Arbor, 2002. S. MINON, Inscriptions éléennes dialectales (VIe–IIe siècle avant J.-C.), Geneva, 2007. S. MOLLARD-BESQUES, Catalogue raisoné des figurines et reliefs en terre-cuite grec, étrusques et romains I, Paris, 1954. Z. PAPAKONSTANTINOU, Lawmaking and Adjudication in Archaic Greece, London, 2008. G. PAPASAVVAS, Writing on Cyprus: Some Silent Witnesses, in Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 2003, p. 79–94. G. PAPASAVVAS, A Writing Tablet from Crete, in Mitteilungen des Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 118 (2003), p. 68–89. CH. PÈBARTHE, Spensithios, scribe ou archiviste publique? Réflexions sur les usages publiques de l’écriture en Crète dans l’époque archaïque, in Temporalités 3 (2006), p. 37–55. P. PERLMAN, The Laws from the Temple of Apollo Pythios, in T.H. NIELSEN (ed.), Even More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis, Stuttgart, 2002, p. 187–228. P. PERLMAN, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor: The Economies of Archaic Eleutherna, Crete, in Classical Antiquity 23.1 (2004), p. 95–137. A.E. RAUBITSCHEK, Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis, Cambridge Mass., 1949. A.E. RAUBITSCHEK, The Mechanical Engraving of Circular Letters, in American Journal of Archaeology 55.4 (1951), p. 343–344. F. REICHE, Grammateis und Mnamones. Schreiber und Rechtsbewahrer in archaischer und frühklassischer Zeit (PhD diss.), Münster, 2006 (https://d-nb.info/991633520/34). L. ROBERT, Épigraphie et paléographie, in Comptes Rendues de l’Academie des Inscriptions 99.2 (1955), p. 195–222. R.L. SCRANTON, Correction of an Inscription from Phlius, in Hesperia 10 (1941), p. 371–372. J.P. SICKINGER, Public Records and Archives in Classical Athens, Chapel Hill – London, 1999. R. THOMAS, Literacy and the City-State in Archaic and Classical Greece, in A.K. BOWMAN and G. WOOLF (eds), Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, Cambridge, 1996, p. 33–50. S.V. TRACY, Attic Letter-Cutters of 229 to 86 B.C., Berkeley – Los Angeles, 1992. S.V. TRACY, Athenian Lettering of the Fifth Century B.C. The Raise of the Professional Letter Cutter, Berlin – London, 2016.

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S.V. TRACY and C. PAPAODYSSEUS, The Study of Hands on Greek Inscriptions: The Need for a Digital Approach, in American Journal of Archaeology 113 (2009), p. 99–102. G.I. TRIANTI, Παρατηρήσεις σε δύο ομάδες γλυπτών του τέλους του 6ου αιώνα από την Ακρόπολη, in W.D.E. COULSON et al. (eds), The Archaeology of Athens and Attica under the Democracy. Proceedings of an International Conference celebrating 2500 years since the birth of democracy in Greece, held at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, December 4–6, 1992, Athens, 1994, p. 83–91. R. WACHTER, Der Informationsgehalt von Schreibfehlern in Griechischen und Lateinischen Inschriften, in Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumwissenschaft 18 (1992), p. 17–31. R.D. WOODWARD, The Textualization of the Greek Alphabet, Cambridge, 2014.

SAVING THE IVORY TOWER FROM OBLIVION: THE ROLE OF SCRIBES IN PRESERVING ALEXANDRIAN SCHOLARSHIP Francesca SCHIRONI

This article examines a rather specialised field, ancient scholarship, and discusses how ancient, late antique, and Byzantine scribes played a fundamental role in preserving the work carried out in the Alexandrian Library. The focus is mainly on the work of the most famous Alexandrian scholar, Aristarchus of Samothrace (ca. 216–144 BC), whose impact on Homeric scholarship was enormous, such that scribal practice shows many traces of it. I discuss this theme in a reverse order, that is, I start from the later scribes/scholars and go backwards. 1. Byzantine scribes and Aristarchus’s commentaries One of the problems scholars face when working on Aristarchus is that none of his works has reached us by direct tradition – that is, there are no medieval manuscripts that preserve his editions of and commentaries on classical authors. This situation arose because Aristarchus’s works were not considered real ‘texts’ to copy and preserve in the manner of canonical authors, such as Homer or Sophocles. Rather, they were ‘open sources’ for high-end scholarship, which anyone interested in could copy and add to their own personal commentaries, editions, and monographs. As a result, many fragments of Aristarchus’s work have survived thanks to the work of anonymous scribes who copied and excerpted his commentaries and editions over the centuries and incorporated them in their own texts. This re-use of Aristarchus’s original works happened especially with Homer. Aristarchus’s Homeric studies seem to have been considered in danger of disappearing one generation after his death, so that between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD two scholars from the Aristarchean school, Didymus and Aristonicus, wrote treatises to ‘save’ them; Didymus collected Aristarchus’s readings in Homer, and Aristonicus explained the meaning of the critical signs that Aristarchus placed in his editions and commentaries to alert readers to problematic points or exegetical issues. Later, in the 2nd century AD, two other scholars, Herodian and Nicanor, engaged with Aristarchus’s work: Herodian analyzed Homeric prosody and Nicanor discussed Homeric punctuation and Aristarchus’s ideas on it. These works on Aristarchus’s scholarship too are lost now, but in the 5th century AD they were collected together in the so-called Viermännerkommentar, ‘Four-Man Commentary’. This commentary is also lost, but we possess

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later works depending on it; the most important of these are the Homeric scholia (i.e., marginal and interlinear annotations in Homeric manuscripts), especially those preserved in the famous Iliadic manuscript Venetus A (10th century AD),1 the Homeric commentary of Eustathius of Thessalonica, and the Byzantine Etymologica (i.e., etymological dictionaries of the Byzantine period).2 While the commentaries of Eustathius, who was archbishop of Thessalonica from ca. 1175 to 1195, are in fact a learned work put together by an individual with intellectual ambitions, the scholia and the Etymologica are the work of anonymous scribes/scholars who read earlier works and excerpted them. Thus, in this specific case, we can compare one author (Eustathius) to two other sources (scholia and Etymologica) written by anonymous scribes. For example, the following notes discuss the accentuation of the noun λίς, ‘lion’; one is a scholium in the Venetus A, derived from Herodian, and one is a note from Eustathius’s Commentary on the Iliad; I have used italic and bold fonts as well as underline to visualise portions of the text which report the same information: • Sch. Il. 11.239c1 (Hrd.) {ὥστε} λίς: ὁ μὲν Ἀρίσταρχος ὀξύνει, ὁ δὲ Αἰσχρίων περισπᾷ· ὡς γὰρ παρὰ τὸ μῦς μῦν, φησί, καὶ “νοῦς” (κ 240) νοῦν, οὕτως καὶ λῖς, λῖν· “ἐπί τε λῖν ἤγαγε δαίμων” (Λ 480). καὶ ἔστι συγκατατίθεσθαι τῷ Αἰσχρίωνι ὅτι μᾶλλον ὀφείλει περισπᾶσθαι, εἰ καὶ μηδὲν τῶν εἰς ις ληγόντων καὶ ἀρσενικὸν γένος ὑπισχνουμένων περιεσπάσθη. καὶ τάχα καθ’ ἕτερον λόγον, ἵνα τὸ ἐπιθετικὸν καὶ σημαῖνον γένος θηλυκὸν καὶ ὀξυνόμενον ἀποφύγῃ, λέγω δὲ τὸ “λὶς πέτρη” (μ 64). τῷ μέντοι χαρακτῆρι τοῦ κίς καὶ “θίς” (μ 45) καὶ ῥίς, καίτοι γε διαφόρως κλιθεῖσι πρὸς τὸ λίς, συνεξωμοίωσεν αὐτὸ κατὰ τόνον ὁ Ἀρίσταρχος· καὶ οὕτως ἐπείσθη ἡ παράδοσις. A λίς: Aristarchus reads [λίς] as oxytone, Aeschrion as a perispomenon, for, he says, just as from μῦς [there is] μῦν, and [from] νοῦς (Od. 10.240) νοῦν, so too [from] λῖς [there is] λῖν: “a god brings [against them] a lion (λῖν)” (Il. 11.480). And we must agree with Aeschrion that it is better to read [λῖς] as perispomenon, even if no [noun] ending in -ις and accepting the masculine gender is periespomenon. But perhaps [Aeschrion read λῖς as perispomenon] according to another reason, to distinguish it from the epithet which is feminine and which is oxytone, I mean “smooth (λὶς) stone” (Od. 12.64). But Aristarchus equated [λίς] to the shape of κίς, θίς (Od. 12.45) and ῥίς in terms of accent, though [these nouns] decline differently from λίς. And thus the tradition followed him. 1 The Venetus A specifies that the scholia are excerpted from the Four-Man Commentary in a subscription repeated at the end of each book of the Iliad; see, e.g., Ven. A, f. 51r: παράκειται τὰ Ἀριστονίκου σημεῖα καὶ τὰ Διδύμου περὶ τῆς Ἀρισταρχείου διορθώσεως, τινὰ δὲ καὶ ἐκ τῆς ᾿Ιλιακῆς προσῳδίας Ἡρωδιανοῦ καὶ Νικάνορος περὶ τῆς Ὁμηρικῆς στιγμῆς, “The [work entitled] Critical Signs by Aristonicus and the [work] On the Aristarchean Recension by Didymus are here added; there are also some [excerpts] from the [treatise entitled] Iliadic Prosody by Herodian and [from] On Homeric Punctuation by Nicanor.” 2 On the Aristarchean tradition, see H. ERBSE, Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (scholia vetera), 7 vols, Berlin, 1969–1988, I, p. xlv–lix; F. SCHIRONI, The Best of the Grammarians. Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad, Ann Arbor, 2018, p. 6–14.

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• Eust. 841.22 (ad Il. 11.239) τὸ δὲ λίς κατὰ μὲν Ἀρίσταρχον, ὥς φασιν οἱ περὶ Ἀπίωνα καὶ Ἡρόδωρον, ὀξύνεται, συνεξομοιούμενον τῷ χαρακτῆρι τοῦ κίς κιός, ἔτι δὲ καὶ τῷ τίς καὶ θίς καὶ ῥίς, εἰ καὶ διαφόρως ταῦτα κλίνεται πρὸς τὸ λίς. ὁ Αἰσχρίων δέ, φασί, περισπᾷ διὰ τὸ καὶ τὴν αἰτιατικὴν περισπᾶσθαι. ὡς γὰρ μῦς μῦν, δρῦς δρῦν, οὕτω καὶ λῖς λῖν. εἰ δὲ μηδὲν τῶν εἰς ις περισπᾶται, ἀλλ’ ὁ Αἰσχρίων τοῦτο ἐποίει, ἐκφεύγων θηλυκὸν ἐπίθετον ὀξύτονον τὸ “λὶς πέτρη”, ἐν Ὀδυσσείᾳ ῥηθέν (μ 64). καὶ οὕτω μὲν ἐκεῖνος τὸ λίς, ὁ λέων, περιέσπα πρὸς διαστολὴν τοῦ ἐπιθετικοῦ, ἀλλ’ ἡ παράδοσις, φασί, τῷ Ἀριστάρχῳ πείθεται. As Apion and Herodorus say, according to Aristarchus λίς is oxytone, as it is equated to the shape of κίς κιός, and also to τίς, θίς and ῥίς, even if these forms decline differently from λίς. Aeschrion, they say, reads [λίς] as perispomenon because also the accusative is perispomenon. For just as [there is] μῦς μῦν, δρῦς δρῦν, so [there is] also λῖς, λῖν. And even if no [noun] ending in -ις is perispomenon, Aeschrion nevertheless made this one [i.e., λῖς as perispomenon], distinguishing it from the feminine epithet [which is] oxytone, “smooth (λὶς) stone”, used in the Odyssey (Od. 12.64). And thus he [i.e., Aeschrion] read λίς, the lion, as perispomenon to differentiate it from the epithet, but the tradition, they say, follows Aristarchus.

Without discussing the specific problem, I will focus on how the information has been transmitted in these two sources. Aristarchus’s opinion is highlighted in bold: he read λίς with an acute accent. The opinion of another grammarian, Aeschrion (otherwise unknown), who gave a different accent to the word, is underlined. Finally, Herodian’s discussion of both solutions, and his preference for Aeschrion’s choice, is in italics. As is clear, these two passages are quite similar, at times even identical. Eustathius and the anonymous scribe of the scholium did not use each other’s work, but they used the same sources. This example shows that the way of working and of excerpting among anonymous scribes, such as those compiling the Homeric scholia, and scholars with a ‘personality’, such as Eustathius, is identical: none of them – neither the scholiast nor the learned Eustathius – has changed the original phrasing. Eustathius simply adds that he read this information in Apion and Herodorus, which is probably an intermediate source. The scribes of the Homeric scholia are in fact excellent examples of ‘knowledge transfer’ exactly because they are anonymous in the truest sense. Not only do we not often know their names, but – and more importantly – their personality is in essence anonymous. Yet even Eustathius, notwithstanding his individuality as intellectual and philologist,3 does not behave very differently. He offers no personal reworking of the original material but simply a rather faithful copying.4 Thus, even if the present volume is in fact about personality and traits 3 Famously, Eustathius was not only a church personality, but also a teacher of rhetoric and a philologist; he wrote commentaries on both the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as on Pindar (only the proem is extant) and on Dionysius Periegetes. 4 For other examples of Eustathius’s rather ‘faithful’ copying of the Four-Man Commentary via Apion and Herodorus as compared to the scholia and the Etymologica, see, e.g., Eust. 592.16

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of the scribes at work, in the field of scholarship it is indeed the lack of personality of scribes or even of notable intellectuals like Eustathius in transferring past knowledge over the centuries that makes them so important for us. 2. Roman scribes and Aristarchus’s commentaries The operation of ‘knowledge transfer’ through the work of anonymous copyists or educated individuals who refrain from changing their sources is also present in the earlier sources on papyrus, such as the hypomnemata, namely, continuous commentaries on a text. In particular, parallels between the scholia in the Venetus A and Homeric commentaries on papyrus are common. An example concerns an athetesis in Iliad 21. When he wanted to athetise a line, namely, to mark it as suspicious without deleting it completely from the text, Aristarchus used an obelos, a dash in the left margin of the line. From a scholium in the Venetus A we know that l. 290 of Book 21 was athetised because it contained an inconsistency in the narrative: Sch. Il. 21.290a (Ariston.) Ζηνὸς ἐπαινήσαντος : ἀθετεῖται, ὅτι ἀπίθανον εἰς ἀνδρὸς μορφὴν ὡμοιωμένον λέγειν “ἐγὼ καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη”· τίς γάρ ἐστιν, οὐ μὴ νοήσῃ. A “With the approval of Zeus, I and Pallas Athena [are both such helpers]”: it is athetised because it is not believable that disguised in a mortal shape [Poseidon] says: “I and Pallas Athena”. For [Achilles] will not understand who he is.

When reading this note, we do not have any indication about the identity of the scholar who wanted to reject this line. Yet the content and style of this scholium show that it derives from Aristonicus, the scholar who explained the meaning of Aristarchus’s critical signs. In this case, then, Aristonicus explained the meaning of the obelos, the sign that Aristarchus used to mark atheteseis, and gave Aristarchus’s reason for the rejection. This is, at least, how every modern scholar working on Aristarchus would interpret this note. However, we must be clear that this is an inference, and we can make it exactly because we firmly believe in the lack of personality of those scribes who did not change anything since the 1st century BC, thus preserving intact the original note by Aristonicus, a note which in turn – we assume – preserved faithfully Aristarchus’s phrasing (or at least its content). Only by assuming that we have been dealing with a series of intellectually anonymous scribes from the 1st century BC to the 10th century AD can we thus conclude that this scholium in the Venetus A, which was written in (ad Il. 5.656) compared to Sch. Il. 5.656a (Hrd.), EGen. α 593 Lasserre-Livadaras, and EM α 1025 Lasserre-Livadaras (= 78.20 Gaisford); Eust. 899.53 (ad Il. 12.201) compared to Sch. Il. 12.201d (Hrd.) and EM 786.7 Gaisford; Eust. 1133.10 (ad Il. 18.100) and 1139.11 (ad Il. 18.213) compared to Sch. Il. 18.100d1 (Did.) and 18.213 (Did.), EGen. α 1143 Lasserre-Livadaras, and ΕΜ α 1756 Lasserre-Livadaras (= 138.2 Gaisford).

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the 10th century AD, preserves Aristarchus’s opinion, even if it lacks any single indication that these words do indeed go back to him.5 Nevertheless, things become more complicated when we deal with a commentary on papyrus such as P.Oxy. II 221 (2nd century AD), which is usually known as Ammonius’s commentary, because in the margin of the papyrus, between columns x and xi, we read: “I, Ammonius, the grammarian, son of Ammonius, signed it” (Ἀμμώνιος Ἀμμωνίου γραμματικὸς ἐσημειωσάμην). Ammonius is an unknown grammarian; still, he cannot be defined as an ‘anonymous scribe’, since he signed his work. In his commentary (a rather learned commentary on Iliad 21, rich in overlaps with later scholia and quoting many scholars such as Aristarchus, Aristophanes, and Zenodotus) there is a rather long note on the same line:6 P.Oxy. II 221, xv, ll. 6–27

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Ζηνὸς ἐπα[ι-] νήσαντος ἐγὼ καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη⟨:⟩ ἀθετεῖται, ὅτι {ὄνομα} οὐκ εἴρηκεν ὄνομα τοῦ θεοῦ, ἀλλ’ ἐγώ, μεταβεβληκὼς τὴν ἰδέαν εἰς ἄνδρα· [κ]αὶ γ[ὰ]ρ οὐ⟦κα⟧δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἄφοδον σημείω⟨ι⟩ ἐπιφανεῖ τὸν Ἀχιλλέα ἐθάρσυνεν· “οὐδὲ Σκάμανδρος ἔληγε τὸ ὃν μένος ἀλλ’ ἔτι μᾶλλον / χώετο Πηλείωνι”. πρὸς ταῦτα λέγει Σέλευκος ἐν τῶ⟨ι⟩ γ Κατὰ τῶν Ἀριστάρχου σημείων ὅτι ἀνδράσιν ὡμοιωμένοι ὅμως κατὰ τ[ὸ] σ[ι]ωπώμενον διὰ τῆς δεξιώσεω[ς] ἴχνη τοῦ θεοὶ εἶναι παρέχον[τ]αι· [ἐ]πεὶ πῶς εἰρήκασι “τ[ο]ίω γάρ τοι νῶι θεῶν ἐπιταρρόθω [εἰμ]έν”; καὶ [ὑ]πὸ Διὸς δὲ κατὰ τὸ σ[ιω]πώμενον ἐπέμφθησαν. ἐν [δ]ὲ τῶ⟨ι⟩ ε [τ]ῶν Διορθωτικῶν ὁ αὐτὸς [ἀ]θετεῖ σὺν τοῖς ἑξῆς β ὡς περισσο[ύ]ς. οὐκ εἶναι δὲ οὐδ’ ἐν τῆ⟨ι⟩ Κρητικῆ⟨ι⟩.

“With the approval of Zeus, I and Pallas Athena [are both such helpers]”: [the line] is athetised because he has not said the name of the god [i.e., ‘Poseidon’] but ‘I’, while now he has adopted human disguise. And he did not encourage Achilles by giving a clear sign when he leaves; [in fact, the river is not deterred as is clear from]: “and the Scamander did not stay his might, but even more he was angry with the son of Peleus” (Il. 21.305-306). With reference to these points in Book 3 of his work Against the Signs of Aristarchus Seleucus says that, even when disguised as humans, tacitly they offer hints that they are gods by greeting them; since how can they have said: “for among the gods we are both such helpers” (Il. 21.289)? And they were sent by Zeus tacitly. But in Book 5 of the work On Textual Criticism the same [Seleucus] athetises the line with the following two [sc. Il. 21.290-292] because they are superfluous and [says that?] they were not in the edition of Crete.

Ammonius explains the athetesis along the same lines of the Aristonicus scholium (in bold in the translation), but adds another reason (underlined in the Every scholar of Aristarchus accepts this premise for the Aristonicus scholia; cf. D. LÜHRS, Untersuchungen zu den Athetesen Aristarchs in der Ilias und zu ihrer Behandlung im Corpus der exegetischen Scholien, Hildesheim – Zürich, 1992, p. 5; S. MATTHAIOS, Untersuchungen zur Grammatik Aristarchs: Texte und Interpretation zur Wortartenlehre (Hypomnemata 126), Göttingen, 1999, p. 37, 43–45; SCHIRONI, The Best of the Grammarians, p. 16. 6 I follow the text as edited by ERBSE, Scholia, V, p. 78–121, at p. 107–108. 5

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translation). He also records that Seleucus, a grammarian of the Imperial period, argued against this athetesis, but eventually accepted it (in italics in the translation). The latter part is certainly non-Aristarchean for chronological reasons – but what about the first part of the note? Aside from the wealth of information that it gives us, its incipit is significant: ἀθετεῖται, ὅτι. The wording is identical to the incipit of the Aristonicus’s scholium (ἀθετεῖται, ὅτι ἀπίθανον...) which, we concluded, is directly derived from Aristarchus. Yet this time the phrase is in Ammonius’s commentary. While in technical literature the use of formulae is typical, here the problem is a different one: who wanted to athetise that line? Was Ammonius sharing Aristarchus’s view? Or was he simply reporting it? And what about the second reason for the athetesis (underlined in the translation), which is missing from the scholium in the Venetus A? Is this an addition of Ammonius or does it go back to Aristarchus? – These are all questions we cannot answer. A second set of questions concerns the operation of Ammonius: was he simply the copyist of a commentary written by someone else? Or was he the author? The verb accompanying his name in the papyrus (ἐσημειωσάμην) is ambiguous, as σημειόω in the middle can mean ‘to mark’, in the sense of ‘countersign’ so to identify the work of a copyist rather than of the author of the commentary. But it could also mean ‘to annotate’, and so suggest that Ammonius, who defines himself as a γραμματικός, made those annotations, i.e., he wrote this commentary on Iliad 21. This example shows that, even when we have a name attached to a commentary (Ammonius in this case), and so a ‘personality’, in the field of ancient scholarship these ‘scholars’ tend often to work like ‘anonymous scribes’: they report others’ opinions in detail, but it is often very difficult to identify their own personal ideas, even when, like Ammonius, they sign their product – an operation which, by today’s standards, would mark ‘intellectual property’. Although this is convenient, because it puts no obstacle to modern scholars in assuming that ancient notes go back to the Hellenistic times, we need to be careful, as things may be more complicated than they appear, as P.Oxy. II 221 suggests. Another commentary on papyrus shows a different aspect of the work carried out by these learned, yet anonymous scribes. P.Amherst II 12 is dated on palaeographical grounds to the 3rd century AD and contains Aristarchus’s Commentary on the First Book of Herodotus, as the preserved colophon makes clear.7 The first column is much damaged and the lemmata which have been found there are mostly guesswork. The second column, on the other hand, is much more 7 Re-edited by A. PAAP, De Herodoti reliquiis in papyris et membranis Aegyptiis servatis, Leiden, 1948, p. 37–40; cf. also S. WEST, The Papyri of Herodotus, in D. OBBINK and R. RUTHERFORD (eds), Culture in Pieces. Essays on Ancient Texts in Honour of Peter Parsons, Oxford, 2011, p. 69–83, at p. 77–80; F. MONTANA, Nuova luce su P.Amh. II 12, col. I (Hypomnema di Aristarco al libro I di Erodoto), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 180 (2012), p. 72–76.

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readable; aside from their content, the lemmata covered by this second column tell an interesting story. The first legible lemma, secure because it is preceded by a dicolon, is taken from chapter 194 of Book 1, whereas the other three are all taken from chapter 215 of Book 1 (and Book 1 ends with chapter 216). This leaves us with a gap of twenty chapters between the first lemma and the other three. Unless we think that Aristarchus did not really find anything to say about those twenty chapters but then was completely absorbed by chapter 215, the only reasonable conclusion is to assume that the text had been excerpted from the original commentary,8 or that whoever copied this text used an exemplar which had already been excerpted or had missing sections.9 Yet the anonymous scribe added the title, Ἀριστάρχου | ῾Ηροδότου | α | ὑπόμνημα (‘Commentary of Aristarchus on Herodotus I’), as if the excerpting or the damaged original did not matter in the labelling of the final product. Whatever happened in the process of copying this text, most likely P.Amherst II 12 provides a different text from the original commentary of Aristarchus. This text was created by someone between the middle of the 2nd century BC (the time when Aristarchus composed his commentary to Herodotus) and the 3rd century AD (the dating of the papyrus). This someone either decided what was important and what was not important in Aristarchus’s commentary (and so created an excerpt of it) or simply did not have a full copy of the original Aristarchean commentary and copied what he had at his disposal. Even so, despite his important ‘editorial’ imprint, the scribe decided to remain anonymous and still labelled this new text as the Commentary of Aristarchus on Herodotus 1, notwithstanding the discrepancies with the original. This is a different operation from that of Ammonius, but similarly shows the special status of technical literature: on the one hand, scribes can act on the sources cutting and pasting them, and on the other, they do not emerge as independent authors and their work is essentially anonymous, whether they sign their work (as in the case of Ammonius in P.Oxy. II 221) or not (as in the case of P.Amherst II 12). 3. Roman scribes and Aristarchus’s critical signs An important feature of Aristarchus’s scholarship was the critical signs, which he used in his editorial work on Homer to highlight specific exegetical issues. In addition to the obelos for atheteseis, Aristarchus used the diplē (>) to mark lines noticeable for various reasons (e.g. linguistic issues, variant readings, explanations of different kind), the diplē periestigmenē () to mark lines where he argued against the philological choices of his predecessor Zenodotus, the asteriskos (※) 8 Cf. R. PFEIFFER, History of Classical Scholarship, vol. 1: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age, Oxford, 1968, p. 224–225; MONTANA, Nuova luce, p. 72 (with further bibliography in footnote 7); WEST, Papyri of Herodotus, p. 80. 9 Cf. PAAP, De Herodoti reliquiis, p. 39–40.

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to mark repeated lines, and a combination of obelos and asteriskos (–※), for repeated lines which he athetised because in his view they had been wrongly added by an interpolator, who took them from another passage in the Homeric poems (where they fit). How did Aristarchus use those signs? According to modern scholars, Aristarchus added them in the margin of his Homeric edition as a reference to the commentaries; in the latter he repeated them adding the lemma and the explanation. Critical signs were thus the link between the edition and the commentary and had the function of making it easier for a reader to look for specific notes with specific content.10 This, however, is a speculative reconstruction, as no fragments have been found of both a Homeric edition and a commentary belonging together, both with critical signs. Yet we do have fragments of Homeric editions and of commentaries that preserve critical signs used by Aristarchus. Without analysing all the evidence,11 I will focus on two examples. P.Mich. inv. 1206 (MP3: 1198.01)12 preserves remnants of a commentary to Iliad 14 with critical signs; there are entries to l. 316, 317, 322, 324, 337, 338, 340, 348, and many of them find a parallel among the scholia of Didymus (Sch. Il. 14.316; 14.322a1.2; 14.340b) and Aristonicus (Sch. Il. 14.317a) or in Eustathius (991.27, ad Il. 14.351). For example, we can compare the two notes on Il. 14.317: P.Mich. inv. 1206, ll. 3–5 – οὐδ’ ὁπότ’ ἠρα[σ(άμνην)· ἀπὸ τούτου στίχ ια ἕως [τοῦ “οὐδ’ ὁπότε Λητοῦς ἐρι( )” (l. 327) [ἀθετοῦνται “Not even when I fell in love”: from here eleven lines until “not even when [I fell in love with] glorious Leto” (Il. 14.327) are athetised. Sch. Il. 14.317a (Ariston.) οὐδ’ ὁπότ’ ἠρασάμην: … ἀπὸ τούτου δὲ ἕως τοῦ “οὐδ’ ὁπότε Λητοῦς ἐρικυδέος” (Il. 14.327) ἀθετοῦνται στίχοι ἕνδεκα, ὅτι ἄκαιρος ἡ ἀπαρίθμησις τῶν ὀνομάτων· μᾶλλον γὰρ ἀλλοτριοῖ τὴν Ἥραν ἢ προσάγεται. καὶ ὁ ἐπ⟨ε⟩ιγόμενος συγκοιμηθῆναι, διὰ τὴν τοῦ κεστοῦ δύναμιν, πολυλογεῖ. “Not even when I fell in love”: from here until “not even when [I fell in love with] glorious Leto” (Il. 14.327) eleven lines are athetised, because counting the 10 Cf. PFEIFFER, History of Classical Scholarship, 218; SCHIRONI, The Best of the Grammarians, p. 49–55. 11 For example, among Homeric texts with Aristarchean critical signs are P.Lond.Lit. 27 (first half of the 1st century AD), PSI 1.8 (1st to 2nd century AD), P.Hawara (second half of the 2nd century AD), P.Oxy. III 445 = P.Lond.Lit. 14 (2nd to 3rd century AD) and P.Mich. inv. 6653 (2nd to 3rd century AD). Among ‘commentaries’ (hypomnemata) with critical signs and overlap with Aristarchean scholia in the Venetus A there are P.Οxy. VIII 1086 (first half of the 1st century BC); P.Pisa Lit. 8 (1st century AD), P.Daris inv. 118 (2nd century AD), P.Cairo JE 60566 (2nd century AD), P.Mich. inv. 1206 (3rd to 4th century AD). On these papyri, see SCHIRONI, The Best of the Grammarians, p. 56–61. 12 Edited by W. LUPPE, Homer-Erläuterungen zu Ξ 316–348, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 93 (1992), p. 163–165.

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names [of his lovers] is out of place. For he makes Hera hostile rather than drawing her towards himself. And for one who is urged to sleep with her by the power of [Aphrodite’s] girdle he talks too much.

The papyrus’s note is much shorter, yet the essential information is preserved: that eleven lines are athetised and that an obelos (next to the lemma) was used to mark the athetesis; the comparison with the richer Aristonicus scholium in the Venetus A indicates that this athetesis is due to Aristarchus. Similar is the case of the Homeric editions (ekdoseis) with critical signs. For example, P.Oxy. III 445 (= P.Lond.Lit. 14, 2nd to 3rd century AD) contains portions of Iliad 6 and has diplai at l. 174, 176, 178, 181, 186, 194, 199, 507, 510, 518, and asteriskoi at 490–492.13 All the diplai but one (i.e., the diplē at l. 186) correspond to the same critical signs in the Venetus A (f. 83v, 84r, 90v).14 Most of them (all except two, those at l. 186 and 518) find specific scholia of Aristonicus explaining their reasons (Sch. Il. 6.174a; 6.176a; 6.178; 6.181a; 6.194b; 6.199; 6.507b1.2; 6.510a). Similarly, the asteriskoi at ll. 490–492 have parallels in the Venetus A, f. 90r (which has also another asteriskos at l. 493) and also correspond to a scholium by Aristonicus in the same manuscript (Sch. Il. 6.490– 493) explaining that these lines were correctly placed here but they were wrongly repeated in the Odyssey in two places where they occurred (Od. 1.356–359 and 21.350–353). While the Venetus A has more critical signs (and scholia) than the papyrus, it has omitted the siglum to line 186, transmitted rather by P.Oxy. III 445. These discrepancies are easily explicable by the odds of transmission; still the similarities are striking, especially when we realise that the papyrus and the Venetus A are separated by at least some 600 years and that the Venetus A most likely is not a copy of the Iliadic text preserved in P.Oxy. III 445. These examples (and many others can be shown) suggest that these critical signs as well as Aristarchus’s explanations for them were transmitted very carefully by anonymous scribes for many centuries and that the reconstruction of the system ekdosis-hypomnema outlined above is most likely correct. Again, the evidence is given by anonymous scribes who copied and excerpted those commentaries over the centuries. Yet each of these examples on papyrus does not fully correspond to the wealth of signs and Aristonicus scholia in the Venetus A. In other words, in all these editions and commentaries going back to the Roman period, scribes made a selection when recopying the Aristarchean signs or his commentaries. In luxury editions such as the Hawara Homer (2nd century AD), Aristarchean critical signs might be copied for intellectual ‘showing-off’, as 13 Cf. K. MCNAMEE, Annotations in Greek and Latin Texts from Egypt (American Studies in Papyrology 45), New Haven Conn., 2007, p. 272–273. The papyrus has also what looks like an antisigma at Il. 6.174; yet the sign does not go back to Aristarchus since at l. 174 Aristonicus clearly says that there was a diplē: Sch. Il. 6.174a ἐννῆμαρ: ἡ διπλῆ, ὅτι ἐπίφορός ἐστι πρὸς τὸν ἐννέα ἀριθμόν; cf. F. SCHIRONI, Tautologies and Transpositions: Aristarchus’ Less Known Critical Signs, in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 57 (2017), p. 607–630, at p. 626. 14 Digital images of the Venetus A are available online through the Homer Multitext Project (http://www.homermultitext.org/facsimile/index.html, accessed December 8, 2018).

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McNamee has rightly pointed out.15 Yet less refined editions or commentaries with critical signs and excerpts of Aristarchus’s commentary, such as the Michigan papyrus discussed above, were probably ‘study’ texts of scholars or teachers, proving that Aristarchus’s work was recopied also for ‘scientific interests’ even later on into the Roman period. 4. Ptolemaic scribes and Aristarchus’s critical signs With the works of Didymus and Aristonicus between the 1st century BC and the early 1st century AD, Aristarchus became the ‘star’ of Homeric scholarship. Therefore it is not surprising that in the Roman period scribes recopied bits and pieces of Aristarchus’s scholarship as well as his critical signs into their own Homeric editions and commentaries. What about the previous period, before Didymus and Aristonicus popularised Aristarchean scholarship? We can rely on a manuscript that another anonymous scholar left us: P.Tebt. I 4. This papyrus, originally including fragments of five columns covering portions of Iliad 2 (many of which are now lost), dates back to the 2nd century BC, that is, it predates the work of Didymus and Aristonicus, and it is almost contemporary with Aristarchus’s lifetime (Aristarchus died in 144 BC). The first editors noted several Aristarchean signs: obeloi at Il. 2.124, 133, and 197, a diplē periestigmenē at Il. 2.156, and an asteriskos with an obelos on the right of Il. 2.141. My personal inspection of the papyrus has shown that only the obeloi at ll. 124 and 197 are visible, while the other signs are lost together with fragments of the original manuscripts.16 However, if we follow the original edition, these signs correspond to the same critical signs used by Aristarchus in his edition, as is clear from the Aristonicus scholia referring to the same lines in the Venetus A. Thus, all three obeloi in P.Tebt. I 4 mark atheteseis which go back to Aristarchus (Sch. Il. 2.124a; 2.130–3; 2.193a1-2). Similarly, the diplē periestigmenē at l. 156 corresponds to a scholium in which Aristarchus criticises Zenodotus for having ruined the passage with his readings (Sch. Il. 2.156–69). Finally, the asteriskos with an obelos, which was legible in the right margin of Il. 1.141 in the papyrus, probably referred to Il. 2.164 (which must have been in the next column to the right, now lost); indeed Aristarchus athetised the line because it was repeated from Il. 2.180, where it was in the right place (Sch. Il. 2.164a1). The critical signs in the papyrus thus match the Aristonicus scholia reporting Aristarchus’s choices.17 This agreement is indeed striking as 15 K. MCNAMEE, Aristarchus and ‘Everyman’s’ Homer, in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 22 (1981), p. 247–255, at p. 253. 16 Cf. also I. BONATI, Note testuali a P.Tebt. I 4 (Hom. B 95–201), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 176 (2011), p. 1–5. In the papyrus there is also an antisigma (a less common Aristarchean sign) at Il. 2.204; see SCHIRONI, Tautologies and Transpositions, p. 626–628. 17 On the other hand, the critical signs in the Venetus A only partially match those in the Ptolemaic papyrus: the former has the obeloi at Il. 2.124 and 133 (f. 26v) and the obelos at Il. 2.197

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these two texts are more than 1000 years apart. We cannot find any better proof than this for the role of scribes in ‘knowledge transfer’. P.Tebt. I 4 thus proves that already in the 2nd century BC some scribe recopied Aristarchus’s edition and so made it available outside the Alexandrian Library. This does not mean that Aristarchus’s Homeric text accompanied by critical signs (i.e., his critical edition of Homer) became a bestseller. P.Tebt. I 4 might be an exception, a unique copy of a learned reader who once visited the Royal Library and recopied Aristarchus’s edition for his personal library, with no influence on the overall history of Homeric scholarship in the Ptolemaic period. Even so, the papyrus testifies to the diffusion of Aristarchus’s most technical work outside the Alexandrian Library very soon after its completion. 5. Ptolemaic scribes and Aristarchus’s Homeric text If we leave aside the more high-end learned products, such as commentaries and editions with critical signs, the many other anonymous copies of the Homeric text had another important function in spreading Aristarchus’s scholarship beyond the ivory tower of the Royal Library. As is well known, Homer papyri before 150 BC present a very erratic text, such that scholars call them ‘wild papyri’.18 Their text has additional and omitted lines, as well as many more variant readings than our Homeric vulgate, which, despite its variants, is generally quite homogenous. From around 150 BC onwards the text preserved in papyri is similar to our vulgate in terms of lines; it has also much fewer variant readings than before.19 This fact has been correctly connected with the work of the Alexandrians and particularly of Aristarchus. Some scholars suggested that this was a market choice operated by scribes, who eliminated from the books destined for the market the lines which Aristarchus had considered spurious and removed from his own edition, though they did not copy the variants and emendations which he suggested.20 A more plausible solution, however, is to think that what circulated outside the Library and was so vastly copied for the book (f. 28r) but it does not have the diplē periestigmenē at Il. 2.156 (f. 27r) and has only the asteriskos but not the obelos at Il. 2.164, (f. 27v). Yet the overlap between the Aristonicus scholia and the signs in P.Tebt. I 4 is more significant, as the Venetus A sometimes omits critical signs corresponding to Aristonicus scholia discussing them (cf. SCHIRONI, The Best of the Grammarians, p. 449–450). 18 See S. WEST, The Ptolemaic Papyri of Homer (Papyrologica Coloniensia 3), Cologne, 1967, for a comprehensive study of these papyri. 19 Cf. G.M. BOLLING, Vulgate Homeric Papyri, in American Journal of Philology 42 (1921), p. 253–259; P. COLLART, Les papyrus de l’Iliade (1er article), in Revue de philologie, de litérature et d’histoire anciennes 6 (1932), p. 315–349, at p. 338–349, and P. COLLART, Les papyrus de l’Iliade (2e article), in Revue de philologie, de litérature et d’histoire anciennes 7 (1933), p. 33–61, at p. 33– 51; M. HASLAM, Homeric Papyri and Transmission of the Text, in I. MORRIS and B. POWELL (eds), A New Companion to Homer, Leiden – New York, 1997, p. 55–100, at p. 55–56, 63–69. 20 Cf. COLLART, Les papyrus de l’Iliade (2e article), p. 52–54; WEST, Ptolemaic Papyri of Homer, p. 11–17.

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market was not Aristarchus’s critical edition, with critical signs and (perhaps) variant readings in the margins, but a preparatory text. In fact, Aristarchus’s recension, which consisted of atheteseis of suspicious lines and specific readings, was mostly contained in the commentaries (where readings and atheteseis were proposed and discussed); before embarking on this editorial work, however, Aristarchus must have prepared a working text, which consisted of the ancient vulgate purged of securely spurious lines.21 This preparatory text, which was the Hellenistic vulgate deprived of scarcely attested lines, circulated outside the Library and became the new authoritative Homeric text because scribes adopted it as the ‘gold standard’ for the book market.22 Whichever reconstruction one chooses, these scribes clearly were not ‘intellectuals’ excerpting and recopying Aristarchus’s technical notes, as seen above. Rather, they recopied (probably for others) the text of Homer. And yet their role in knowledge transfer cannot be underestimated. In fact, these anonymous scribes who copied Aristarchus’s (preliminary) edition are those who made it authoritative. Aristarchus’s important choices for the Homeric text could have simply remained locked in the Royal Library as a purely intellectual exercise had it not been for the scribal practice. 6. Ptolemaic and Roman scribes: Book layout changes Finally, the layout of ancient Homeric editions tells us something more about the role of scribes in popularising Alexandrian editorial practices. Ptolemaic papyri tend to present one Homeric book after another in the same column, in a continuum. Some of them do not even mark the end of one book and the beginning of the next, as happens with P.Gen. inv. 90 (second half of the 3rd century BC). Others, on the other hand, have a separation marker, but it is a very tiny one: a simple short paragraphos in the margin as in P.Sorb. inv. 2245, col. K (second half of the 3rd century BC), or a short paragraphos with a coronis, as in P.Berol. inv. 16985 (1st century BC). However, one characteristic that all the Ptolemaic papyri share is the lack of colophons, that is, end-titles. With the Roman era things change: now bookends are clearly marked with an end-title and with a space underneath (often the next book starts in the next column). PSI inv. 1914 (1st century BC to 1st century AD) is the first Homeric papyrus to show a colophon. Afterwards, colophons become the norm and there 21 This preparatory text was the basis of Aristarchus’s ekdosis, i.e., his critical edition, which was the same preparatory text with the addition of critical signs (referring to the commentary, where readings and atheteseis were discussed) and perhaps with variant readings in the margins. This was Aristarchus’s ‘critical edition’ whose spread has been analyzed in the previous sections (§§ 3 and 4). Here instead the focus is on the spread of this preparatory text, before Aristarchus used it as a basis for his recension. 22 Cf. H. ERBSE, Über Aristarchs Iliasausgaben, in Hermes 87 (1959), p. 275–303, at p. 301– 303; HASLAM, Homeric Papyri, p. 84–87; SCHIRONI, The Best of the Grammarians, p. 41–43.

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is no exception to them. Moreover, Homeric end-titles also always have the same ‘shape’: the name of the poem followed by the Greek letter corresponding to the Homeric book that has just finished. The appearance of end-titles using the letter to name Homeric books is thus a dramatic change in the book layout, which scribes seem to adopt consistently.23 This empirical observation of scribal practice too finds an explanation in the learned activity at Alexandria. PseudoPlutarch attributes the division into 24 books corresponding to the letters of the Greek alphabet to Aristarchus and his circle (De Homero 2, 4.1). We cannot prove the basis of such information. However, a title tag on a papyrus mentioning Apollodorus’s grammatical treatise on Book 14 of the Iliad (Ζητήματ[α] | γραμματικ[ὰ] | εἰς τὴν Ξ | τῆς Ἰλιάδο[ς] in P.Mil.Vogl. I 19)24 proves that in the 2nd century BC, when Apollodorus (a pupil of Aristarchus) was active, this system was already in use, at least among grammarians and philologists. The book market, however, seems to have adopted this system a little bit later, in the 1st century BC. The evidence thus suggests that the system was invented in the Library of Alexandria and was first adopted by the grammarians working there, such as Apollodorus. Some scribes might have marked their edition of Homer with a letter end-title, exactly as they marked it with the Aristarchean critical signs. However, whereas the critical signs remained appealing only to the restricted pool of learned scribes, end-titles appealed to a larger number of readers because they were very practical. Thus, scribes beyond the intellectual circles readily adopted them as they adopted the preparatory Homeric text selected by Aristarchus. 7. Conclusions To conclude, manuscript evidence shows that anonymous scribes from the Ptolemaic to the Byzantine periods had two distinct and fundamental roles in knowledge transfer. First, the more learned scribes preserved the most technical aspects of Aristarchean scholarship. As we have seen, many fragments from Aristarchus’s commentaries, which include both his notes and his critical signs, have been preserved in manuscripts from the 2nd century BC up to the 10th century AD. The precision with which these scribes preserved the original notes over the centuries is astonishing, especially when we realise that commentaries and scholia are by default not a fixed text. Rather, they are ‘open sources’ that can be excerpted, enlarged, and cut when useful. In fact, exactly because they are used (and re-used) by later scholars, they can be indefinitely enriched. Even so, exegetical notes and critical signs were rather well preserved over the centuries, because they are technical texts, which scribes, even the more learned 23 Cf. F. SCHIRONI, Τὸ μέγα βιβλίον: Book-ends, End-titles, and Coronides in Papyri with Hexametric Poetry (American Studies in Papyrology 48), Durham NC, 2010. 24 Cf. ERBSE, Scholia, III, p. 557–558 (Pap. IX).

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ones, hardly change. Both the overlaps and the discrepancies among these manuscripts belonging to different periods thus prove the ambiguous nature of scholarly literature: on the one hand, commentaries are open texts, subject to cuts and endless recombination; on the other, they are technical enough to be left fundamentally unchanged. This is also due to the fact that commentaries in antiquity were often authority-dependent, especially in the case of Greek scholarship. The acme of Hellenistic Alexandria was embodied in the work of Aristarchus; hence in later periods the best a scholar could do was to preserve what Aristarchus, the grammarian par excellence, had said.25 Later scribes, even those with intellectual ambitions, copied the content of the Aristarchean notes, sometimes even their wording, as they considered the preservation of the best of Hellenistic scholarship as a virtue (and a duty?) – to the point that they often did not even add their own views, even when, as in the case of Eustathius, they were respected scholars of their own. Second, and more importantly, scribes also disseminated the more practical innovations of the Alexandrian scholarship, such as naming Homer’s books after the letters of the alphabet. They also popularised the preparatory Homeric text that Aristarchus had selected by deleting poorly attested or spurious lines. This choice on the part of anonymous scribes had an enormous impact, because it ultimately determined the Homeric text we still read. Thus, we can even say that although the Homeric text we read is essentially Aristarchus’s selection, it is not on his account that we have it. In sum, these scribes were, on the one hand, independent enough to select and excerpt the original sources and, on the other, anonymous enough not to change the content of what they were copying very much, even when they cut and excerpted it. From the Ptolemaic to the Byzantine periods copyists, scribes, and learned yet subservient scholars thus played a fundamental role in ensuring that Aristarchus’s scholarship on Homer did not remain a dry intellectual product locked in the Library with no future, but circulated it in and beyond Egypt, and ultimately informed our reception of the Homeric texts. Bibliography G.M. BOLLING, Vulgate Homeric Papyri, in American Journal of Philology 42 (1921), p. 253–259. I. BONATI, Note testuali a P.Tebt. I 4 (Hom. B 95–201), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 176 (2011), p. 1–5. 25 Indeed Aristarchus is defined as ‘the best grammarian’ by a scholiast (Sch. D Il. 2.316 van Thiel: … ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ οὕτως δοκεῖ στίζειν τῷ Ἀριστάρχῳ, πειθόμεθα αὐτῷ, ὡς πάνυ ἀρίστῳ γραμματικῷ) and as ‘the ultimate grammarian’ in Athenaeus (15.671f: Ἀρίσταρχος ὁ γραμματικώτατος, ἑταῖρε, ἐξηγούμενος τὸ χωρίον ἔφη ὅτι, …).

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P. COLLART, Les papyrus de l’Iliade (1er article), in Revue de philologie, de litérature et d’histoire anciennes 6 (1932), p. 315–349. P. COLLART, Les papyrus de l’Iliade (2e article), in Revue de philologie, de litérature et d’histoire anciennes 7 (1933), p. 33–61. H. ERBSE, Über Aristarchs Iliasausgaben, in Hermes 87 (1959), p. 275–303. H. ERBSE, Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (scholia vetera), 7 vols, Berlin, 1969–1988. M. HASLAM, Homeric Papyri and Transmission of the Text, in I. MORRIS and B. POWELL (eds), A New Companion to Homer, Leiden – New York, 1997, p. 55–100. D. LÜHRS, Untersuchungen zu den Athetesen Aristarchs in der Ilias und zu ihrer Behandlung im Corpus der exegetischen Scholien, Hildesheim – Zürich, 1992. W. LUPPE, Homer-Erläuterungen zu Ξ 316–348, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 93 (1992), p. 163–165. S. MATTHAIOS, Untersuchungen zur Grammatik Aristarchs: Texte und Interpretation zur Wortartenlehre (Hypomnemata 126), Göttingen, 1999. K. MCNAMEE, Aristarchus and ‘Everyman’s’ Homer, in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 22 (1981), p. 247–255. K. MCNAMEE, Annotations in Greek and Latin Texts from Egypt (American Studies in Papyrology 45), New Haven Conn., 2007. F. MONTANA, Nuova luce su P.Amh. II 12, col. I (Hypomnema di Aristarco al libro I di Erodoto), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 180 (2012), p. 72–76. A. PAAP, De Herodoti reliquiis in papyris et membranis Aegyptiis servatis, Leiden, 1948. R. PFEIFFER, History of Classical Scholarship, vol. 1: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age, Oxford, 1968. F. SCHIRONI, Τὸ μέγα βιβλίον: Book-ends, End-titles, and Coronides in Papyri with Hexametric Poetry (American Studies in Papyrology 48), Durham NC, 2010. F. SCHIRONI, Tautologies and Transpositions: Aristarchus’ Less Known Critical Signs, in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 57 (2017), p. 607–630. F. SCHIRONI, The Best of the Grammarians. Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad, Ann Arbor, 2018. S. WEST, The Ptolemaic Papyri of Homer (Papyrologica Coloniensia 3), Cologne, 1967. S. WEST, The Papyri of Herodotus, in D. OBBINK and R. RUTHERFORD (eds), Culture in Pieces. Essays on Ancient Texts in Honour of Peter Parsons, Oxford, 2011, p. 69–83.

ACCOUNTS AND SCRIBAL PRACTICE IN DIME IN THE ROMAN PERIOD1 Marie-Pierre CHAUFRAY

Introduction The accounts of the temple of Soknopaios, located in the village of Dime (Soknopaiou Nesos) in the Fayyum, are a largely unpublished corpus of documents that are interesting for the study of scribal practice in an Egyptian temple in the Roman period. These accounts were kept on rolls of papyrus, which today are either well-preserved or fragmentary. They were discovered during illegal excavations in the Fayyum at the end of the 19th century. They are now kept in papyrological collections in museums in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, London, Oxford, Manchester and Geneva.2 Because of the number of documents, their fragmentary state, and the lack, in the majority of cases, of any indication on their provenance, their date, or who has written them, it is necessary to pay special attention to the physical aspect of the document, if only to give order to the mess of this huge corpus. This situation leads us to study ‘the scribe at work’ in order to distinguish specific scribal practices that provide an idea of the nature and the extent of scribal activity in Egyptian demotic during what is often considered to be a time of decline for this last stage of Egyptian writing before Coptic.3 This paper investigates the material use of papyrus by scribes and the use of a few specific 1 My participation in the colloquium “Observing the Scribe at Work. Knowledge Transfer and Scribal Professionalism in Pre-Typographic Societies”, organised by the University of Macquarie in Sydney on 27–29 September 2013, was made possible thanks to the support of the LabEx Sciences archéologiques de Bordeaux, a programme financed by the ANR - n°ANR-10-LABX-52. I thank S. Lippert and M.A. Stadler for having read this article and for their suggestions. I thank J. Cromwell for correcting my English. Many of the papyri discussed in this article are unpublished. As well as the papyrological sigla of published texts, TM numbers are given for published and a handful of unpublished texts, when available. 2 See M.A. STADLER, Archaeology of Discourse. The Scribal Tradition in the Roman Fayyûm and the House of Life at Dimê, in M. CAPASSO and P. DAVOLI (eds), Soknopaios, the Temple and Worship. Proceedings of the First Round Table of the Centro di Studi Papirologici of Università del Salento Lecce – October 9th 2013 (Edaphos 1), Lecce, 2015, p. 187–232. For a more detailed description of the corpus of the temple accounts of Dime, see M.-P. CHAUFRAY, Comptes du temple de Soknopaios à Dimé à l’époque romaine, in T. DERDA, A. ŁATJAR and J. URBANIK (eds), Proceedings of the 27th International Congress of Papyrology. Warsaw, 29 July 2013–3 August 2013 (Journal of Juristic Papyrology Supplement 28), Warsaw, 2016, p. 1737–1749. 3 On the question of the decline of demotic writing, see M.A. STADLER, On the Demise of Egyptian Writing: Working with a Problematic Source Basis, in J. BAINES, J. BENNET and ST. HOUSTON (eds), The Disappearance of Writing Systems. Perspectives on Literacy and Communication, London, 2008, p. 157–181.

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signs, and offers some reflections on scribal practice for documents in the temple of Soknopaios in Dime.4 1. Use of papyrus rolls The accounts of the temple of Dime were written on long rolls of papyrus.5 A large number of these rolls are registers that list the daily expenses of the temple in terms of goods, services, or people. The identification of this kind of document is easy because they list the same products, and the cost of the products is expressed in money (deben, kite, or obols) and is written in a column separated from that containing the products. This layout is evidence of a practice that aimed to make visible the amounts of money, probably in order to make calculations and checking easier. No complete roll has yet been identified, but beginnings of rolls are preserved, such as P.Sorb. inv. 2755 in the Golenischeff collection of the Sorbonne. The first lines preserve the dating formula in year 10 of Tiberius (AD 23/24). The list of expenses is then written. The holes in the papyrus show that it was eaten or damaged while rolled. The papyrus is written on the recto and the verso, which is unusual, except when the papyrus is reused.6 Another example of a long roll is P.Berl. P. 8043 + 30029 + 30030 + P. Vienna D 6396 + P.Louvre E 10491 + ST05/238/1034 (abbreviated as P. 8043+ / TM 47504). It measures more than 1.40 m and contained at least 26 columns of the temple’s daily expenses over two months.7 The roll survives as a large fragment and small pieces that cannot yet be placed exactly.8 Neither the beginning nor the 4 I write only briefly on the scribal practice of non-documentary texts in Dime, which is currently being studied by M.A. Stadler: see STADLER, Archaeology of Discourse, p. 187–232; Textmobilität: Versatzstücke im Täglichen Ritual von Dimê, in A.H. PRIES (ed.), Die Variation der Tradition: Modalitäten der Ritualadaption im Alten Ägypten (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 240), Leuven, 2016, p. 29–45; Histoire du rituel journalier de Soknopaios. Le contexte: synchronie et diachronie, in Annuaire de l’École pratique des hautes études, Section des sciences religieuses 123 (2014–2015), p. 73–81, and Théologie et culte au temple de Soknopaios. Études sur la religion d’un village égyptien pendant l’époque romaine, Paris, 2017. 5 See, for example, P.Berl. P. 8043 ro, which is unedited, although the photograph is published in W. SPIEGELBERG, Demotische Papyrus aus den Königlichen Museen zu Berlin, Leipzig, 1902, p. 24. The Vienna collection contains more than one hundred accounting lists on rolls, some of which exceed one meter in length. 6 See this question infra. The text on the verso of P.Sorb. inv. 2755 is the same kind of account as the one on the recto, but the study of the text has not yet determined if the two accounts are linked or if it is a reuse. 7 This is shown by the main fragment in Berlin (P.Berl. P. 8043 ro). P.Berl. P. 30029 and 30030 (unpublished) seem to join on the verso where a version of the temple daily ritual is preserved (TM 55939); however, the columns of accounts on the recto of these fragments are upside down compared to the verso. Fragments of several rolls of papyri could have been used to make a new roll where the verso, without writing, was deemed appropriate for the writing of the daily ritual. I thank M.A. Stadler for this hypothesis, validation of which awaits the study of all the fragments. 8 A fragment discovered in situ, ST05/238/1034, seems to be linked to the verso of the roll, see M.A. STADLER, Demotica aus Dime. Ein Überblick über die in Dime während der Kampagnen

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end of the account is preserved, which proves that the original roll was longer. As the average length of papyrus rolls is between 3.20 and 3.60 m, the length of P.Berl. P. 8043+ is not exceptional.9 Given that no complete roll from Dime has yet been discovered, no estimate of the length of the rolls used by scribes can be made. Examples of the reuse of rolls in order to write accounts survive. For example, the Greek fiscal register SPP IV, p. 58–83 (TM 14986), probably written in Ptolemais Euergetis, the metropolis of the Fayyum, was reused upside down by a priestly scribe in Dime to write accounts in the blank spaces.10 The register is dated to AD 73, which gives a terminus post quem to the account. The account is of the same kind as the abovementioned Sorbonne and Berlin accounts: a list of the temple’s daily expenses for different products, services and people. A study of this kind of reuse remains to be done.11 It is already interesting to underline that the scribes of the priests in Dime could use old rolls of papyrus.12 Accounts themselves were also frequently reused. The verso of P.Berl. P. 8043+ was used to write a religious text: the daily ritual.13 The writing is much larger and spaced out: the width of one column on the verso equals four columns on the recto; the columns on the verso have 15 lines whereas those on the recto have between 31 and 34 lines. This is not enough to say that the hands are different, because the same scribe may have changed his style according to the text he was writing.14 However, other graphic features seem to prove that two different scribes used the roll and that the register was reused, at a later point in time, to write the religious text.15 This mixture of documentary and religious or literary 2001–2009 gefundenen demotischen Texte, in M. CAPASSO and P. DAVOLI (eds), Soknopaiou Nesos Project I (2003–2009), Pisa – Rome, 2012, p. 249–268, at p. 267. The position of the fragments is not yet entirely clear and the question whether the fragments all belonged to the same roll before reuse remains to be studied. 9 T.C. SKEAT, The Length of the Standard Papyrus Roll, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 45 (1982), p. 169–175, at p. 170 and 172. 10 TM 90844, unedited. 11 The reuse of papyrus in the temple library of Soknebtynis is discussed by K. RYHOLT, Scribal Habits at the Tebtunis Temple Library. On Materiality, Formal Features, and Paleography, in J. CROMWELL and E. GROSSMAN (eds), Scribal Repertoires in Egypt from the New Kingdom to the Early Islamic Period, Oxford, 2018, p. 155–161. 12 Another example of the reuse of a Greek papyrus: P.Berl. P. 8090, 9563A–B. On this phenomenon, see also E.G. TURNER, Writing Material for Businessmen, in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 15 (1978), p. 163–169. 13 See STADLER, Histoire du rituel. 14 See, for example, the hands ‘A’ and ‘B’ of Dioscoros of Aphrodito in J.-L. FOURNET, Hellénisme dans l’Égypte du VIe siècle. La bibliothèque et l’œuvre de Dioscore d’Aphrodité (Mémoires de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale 115), Cairo, 1999, p. 245–248. See also the articles in this volume by Ast and Cromwell. 15 Cf., in particular, the writing of Sbk, ‘Souchos’. The fact that the fragments P.Berl. P. 30029 and 30030 have accounts on the recto that are upside down compared to the verso confirms this idea, if these fragments really belong to the same roll. Several accounts would thus have been used to make a new roll to write the ritual, see supra n. 7. Other rolls with accounts on the recto

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texts is evidence of the circulation of papyri inside the temple or between the priests. Three fragments of rolls were reused for Greek texts,16 but most of the time the demotic accounts of Dime were reused for other accounts. Not only accounts but also receipts were written on long rolls. P.Sorb. inv. 1448, which has receipts dated to AD 147, is the end of what was probably a long roll. The position of the texts on the papyrus and the large spaces show that there was no need, at the time, to save papyrus. The priestly scribes also used rolls of papyrus to register hn.w-agreements, specific arrangements between the temple and individuals – mostly priests – for different services.17 At least six agreements are copied on P.Vienna D 6032 + 6868 + 6871 + 6872 + 6886 + 6887, dated to AD 158/159. Scribes thus kept on rolls, apparently classified according to the text type, copies of receipts given to the people for whom they were written, and agreements, for which it is difficult to determine if they are copies or originals. These rolls were probably kept in the temple or in the archives of the scribe who had copied them. Unlike the accounts, the fragments of these rolls do not show many cases of reuse.18 This observation suggests that receipts and agreements were less likely to be considered as recyclable documents. The fact that agreements, renewed each year, mentioned practices that should be done as in the previous year, could explain this archiving.19 Thus, as regards the use of papyrus in Dime, the priestly scribal practice, up to the middle of the 2nd century AD, consisted of using long rolls for documentary texts (accounts, copies of receipts and agreements) and non-documentary texts, but the recycling of texts seems to have been used more for accounts and nondocumentary texts. However, the problem for the study of these rolls comes from the fact that, after their discovery in illegal excavations, they were divided and dispersed in different museum collections, which complicates the work of joining fragments. The study of the writing and of all the signs that could be characteristic of one or more scribal practices is therefore necessary to reconstruct the rolls or bring together coherent lots of papyri.

may have religious or literary texts on the verso: P.Berl. P. 23071 (TM 69627 and 56074), P.Berl. P. 23785, 23790, 23799, P.Vienna D 6013, 6380, 6440 + 6667. 16 P.Berl. P. 6864, which preserves a horoscope, 15577, and 30037. The Vienna collection may have other examples. 17 For a presentation of this kind of document, see S.L. LIPPERT, Die Abmachungen der Priester. Einblicke in das Leben und Arbeiten in Soknopaiou Nesos, in M. CAPASSO and P. DAVOLI (eds), New Archaeological and Papyrological Researches on the Fayyum (Papyrologica Lupiensia 14), Lecce, 2007, p. 145–155. 18 A few examples include: the hn.w-agreements P.Vienna D 4854 + 4855 + 4861 + 4864 + 4866 + 4867 + 6011 + 6110 (TM 112501), on the verso of which is a Greek account; the hn.wagreements P.Vienna D 6032 + 6868 + 6886 + 6887 + 6871 + 6872 (TM 112502) and 6869 + 6877 + 6880 + 6885 + 6888 (TM 112346), as well as P.Dime II 5 (TM 100228) on the verso of which are accounts. 19 I thank S. Lippert for this information.

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2. Use of specific signs Some accounts have signs that seem to be linked to the work of checking and control.20 A cross is written on several accounts of wheat in the margin next to a few entries containing names and, in a second column, quantities of wheat.21 Crosses are also found in a list of names and in a daily account.22 The cross is not, however, the most commonly used sign in accounts, and it seems to be characteristic of a small number of scribes.23 In a list of names dated to AD 19, the cross is used with another checking mark, the oblique stroke.24 The presence in the same account of two different checking marks suggests a double control, but the oblique stroke, which sometimes clearly covers the crosses, could also be a sign of correction.25 The most frequently used sign in the daily accounts with temple expenses is the dot.26 These registers were written by the scribes of the priests, as is shown by P.Rain.Cent. 5 (TM 45643), a hn.w-agreement concerning the role of the scribe of the priests, dated to AD 95/6. The function is described as a full-time employment for one year, which includes journeys with the heads of the temple to the metropolis of the nome (Ptolemais Euergetis), to Memphis and to Alexandria. The agreement describes precisely the work of registering the daily expenses for different products, such as the daily offerings to the gods, the food of the priests, the oil for the lighting, etc. The list of the products mentioned in the agreement is exactly what is found in the daily accounts. In addition to these agreements, the documentation from Dime preserves specific receipts, which date from the 1st to the 2nd century AD, in which the priests of Dime declare to the scribe of the priests that he has done his work properly and that he has no debts in the temple.27 The checking marks in the daily accounts could thus be linked to the examination of the accounts of the scribe of the priests. Not all daily accounts, however, have this kind of checking marks. Out of the 46 accounts that I studied in 2012 in Würzburg, 20 have dots,28 whereas 23 do not.29 On checking marks in demotic texts, see M.A. NUR-EL-DIN, Checking, Terminals, Stress Marks, Partition Indications and Margin Lines in Demotic Documents, in Enchoria 9 (1979), p. 49–62. 21 P.Berl. P. 15653, 15659, and 15678. Nur-el-Din lists only examples on ostraca, see NUR-ELDIN, Checking, p. 54. 22 P.Berl. P. 23788 vo, and 30100 vo. 23 For identifying marks in much earlier documentation, see Soliman’s article in this volume. 24 P.Vienna D 6815 vo. Nur-el-Din considers the oblique stroke to be “the most common among the checking marks”, see NUR-EL-DIN, Checking, p. 50. 25 Several entries, with no checking marks, are circles: col. 2, l. 7, 8, 11. 26 See NUR-EL-DIN, Checking, p. 54. 27 P.Dime II 56–69, entitled by the editors ‘Entlastungsquittungen’. 28 P.Berl. P. 8043+ro, 11357 + 23800, 15568, 15572, 15578ro, 15582ro, 15583vo, 15584vo, 15586, 15588, 15672ro, 23787ro, 23788ro, 23791, 23792, 23795; P.Heid. inv. 732vo; P.Vienna D 135vo, 6499, 6909b. 29 P.Berl. P. 6864ro, 9563A-Bvo, 15577ro, 15657, 15664 + 15665, 15684, 23071ro, 23771, 23785ro, 23789, 23796, 30029ro, 30031, 30035vo, 30037ro, 30066, 30100, 30107 + 30032ro; 20

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The beginning of the lines is not preserved in the other three accounts.30 This could mean that the verification of accounts with a dot was not a consistent practice. The difficulty of dating the fragments prevents any dating of the practice. As regards the identification of hands of specific scribes, the palaeography of Dime is too homogeneous to individualize writings.31 This documentation, however, in association with other documents from the temple provides historians with valuable information on scribal practice in an Egyptian temple under the Romans. 3. Scribal practice in the temple of Soknopaios First, the large number of account fragments found is proof of the intensive work of the Egyptian priestly scribes in Dime in the Roman period. The accounts register the costs linked to writing activities: the cost of papyrus for a receipt or for the hn.w-agreements, or the expenses for scribes. A study of all the registers and analysis of the resulting statistics could provide an idea of the cost of scribal activity in the temple. Scribal practice in the temple of Soknopaios in Dime can, however, be measured mostly through the work of the scribe of the priests. For one year, the scribe of the priest was responsible for the accounts. He also wrote the receipts in the name of the temple, and the surviving receipts have led to the identification of at least twelve scribes of the priests between the 1st century BC and the middle of the 2nd century AD.32 The same scribe could be in office several times, which suggests the specialization of some scribes in accounting activity. The example of Satabous son of Herieus the younger provides, however, another image.33 Satabous was a priest of the 2nd phyle and he was scribe of the priests over several years.34 He also signs his name on the copy of a prophetic P.Gen. inv. 74vo; P.Heid. inv. 732ro; P.Lond. II 260; P.Vienna D 6054 + 6055 + 6078 + 6874, 6869 + 6877 + 6880 + 6885 + 6888vo. 30 P.Berl. P. 23793, 23794, 30101. 31 The existence of a specific ductus in the documentary writing of the Egyptian scribes of Dime in the Roman period is certain; on this subject, cf. STADLER, Archaeology of Discourse, p. 203– 208. On the palaeography of demotic hands at Soknopaiou Nesos, see also J.F. QUACK, On the Regionalization of Roman-Period Egyptian Hands, in J. CROMWELL and E. GROSSMAN (eds), Scribal Repertoires in Egypt from the New Kingdom to the Early Islamic Period, Oxford, 2018, p. 193–205. However, it is not certain if the papyri attributed to scribes of Dime in this article really come from the village. 32 See P.Dime II, table on p. 19. 33 M. SCHENTULEIT, Satabus aus Soknopaiu Nesos: Aus dem Leben eines Priesters am Beginn der römischen Kaiserzeit, in Chronique d’Égypte 82 (2007), p. 101–125; F. HOODENDIJK and B. FEUCHT, Family Archive of Satabous son of Herieus, in K. VANDORPE, W. CLARYSSE and H. VERRETH (eds), Graeco-Roman Archives from the Fayum (Collectanea Hellenistica VI), Leuven, 2015, p. 340–349; QUACK, Regionalization of Egyptian Hands, p. 194–195. 34 Maybe six years in a row: see HOODENDIJK and FEUCHT, Archive of Satabous, p. 343, n. 10.

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text on the lamb of Bocchoris and a hymn to the crocodile god Sobek.35 It is thus likely that the documents in which this Satabous is mentioned belong to his archives.36 The receipts which testify that he has done his work properly as the scribe of the priests could have been given to him; his archives also contain Greek documents related to two conflicts between him and other priests.37 This example is interesting as it shows that the continuity of the administration relied on a person remaining in the same office for several years, who also undertook activities in the library of the temple.38 Lastly, the administrative scribal practice of the temple of Dime can be studied through the recurrent formulas in documents and the changes that can be witnessed over the course of time. In receipts issued in the name of the whole priesthood and written by the scribe of the priests, the naming of the priesthood changes at some point between the reign of Caligula (AD 37–41) and Domitian (AD 81–96). Up to AD 39 receipts are issued by “the priests of Soknopaios, the great god, and Isis Nepherses, the great goddess, of the five phylai altogether,”39 whereas from AD 84/5 onwards they are issued by “the masters of purity, superiors of the lake of the Great-Green of Nephersatis, the priests, the prophets, the lesonis of Soknopaios, the great god and Isis Nepherses, the great goddess, of the five phylai altogether.”40 This change in the formula may be connected to reforms and changes in the administrative structures of the temple. The same kind of change could have happened in the scribal practice in the temple of Soknebtynis in Tebtynis, in the south of the Fayyum, where the addition of a periphrasis to designate the college of priests in charge of the collection of the tax on the sale of temple assets can be seen in three receipts dated to the 2nd century AD, whereas this periphrasis is not written in a receipt of the same kind in AD 42.41 On the prophecy of the lamb (P.Rain.Cent. 3), see M. CHAUVEAU, L’Agneau revisité ou la révélation d’un crime de guerre ignoré, in R. JASNOW and G. WIDMER (eds), Illuminating Osiris. Egyptological Studies in Honor of Mark Smith (Material and Visual Culture of Ancient Egypt 2), Atlanta, 2017, p. 37–70. On the hymn to Sobek (P.Vienna D 6951), see F. HOFFMANN, Die Hymnensammlung des P. Wien D6951, in K. RYHOLT (ed.), Acts of the Seventh International Conference of Demotic Studies, Copenhagen, 23–27 August 1999, Copenhagen, 2002, p. 219–228, at p. 219. Satabous may also be the scribe of P.Vienna D 12006: see, on this subject, M.A. STADLER, Isis, das göttliche Kind und die Weltordnung (MPER NS 28), Vienna, 2004, p. 29–30, and “Die dir übel wollen, sie sind gemetzelt vor dir.” Ein Orakel zum häuslichen Gebrauch oder ein Tempelritual zur Bestätigung der Weltordnung?, in A. ZDIARSKY (ed.), Orakelsprüche, Magie und Horoskope: Wie Ägypten in die Zukunft sah (Nilus 22), Vienna, 2015, p. 19–28, at p. 19. 36 These should perhaps be distinguished from the archives of the temple itself, see HOODENDIJK and FEUCHT, Archive of Satabous, p. 341. A study on the archival coherence of the Dime documents remains to be done. 37 HOODENDIJK and FEUCHT, Archive of Satabous, p. 342–347. 38 On the religious and literary activity in Dime, see STADLER, Archaeology of Discourse, p. 187– 232. 39 P.Dime II 19 (TM 46298) 40 P.Dime II 65 (TM 100273). 41 P.Zauzich 56–58 contra P.Zauzich 59. The meaning of the added periphrasis, “the priests of Soknebtynis, the great god, in one mouth, whose names are written below, those who are in 35

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This change could be a consequence of the actions of the prefect Tuscus, between AD 62 and 65, who ordered a general inventory of priests and temple goods, which forced temples to clarify the positions of their priests.42 One of the consequences of this inventory, which took place under Nero (AD 54–68), could have been the obligation for each temple to declare annually its income and expenses.43 This context could explain the changes in the formulas that are found in the receipts issued by the priesthood of Soknopaios in Dime, but the practice of writing receipts, accounts and hn.w-agreements in Egyptian did not stop. To conclude, observing the scribe at work in the administrative documentation of the temple of Soknopaios in Dime is interesting on several levels. On a material level, it helps to reconstruct administrative registers among the hundreds of fragments that are now dispersed in different museum collections, to understand the coherence of the archives, and possibly to identify a regular practice in the use and reuse of papyrus. On a palaeographical level, observing the scribe at work encourages the study of scribal practices linked to checking and examining accounts. Finally, on a historical level, it can help to provide a better view of the extent of scribal activity: what it meant for the temple and what it reveals about the continuity and discontinuity of certain written traditions. The comparison of documentary texts and religious, literary, or paraliterary texts from the same temple remains to be undertaken in order to achieve a more precise idea of the preservation of demotic writing in the Roman period. Bibliography F. BURKHALTER, Le mobilier des sanctuaires d’Égypte et les “listes des prêtres et du cheirismos”, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 59 (1985), p. 123–134. M.-P. CHAUFRAY, Comptes du temple de Soknopaios à Dimé à l’époque romaine, in T. DERDA, A. ŁATJAR and J. URBANIK (eds), Proceedings of the 27th International Congress of Papyrology. Warsaw, 29 July 2013–3 August 2013 (Journal of Juristic Papyrology Supplement 28), Warsaw, 2016, p. 1737–1749. M. CHAUVEAU, L’Agneau revisité ou la révélation d’un crime de guerre ignoré, in R. JASNOW and G. WIDMER (eds), Illuminating Osiris. Egyptological Studies in Honor of Mark Smith (Material and Visual Culture of Ancient Egypt 2), Atlanta, 2017, p. 37–70. charge of the nkt n šny n pr-῾Ꜣ and of the lesoneia”, is not clear. This is probably a precision linked to a specific tax system; on the lésôneia, see S.L. LIPPERT and M. SCHENTULEIT, Die Tempelökonomie nach den demotischen Texten aus Soknopaiu Nesos, in S.L. LIPPERT and M. SCHENTULEIT (eds), Tebtynis und Soknopaiu Nesos. Leben im römerzeitlichen Fajum, Wiesbaden, 2005, p. 71–78, at p. 73. 42 See J.E.G. WHITEHORNE, P. Lond. II 359 and Tuscus’ List of Temple Perquisites, in Chronique d’Égypte 53 (1978), p. 321–328; Tuscus and Temples Again (SB VI 9066), in Chronique d’Égypte 54 (1979), p. 143–148; and New Light on Temple and State in Roman Egypt, in Journal of Religious History 11 (1980), p. 218–226. 43 F. BURKHALTER, Le mobilier des sanctuaires d’Égypte et les “listes des prêtres et du cheirismos”, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 59 (1985), p. 123–134.

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J.-L. FOURNET, Hellénisme dans l’Égypte du VIe siècle. La bibliothèque et l’œuvre de Dioscore d’Aphrodité (Mémoires de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale 115), Cairo, 1999. F. HOODENDIJK and B. FEUCHT, Family Archive of Satabous son of Herieus, in K. VANDORPE, W. CLARYSSE and H. VERRETH (eds), Graeco-Roman Archives from the Fayum (Collectanea Hellenistica VI), Leuven, 2015, p. 340–349. F. HOFFMANN, Die Hymnensammlung des P. Wien D6951, in K. RYHOLT (ed.), Acts of the Seventh International Conference of Demotic Studies, Copenhagen, 23–27 August 1999, Copenhagen, 2002, p. 219–228. S.L. LIPPERT, Die Abmachungen der Priester. Einblicke in das Leben und Arbeiten in Soknopaiou Nesos, in M. CAPASSO and P. DAVOLI (eds), New Archaeological and Papyrological Researches on the Fayyum (Papyrologica Lupiensia 14), Lecce, 2007, p. 145–155. S.L. LIPPERT and M. SCHENTULEIT, Die Tempelökonomie nach den demotischen Texten Soknopaiu Nesos, in S.L. LIPPERT and M. SCHENTULEIT (eds), Tebtynis und Soknopaiu Nesos. Leben im römerzeitlichen Fajum, Wiesbaden, 2005, p. 71–78. M.A. NUR-EL-DIN, Checking, Terminals, Stress Marks, Partition indications and Margin Lines in Demotic Documents, in Enchoria 9 (1979), p. 49–62. J.F. QUACK, On the Regionalization of Roman-Period Egyptian Hands, in J. CROMWELL and E. GROSSMAN (eds), Scribal Repertoires in Egypt from the New Kingdom to the Early Islamic Period, Oxford, 2018, p. 184–210. K. RYHOLT, Scribal Habits at the Tebtunis Temple Library. On Materiality, Formal Features, and Paleography, in J. CROMWELL and E. GROSSMAN (eds), Scribal Repertoires in Egypt from the New Kingdom to the Early Islamic Period, Oxford, 2018, p. 153–183. T.C. SKEAT, The Length of the Standard Papyrus Roll, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 45 (1982), p. 169–175. M. SCHENTULEIT, Satabus aus Soknopaiu Nesos: Aus dem Leben eines Priesters am Beginn der römischen Kaiserzeit, in Chronique d’Égypte 82 (2007), p. 101–125. W. SPIEGELBERG, Demotische Papyrus aus den Königlichen Museen zu Berlin, Leipzig, 1902. M.A. STADLER, Isis, das göttliche Kind und die Weltordnung (MPER NS 28), Vienna, 2004. M.A. STADLER, On the Demise of Egyptian Writing: Working with a Problematic Source Basis, in J. BAINES, J. BENNET and ST. HOUSTON (eds), The Disappearance of Writing Systems. Perspectives on Literacy and Communication, London, 2008, p. 157–181. M.A. STADLER, Demotica aus Dime. Ein Überblick über die in Dime während der Kampagnen 2001–2009 gefundenen demotischen Texte, in M. CAPASSO and P. DAVOLI (eds), Soknopaiou Nesos Project I (2003–2009), Pisa – Rome, 2012, p. 249–268. M.A. STADLER, Histoire du rituel journalier de Soknopaios. Le contexte: synchronie et diachronie, in Annuaire de l’École pratique des hautes études, Section des sciences religieuses 123 (2014–2015), p. 73–81. M.A. STADLER, Archaeology of Discourse. The Scribal Tradition in the Roman Fayyûm and the House of Life at Dimê, in M. CAPASSO and P. DAVOLI (eds), Soknopaios, the Temple and Worship. Proceedings of the First Round Table of the Centro di Studi Papirologici of Università del Salento Lecce – October 9th 2013 (Edaphos 1), Lecce, 2015, p. 187–232. M.A. STADLER, “Die dir übel wollen, sie sind gemetzelt vor dir.” Ein Orakel zum häuslichen Gebrauch oder ein Tempelritual zur Bestätigung der Weltordnung?, in A. ZDIARSKY (ed.), Orakelsprüche, Magie und Horoskope: Wie Ägypten in die Zukunft sah (Nilus 22), Vienna, 2015, p. 19–29.

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M.A. STADLER, Textmobilität: Versatzstücke im Täglichen Ritual von Dimê, in A.H. PRIES (ed.), Die Variation der Tradition: Modalitäten der Ritualadaption im Alten Ägypten (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 240), Leuven, 2016, p. 29–45. M.A. STADLER, Théologie et culte au temple de Soknopaios. Études sur la religion d’un village égyptien pendant l’époque romaine, Paris, 2017. E.G. TURNER, Writing Material for Bussinessmen, in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 15 (1978), p. 163–169. J.E.G. WHITEHORNE, P. Lond. II 359 and Tuscus’ List of Temple Perquisites, in Chronique d’Égypte 53 (1978), p. 321–328. J.E.G. WHITEHORNE, Tuscus and Temples Again (SB VI 9066), in Chronique d’Égypte 54 (1979), p. 143–148. J.E.G. WHITEHORNE, New Light on Temple and State in Roman Egypt, in Journal of Religious History 11 (1980), p. 218–226.

TEXT AND PARATEXT IN DOCUMENTARY PAPYRI FROM ROMAN EGYPT1 Malcolm CHOAT

Just as a culture’s encounter with the written word extends well beyond its literature, so too the experience of reading a text encompasses more than just the words which comprise it. The reading experience is constructed not only by the text, but by its materiality. At the intersection of the textual content and its physical form lies a further aspect of the reading experience, the paratext. These liminal elements of the text form, as Gérard Genette has noted, thresholds between the text and what lies beyond, and by turns mediate, guide, and inform the experience of the reader.2 Within the corpus of documents on papyrus from Roman and late antique Egypt, paratextual features are constantly in attendance either on the margins, or embedded in the script itself. Consideration of them not only helps us better observe the way scribes articulated the processes of writing and copying, but also illuminates the way scribes gave a copy the authority it needed to function, and the process of reading in antiquity. In seeking to apply Genette’s concept of paratext to documentary papyri, several key areas emerge in which his model needs to be extended or reconceived; these revolve around the genre, textuality, materiality, and authorship of the book and its paratext as it operated within Genette’s conception. For Genette, paratext operates in a literary and bookish context.3 While some of what he calls the ‘epitext’, that is, elements of the paratext that lie outside the publication itself, are in documentary form (for example letters or diaries), Genette concerns himself 1 This chapter arose from work on an Australian Research Council funded Discovery Project (DP120103738); the support of the ARC is gratefully acknowledged, as is the input to the present paper in various forms of the project team, especially Rachel Yuen-Collingridge and Korshi Dosoo. This paper was first presented in a panel on Paratexts organised by Eva Mroczek and Jeremy Schott in the ‘Book History and Biblical Literatures’ program unit at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature; I thank the participants on that occasion for feedback, and the organisers for accepting the paper, and for making the work of Genette the focus of the panel. 2 G. GENETTE, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, translated by J.E. LEWIN, Cambridge, 1997, p. xviii. The original was published as Seuils, Paris, 1987; for a retrospective view on the reception and implications of Genette’s work, see A. DEL LUNGO, ‘Seuils’, vingt ans après: Quelques pistes pour l’étude du paratexte après Genette, in Littérature 155 (2009), p. 98–111. 3 GENETTE, Paratexts, p. 3–7; see n. 6 on p. 3–4, “I now say texts and not only works in the ‘noble’ sense of that word (literary or artistic productions, in contrast to nonliterary ones), as the need for a paratext is thrust on every kind of book, with or without aesthetic ambition, even if this study is limited to the paratext of literary works.”

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with the book, and especially the fiction book.4 Yet – as recognised in the first issue of the journal Book History5 – the history of the book is (or should be) the story of writing in all its forms. The ‘book’, as popularly conceived as a long-form work of fiction or non-fiction, cannot be decanted out of the written experience of the ancient world to be studied on its own. By way of bringing documents inside this analysis, I want here to centre the reading experience of documents: often they are conceived of as records – and it is true that a huge number of them are – and their writing and storage takes primacy in our positioning of them in the textual history of humanity. But they were also texts to be consulted, and read, and it is this that I want to highlight by examining the vital role paratext played in the reading experience of documentary paratexts, which tells us things we do not learn from examining literature. That is to say, there is a paratextuality inherent in documents that does not pertain to the literary realm.6 Within this wide historical view of literary activity, the materiality of the text as object must be primary; here too the limitations of Genette’s focus on the words of the text rather than their container has proved unsatisfactory, especially in work on the pre-modern world.7 All texts of the pre-digital era, whether moveable or immovable, are – as is now almost universally recognised – also objects, whose physical form and material-cultural context must be fully taken into account. This includes not only the context of the production and circulation (where such is known) of texts, but the formats in which they are constructed and written. This materiality mediates and constrains the production and experience of paratext in a way that Genette’s synchronic study cannot easily capture. See the observation of Laura JANSEN in the introduction to the volume she edited on The Roman Paratext: frame, texts, readers, Cambridge, 2014, p. 6, that “Genette’s brand of transtextuality … does not reach the extra-literary.” This volume rightly includes a chapter focused on documentary material, A.E. COOLEY, Paratextual perspectives upon the SC de Pisone patre, p. 143–155, who recognises (see p. 143) the same self-imposed limits of Genette noted here; see also in the same volume M. WIBIER, The Topography of the Law Book: Common Structures and Modes of Reading, p. 58–72. The forthcoming publication of the proceedings of the conference ‘Signes dans les textes: recherches sur les continuités et les ruptures des pratiques scribales dans l’Égypte pharaonique, gréco-romaine et byzantine’, held at the Université de Liège on 2–4 June, 2016, will include many papers which treat of documentary material. A focus on literary manuscripts is evident in G. CIOTTI and H. LIN, Tracing Manuscripts in Time and Space through Paratexts, Berlin, 2016. 5 The Editors, An Introduction to Book History, in Book History 1 (1998), p. ix–xi. 6 See the remarks of W.A. JOHNSON, Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities, Oxford, 2010, p. 20: “Documentary papyri and inscriptions often have elaborate visual structural markers, such as to signal a new section, which, however, find no reflection in the bookroll.” 7 See H. SMITH and L. WILSON (eds), Renaissance Paratexts, Cambridge, 2011, where the editors foreground the issue of the materiality of the Renaissance book, and the limitations of Genette’s focus, in their introduction, p. 1–14, see esp. p. 2–3, citing J. MCGANN, The Textual Condition, Princeton, N.J., 1991. 4

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A corollary of Genette’s focus on the literary world was that paratext always retained its authorial imprint. In a Renaissance context, the validity of this authorial intention has been questioned, as it must be for the ancient paratext.8 In the documentary papyri, not only are scribe and author frequently separate individuals (as are, of course, author and printer in the typographic age) but paratext is produced by a range of people who used the text, some of whom had no connection with the original composer or scribe. I thus join others in departing from Genette’s schema in which paratext always retained its associations with the author (however that might even be defined in many ancient contexts). As examined by Genette, paratext comprises “titles and subtitles, pseudonyms, forewords, dedications, epigraphs, prefaces, intertitles, notes, epilogues, and afterwords.”9 Yet in a documentary context (and indeed in some ways in the context of all handwritten manuscripts), paratext is more than textual, as it was – primarily – for Genette. The verbal elements on which Genette concentrated, “if … still not the text, … already some text,”10 are less present in the documents, which contain some titles, but few if any prefaces, or dedications. There is something interesting to be considered in this regard in the textual framing of the letter, with its preface-like address, or its epilogue, in particular the way letters on papyrus sometimes continue past their nominal farewell formula into the left margin, and onto the back of the papyrus.11 Various sorts of documentary papyri contain titles;12 several types of texts include summaries.13 But the documentary paratext extends beyond these textual elements in two ways. Firstly, it goes beyond text, into extra textual elements, the iconic and material elements of book-production, as Genette describes them.14 Here I shall refer to these as explicative or navigational signs. In a papyrological context, as well as the various text critical signs bestowed on the Greek literary manuscript tradition by Alexandrian scholars,15 we might note those that occur more commonly in 8 See the essays in SMITH and WILSON (eds), Renaissance Paratexts, with the comments by the editors in the introduction, p. 7–8. 9 As listed in the foreword by Richard Macksey to Lewin’s English translation, GENETTE, Paratexts, p. xviii. 10 GENETTE, Paratexts, p. 7. 11 There are for instance many examples of this from Kellis, such as P.Kellis VII 79 (second half of the 4th century); see the remarks of the editors of P.Kellis VII at p. 24–25 and 93–94. 12 To take but one example, P.Petaus 34 (Arsinoite, after AD 184), headed λόγος δαπάνης (‘account of expenses’). 13 Again a single example: P.Enteux. 59 (Magdola [Arsinoite], 222 BC), a petition with a summary on the back. 14 GENETTE, Paratexts, p. 7. 15 There are a range of paratextual features which do not seem to occur in documents, such as the diple used to signal quotation, as well as text critical signs such as those for the obelisation of passages. For literature on these, see the works cited in the following note. For ancient discussions of these texts, see G. VERHASSELT, Anonymous, On Critical Signs in the Manuscripts of Plato (PSI XV 1488) (1135), in S. SCHORN (ed.), Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker Part IV, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1873-5363_jciv_a1135, consulted on 14.2.2019.

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documents, such as the paragraphos (used to mark a break of some kind in the text), display script (enlarged line-initial letters), and ekthesis and eisthesis of the text (that is, letters extending into or indented from the left hand margin).16 We should also mention illustrations, even if there are precious few examples among the documentary papyri.17 The use of such signs extends to various degrees across the written spectrum in Roman and late antique Egypt, from literary to documentary texts, and those in between. In a paraliterary context, we might note various marginal and interlinear signs which mark magical words, divine names, or call attention to other aspects of the spell in magical papyri. In general, magical papyri are the most paratextually rich and productive of any genre of text in the papyri, endlessly fascinating in the way their scribes use paratext to explicate the content and assist the reader. At the heart of paratext, there is the text, in the sense of the script, itself.18 This is true in a visual sense of all paratext, which frames text and forms a threshold to it. But in a very real sense among the papyri, the text is part of the paratext; not in the sense of its content, but in its form. This is because the way the text is written, the handwriting used, the way it is laid out and formatted, contributes deeply to the reading experience in a way which must be captured 16 On paratextual features in literary texts, in addition to the chapter by SCHIRONI in the present volume, see F. SCHIRONI, Τὸ μέγα βιβλίον. Book-Ends, End-Titles, and Coronides in Papyri with Hexametric Poetry, Durham, 2010, who deals inter alia especially with the paragraphos and coronis; and K. MCNAMEE, Annotations in Greek and Latin Texts from Egypt, New Haven, 2007, who treats marginalia such as paragraphoi insofar as they accompany or signal the annotations with which she deals. The use of the coronis and paragraphos in the papyri are treated respectively by G.M. STEPHEN, The Coronis, in Scriptorium 13 (1959), p. 3–14, and R.B. LUPI, La paragraphos: analisi di un segno di lettura, in A. BÜLOW-JACOBSEN (ed.), Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Papyrologists, Copenhagen, 23–29 August, 1992, Copenhagen, 1994, p. 414–417; see also G. GIANGRANDE, Preliminary Notes on the Use of “Paragraphos” in Greek Papyri, in Museum Philologum Londiniense 3 (1978), p. 147–151. On titles see also M. CAROLI, Il titolo iniziale nel rotolo librario greco-egizio: con un catalogo delle testimonianze iconografiche greche e di area vesuviana, Bari, 2007. For interesting reflections on the issues inherent in encoding paratextual features in digital editions of papyri, see N. REGGIANI, The Corpus of the Greek Medical Papyri and a New Concept of Digital Critical Edition, in N. REGGIANI (ed.), Digital Papyrology II. Case Studies on the Digital Edition of Ancient Greek Papyri, Berlin, 2018, p. 3–62, at p. 30–35. 17 See for example P.Mich. I 84 (Philadelphia, mid-3rd century BC), a memorandum to Zenon from Herakleides, on the construction of a palisade, with a drawing showing the canal and palisade. And in a somewhat more risqué line, P.Oxy. XLII 3070 (Oxyrhnychus, 1st century AD), in which Apion and Epimas request that ‘their best-beloved Epaphroditus’ allow them ‘to bugger you’ (τὸ ποιγίσαι, l. πυγίσαι), accompanied by a picture of the act. There are of course many illuminated literary and paraliterary papyri; see in general U. HORAK, Illuminierte Papyri, Pergamente und Papiere, Vienna, 1992, and on illustrations in magical papyri R. MARTÍN HERNÁNDEZ, Reading the Magical Drawings in the Greek Magical Papyri, in P. SCHUBERT (ed.), Actes du 26e Congrès international de papyrologie, Geneva, 2012, p. 491–498. 18 Compare the observations of Laura JANSEN in the introduction to The Roman Paratext, “A word in para does not therefore simply mean that something is ‘beside’ or ‘next to’ something else, but also implies that it is ‘part of’ that something else” (p. 5).

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alongside the marginalia and attendant features more commonly thought of as paratext. Genette stresses the primacy of the functionality of the paratext over its aesthetic characteristics;19 this is true of the documentary paratext as it is of the literary, but this functional dimension must not be allowed to swallow the aesthetic: papyrological paratexts are much more than the ‘reading aids’ they are commonly classified as.20 Indeed, I have deliberately adopted the terminology of ‘explicative and navigational signs’ precisely because we need to both problematise and move away from the idea of considering such paratextual elements simply as ‘reading aids’. To label them thus leads commentators to do several things. It tends to make people fixate on a public / private distinction, which is anachronistic and unsustainable. The mere sight of a paratextual element (such as a paragraphos) can lead to pronouncements that this indicates it was for ‘public reading’ – whatever that even means in antiquity – without considering what sort of ‘reading aids’ personal reading might use, and whether some of what we observe might just as easily have been generated by such personal reading. It also leads people to ignore the work of William Johnson and others on reading and reading cultures, which has shown how not all reading in Graeco-Roman antiquity was out loud (and thus was sometimes silent) and that the ‘public’ contexts need to be much better understood.21 As McCutcheon notes, there has been a reluctance to accept and develop the idea that silent reading was practiced in antiquity because it disrupts metatheories on the development of reading and cognition that are cherished by many.22 There may also be a reluctance to give up ideas about the public, audible nature of ancient reading because of its potential disruption of modern readings that see the ancient reading act as performative. A related problem is the common perception that ‘larger script’ indicates a ‘public’ context (a phrase presumably intended – though this is rarely made explicit – to encode liturgical or ecclesiastical reading). This claim, most commonly encountered in studies of early Christian literary manuscripts, is not normally stated on the basis of any thorough study of letter heights, and is normally made by people who have familiarity with a single type of manuscript, that is early Christian literary manuscripts. It is also put forward largely on the sole authority of brief remarks in the work of Eric Turner on the typology of the early GENETTE, Paratexts, p. 407. On paratextual features as ‘readers aids’ (and in particular aids for public reading) see C.H. ROBERTS, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt, London, 1979, p. 21–22; H. GAMBLE, Books and Readers in the Early Church, New Haven – London, 1995, p. 74; L. HURTADO, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins, Grand Rapids Mich., 2006, p. 177–185. 21 See especially JOHNSON, Readers and Reading Culture, p. 3–16. 22 R.W. MCCUTCHEON, Silent Reading in Antiquity and the Future History of the Book, in Book History 18 (2015), p. 1–32, see esp. p. 19–20. See also the author’s perceptive remarks on paratextual aspects of reading at p. 14–17. 19

20

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codex, which, though a magisterial work, was not focused in any sustained sense on the use to which these texts may have been put.23 Two paths lie open to properly test such theories. The first is the testing of actual data, not the operation of intuition. Rachel Yuen-Collingridge’s work on the magical papyri is one such example. Examining magical papyri such as PGM IV, she concluded that “the fact that invocations and voces magicae to be inscribed follow the same trend as those explicitly intended for recitation suggests that the difference in formatting responded less to a desire for legibility and more to an aesthetic or ritual objective.”24 That is, if those sections intended for recitation are sometimes larger, this need not be because they were meant to be read aloud. The second path extends Yuen-Collingridge’s study of texts which were designed for recitation by considering what documents we know – or can reasonably expect – were read aloud look like. Here, we must carefully distinguish between references to things being read aloud, or prepared for public reading, and texts which say they have or will be read aloud, in the copy that we have. There are many texts in the former category, for example copies of edicts such as SB XIV 12144, a decree on magic, in which the prefect instructs his addressees, who will have been nome-level administrators, to “take care that a copy of this letter is displayed publicly in the district capitals and in every village in clear and easily legible writing on a whitened board.”25 There are other examples that talk about such pronouncements being posted publicly.26 But all these are demonstrably copies of the texts that were posted,27 and, even if we had the originals, are texts posted to be read by people 23 Most such judgments (e.g. HURTADO, Earliest Christian Artifacts, p. 168, see also p. 171) cite E. TURNER, The Typology of the Early Codex, Philadelphia, 1977, p. 84–86. 24 R. YUEN-COLLINGRIDGE, Legibility in the Greek Magical Papyri: The Treatment of Formulae in PGM IV, in T. DERDA et al. (eds), Proceedings of the 27th International Congress of Papyrology, Warsaw, 2016, p. 717–734, at p. 734. 25 SB XIV 12144 (prov. unknown, AD 198/9), ll. 12–17: τῆς ἐ[π]ιστολῆς ταύτης τὸ ἀντίγραφον δημοσίᾳ ἔν τε ταῖς μητροπ[ό]λεσιν καὶ κατὰ κώμην φανεροῖς καὶ εὐαναγνώστοις τοῖς γράμμασιν ἕκαστος ὑμῶν [εἰς λε]ύκωμ[α] προθῖ[ν]αι προνοησάτο (l. προθεῖ[ν]αι, προνοησάτω); translation from the edition of J. REA, A New Version of P. Yale Inv. 299, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 27 (1977), p. 151–156. 26 E.g. SB XIV 11648, an edict of Severus Alexander (Bakhias, AD 222, June 24), see ll. 49– 51, “let the magistrates in each city see to it that copies of this my edict are set up in public in full view of those who wish to read it” (trans. A.S. HUNT and C.G. EDGAR, Select Papyri II, Cambridge Mass., 1934, no. 216); P.Oxy. XXXIV 2705, a letter of the deputy prefect (ca. AD 225), ll. 10–12: ταύτης μου τῆς ἐπιστο[λῆς] ἀ(ντίγραφα) ὡς περιέχει δημοσιωθῆναι εὐδήλοις γράμμασιν ἔν τε τῇ μητροπόλει καὶ τ[οῖς ἐπι]σήμοις τοῦ νομοῦ τόποις προνοήσασθε, ὡς μηδένα ἀγν[ο]ῆ[σ]αι τὰ διηγορευμέν[α, “Take care that copies of this letter of mine, exactly as it stands, are published in plain letters in the metropolis and in the well-known places in the nomes so that no one may be unaware of my pronouncements” (trans. ed.); P.Oxy. VIII 1100 (AD 206), ll. 2–5, which likewise includes an injunction that the letters on the publically displayed copies be clear or legible (εὔδηλος). 27 See P.Col. VI 123, the Severan Apokrimata, l. 1–2, ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ ἀντίγραφα ἀποκριμάτων τεθέντων (l. προτεθέντων) ἐν τῇ στοᾷ τοῦ γυμνασίου, “in Alexandria; copies of apokrimata posted in the stoa of the gymnasium.” It is of course unknowable to what degree (if any) such copies mimicked the script of their exemplars.

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in the street, not copies for public reading.28 Evidence was of course read aloud in court; we hear about this frequently, in documents such as SB V 7696, which contains a number of commandments that items of evidence be read and records that they were.29 But these are documents in which these readings are recorded; they are again not the things read themselves. Legal documents which use the verb παραναγιγνώσκειν to indicate something about the authorisation of the document may provide further relevant evidence. In the papyri, the verb occurs most notably in 11 documents (leases, mandates, deeds, receipts, or contracts) from the archive of a family of gravediggers (nekrotaphoi) from the village of Kysis in the Great Oasis (modern Douch, in the south of what is now known as the Kharga oasis).30 The Lexica gloss παραναγιγνώσκειν with meanings of comparing or collating documents, or reading things aloud.31 Editors of papyri from the nekrotaphoi archive have by and large preferred the former of the two senses, or a combination of them.32 In the nekrotaphoi archive, this word (standardly in the form παρανέγνων) always stands towards the end of the document, as part of the certification or registration process, either in conjunction with a statement that the same scribe wrote the body of the text or the signature of one party,33 or in proximity to such an illiteracy 28 The prefect’s preamble at the start of the letter of Claudius to the Alexandrians, P.Lond. VI 1912 both recalls the text’s public reading (ἀναγνώσει, 2) and states that a copy was put up for public display (ἐκθεῖναι) for individual reading (κατʼ ἄνδρα ἕκαστον ἀναγεινοσκων (l. ἀναγινώσκοντες)); but the copy found in Philadelphia is neither of these, but a private copy, intended for reading of course, because all texts are, but not necessarily in public or aloud. 29 SB V 7696 (Ptolemais Euergetis, after AD 249, Aug. 28), see ll. 27 (“Lucius, advocate, read the evidence,” Λούκιος ῥήτωρ ἀνέγνω τὸ ὑποτεταγμένον), 28–29 (“after the reading, Sabinus the Prefect said: Read, that they were summoned,” μετὰ τὴν ἀνάγνωσιν Σαβεῖνος ἔπαρχος Αἰγύπτου αὐτῷ εἶπ(εν)· ἀνάγνωθι, ὅτι παρηγ’γέλησαν). For similar examples see SB XVI 12692 (= P.Col. VII 175; Karanis, AD 339, May 17), and especially P.Tor.Choach. 12 (Thebes, 117 BC, Dec. 11), a trial in which the litigants read all sorts of items. 30 P.Nekr. (= R.S. BAGNALL, The Undertakers of the Great Oasis, London, 2017) 5.16 (AD 241, July 27); 6.7 (ca. AD 240); 8.5 (AD 240/1?); 9.14 (AD 244, June 28); 10.ii.17, 29 (AD 244, Sept. 9); 11.16 (AD 247, Dec. 22); 12.17 (AD 245, Feb. 21–247, Feb. 22); 14.13 (AD 254–256, April 15); 17.33 (after AD 265, Oct. 7); 21.15 (AD 287, Aug. 16) (a copy of P.Nekr. 11, with framing text in the first 5 and last 6 lines); 48.8 (ca. AD 307–314). On this archive and the nekrotaphoi who owned it, see P.Nekr., p. 1–16; R.S. BAGNALL, A Mandate from the Great Oasis, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 116 (1997), p. 149–151; T. DERDA, Necropolis workers in GraecoRoman Egypt in the Light of the Greek papyri, in Journal of Juristic Papyrology 21 (1991), p. 13– 36, at p. 29–31; F. DUNAND, Les nécrotaphes de Kysis, in Cahiers de recherches de l’Institut de papyrologie et d’égyptologie de Lille 7 (1985), p. 117–127. 31 H.G. LIDDELL, R. SCOTT, H.S. JONES and R. MCKENZIE, Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford, 1996, 9th ed., s.v.; see also G.W.H. LAMPE, Patristic Greek Lexicon, Oxford, 1969, s.v., for παραναγνωτικός as a monastic lector. 32 See Bagnall’s translation (‘collate’) of the term in P.Nekr. (see the references above at n. 30); and R.P. Salomon’s translations of P.Bodl. I 32 and I 51 (= P.Nekr. 6 and 8 respectively) at P.Bodl. I, p. 89 and 148 (‘collate by reading aloud’). 33 See P.Nekr. 5.15–16, where Aurelius Basilides son of Artemidoros both writes the body of the document and ‘collates’ it for Aurelius Ploutogenes, who then signs for himself. P.Nekr. 12.17 is fragmentary, and that it is a later copy in a single hand obscures the matter, but the same person seems to have signed and ‘collated’ the document for the grantor.

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formula made by a different scribe.34 Where the original document (and not a later copy) survives, the individuals undertaking the action indicated by παρανέγνων signal their own literacy by asserting in their own hand that they undertook this action.35 Often the verb occurs in situations in which the maker of the contract is illiterate, but in P.Nekr. 5.16 the lessor signs himself after another person has both written the body of the document and ‘collated’ it. The exact process the verb is covering is difficult to divine. In two later testaments, which both feature the signatures of the witnesses in different hands, and thus are clearly the original copies, the word occurs in a clause stipulating that the testator has dictated (ὑπηγόρευσα) and prepared the will to be written (γραφῆναι), and caused it to be subscribed by witnesses who were summoned, and to whom the meaning of the testament was summarised (παρανέγνων τὴν δύναμιν τῆς διαθήκης).36 In a contract from Antinoopolis more contemporary with the nekrotaphoi archive, a certain Turbo, who had sold his rights to stage a boxing match in the city, asks a weaver named Philantinous to write for him because of his illiteracy, and read the contract aloud (παρανέγνων) to him;37 this is again a signed original. The sense of reading aloud also seems to be present in Ptolemaic instances.38 Turning to literary examples, the sense of ‘reading publicly’ is well attested, though examples which clearly mean to compare different texts also exist.39 In the context of the 34 P.Nekr. 6.6–9; P.Nekr. 8.4–5; 9.14–16 (where the ‘collator’ asserts he has done this in his own hand before the scribe of the main text writes the formal assent of the illiterate seller); 10.ii.15–19 (where the confirmation of the collator is sandwiched between the note by the scribe of the body text asserting his writing of the body and the signature of the mandator written by a third person, see also the same document at 28–31); 11.16–20 (where the παρανέγνων clause is followed by the declaration of the grantor, written by the scribe who writes the body of the deed; see also the later copy of this document, P.Nekr. 21.15–18); 17.32–38 (παρανέγνων clause followed by the declaration, written on behalf of the party receiving the loan repayment by a different person); 48.5–8. In P.Nekr. 14.13, the word seems to have preceded the declaration of the seller, but the context is fragmentary and the fact it is in a single hand (and thus a copy) again obscures the issue. 35 See P.Nekr. 5.15–16 (Aurelius Basilides son of Artemidoros writes the body of and ‘collates’ the document for Aurelius Ploutogenes, who then signs for himself); also P.Nekr. 9.14; 11.16. P.Nekr. 6, 8, 10, 17, 48, and also probably 12 and 14, are all in the one hand and thus copies (17 is labelled at the top as an ἀντ[ί]γρ(αφον)), so it can only be presumed that in the originals the ‘collators’ wrote their own declarations, as is clear in cases such as P.Nekr. 11 and 21, where we have both the original (11) and the copy (21). 36 See P.Cair. Masp. III 67324.9–13 (Aphrodito?, before AD 525/6?) and P.Vat.Aphrod. 7.15– 19 (Aphrodito, before AD 546/7), in which the relevant clause is stated in identical terms. 37 P.Lond. III 1164 (AD 212, April 18), no. i, (ll. 23–25): Φιλαντίνοος ὁ καὶ Ὡρίων γερ(αίτερος) Ἀπολιναρίο(υ) Σαβ(είνιος) ὁ κ(αὶ) Ἁρμ(ονιεὺς) ἔγραψα ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ φάσκοντος μὴ εἰδέναι γράμματα καὶ παρανέγνων αὐτῷ τήν[δε] τὴν ἀσφάλειαν ὡς περιέχει: “Philantinoos also called Horion, son of Apolinarios, weaver of the Sabinian tribe and the Armonien deme, wrote on his behalf with him affirming he did not know letters, and read(?) this document to him as it stood.” The text is part of a tomos synkollesimos, comprised of separate documents which have been glued together. 38 See P.Tor.Choach. 12.32 (Thebes, 117 BC); SB XVIII 13256.10 (268–264? BC). 39 See e.g., 2 Macc. 8:23 (“he appointed Eleazaros to read aloud from the holy book”), 3 Macc. 1:12 (“the law was read publicly”; translation of this and the previous example taken from A. PIETERSMA and B.G. WRIGHT, A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other

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papyrus documents, it seems at least as likely as not that the verb means ‘reading aloud’, so that the parties and witnesses could be assured of what it contained, and the contract could thus be properly formalised and witnessed. The search for other types of documents which were read aloud leads quickly to the letter. These were not always read aloud, of course, but many would have been, as a letter arrived from a distant family member, or someone in the network relaying important news relevant to the whole family or social circle. So while we can assume a lot of letters were read aloud, it is best to search for ones where the writer explicitly stated it would be. The resulting body of letters turns out to be smaller than one might assume for such a common activity, but probably its very ubiquity led it to be so little remarked upon. There are numerous uses of verbs for reading in papyrus letters; most refer to the act of the recipient or sender reading the letter to him or herself. Now of course this may encode someone else reading it to them, but we cannot know that. In some cases of references to reading aloud, such as P.Ryl. II 234 (prov. unknown, 2nd century AD), what we have is not the letter that was read, but one concerning it.40 There are fewer letters which explicitly expect, require, or request a reading aloud.41 In these letters we see no special reading aids, no great concessions made to reading aloud the way some have asserted some New Testament papyri did. They are just normal cursive scripts. If the script is larger than that in, say, classical literary texts, that is normal for documents. In a further example, SB XVIII 13867,42 we do see a much clearer script, with letters formed separately. It is difficult, however, given the testimony of the other letters, to interpret this as a concession to the anticipated public reading, and not the normal way this scribe, who operated within the administration (the letter is addressed to an epistrategos) wrote letters. Greek Translations Traditionally Included under that Title, New York – Oxford, 2007); Polybius Hist. 2.12.4 (Roman legates read the treaty they had made with the Illyrians to representatives of the Aetolian and Achaean leagues). For the sense of comparing different texts, see e.g. Isocrates, Panegyr. 120, Panathen. 17; Aeschines in Ctes. 201. 40 Lines 14–15: αὔριον κἀγὼ αὐτῷ παραναγνώσομαι ἵνα ἀντιφωνήσῃ, “I will tomorrow read it over to him myself so that he may state his reply.” 41 P.Oxy. LIX 3996 (3rd century AD): “And let this part of the letter be read to her” (καὶ ἀναγνωσθήτω αὐτῇ τοῦτο τὸ μέρος τῆς ἐπιστολῆς, 13–14); P.Oxy. LIX 3997 (3rd–4th century), “Greet Chenamun, the old lady, and her children, and the man you reads (you the letter)” (ἀσπάζου Χεναμοῦν τὴν γραῖαν καὶ τὰ τέκνα αὐτῆς καὶ τὸν ἀναγινώσκοντα, 41–42); P.Bad. II 43 (3rd century AD): “And please read this letter to Herakeia” (καλῶς δὲ ποισεις(l. ποιήσεις) παραναγνῶναι Ἡρακλείᾳ τὸ ἐπιστολί[διον] [τ]οῦτο, 26–27); P.Kellis V 40 (second half of the 4th century AD): “I greet you warmly, my loved brother who will read this letter” (ϯϣⲓⲛⲉ ⲁⲣⲁⲕ ⲧⲟⲛⲟⲩ ⲡⲁⲥⲁⲛ Ⲙⲙⲉⲣⲓⲧ ⲉⲧⲛⲁⲱϣ ϯⲉⲡ[ⲓⲥⲧⲟⲗⲏ], 20). 42 SB XVIII 13867 (mid-2nd century AD): “ Sarapis! You, whoever you are, who are reading the letter, make a small effort and translate to the women what is written in this letter and tell them” (τὸν Σάραπιν, ὁ ἀναγινώσκων τὸ ἐπιστόλιον, τίς ἂν ᾖς, κοπίασον μικρὸν καὶ μετερμήνευσεν (l. μεθερμήνευσεν) ταῖς γυναιξὶ τὰ γεγραμμένα ἐν τῇ ἐπιστολῇ ταύτῃ καὶ μετάδος, 1–4, trans. ed. pr.).

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Overall, in these letters, as with nearly all private and most official letters, we overwhelmingly encounter semi- or irregular scripts with inconsistent bilinearity, with the letters abutting or ligatured; what others might call cursive scripts. Although we sometimes encounter paratextual features, and the script of the letters is often larger than that encountered in, say, copies of classical texts, we do not see consistent use of the sort of features which have been said to be a sign of public reading. If it is true that private letters were the most commonly read class of literary material in the Empire,43 no reading aids were used to enable reading aloud when it occurred, as it must have much more frequently than in those cases in which it is explicitly signalled. So, we might therefore question whether, when we see navigational aids, larger script, and other features in Christian literary texts, we should so quickly take them for signs of public reading, or continue to investigate a fuller range of explanations. In the remainder of this contribution, I will offer some thoughts on how some of the paratextual features we find in documentary papyri help us understand how they were used, and how they may have helped mediate the relationship between different copies of the same document, concentrating on the layout of the text; the use of the paragraphos; spacing within the text; and the use of different sized text. Here I will not deal with punctuation such as breathings and accents (which despite frequent assertions is not at all uncommon in Roman period Greek texts), as these are well covered elsewhere.44 We start with the relationship in the layout between original and copy. To what extent do scribes preserve the layout of the text they are copying? Here we may contrast several sets of documents. First, P.Petaus 86, three copies of a list of liturgical nominations on separate sheets by the same scribe, from Ptolemais Hormu and dated to AD 184/5.45 The three copies use different amounts of lines for the same text, and distribute words differently between lines; indeed, it was never common practice to keep the same lineation (by which I mean the distribution of words between lines and the number of lines employed for a text) between 43

I have not tested this in any sense, but it does not seem an unreasonable assumption. See e.g. R. AST, Signs of Learning in Greek Documents: The Case of Spiritus Asper, in G.N. MACEDO and M.C. SCAPPATICCIO (eds), Actes du colloque international “Signes dans les textes, textes sur les signes”, Université de Liège, 6 et 7 septembre 2013, Liège, 2017, p. 143–157, along with several chapters in the same volume; see also J.-L. FOURNET, L’influence des usages littéraires sur l’écriture des documents: perspectives, in A. BÜLOW-JACOBSEN (ed.), Proceedings of the 20th international congress of papyrology, Copenhagen, 23–29 August, 1992, Copenhagen, 1994, p. 418–422. 45 The scribe is not Petaus, the village scribe (komogrammateus) of the Fayum village of Ptolemais Hormu, as it is made abundantly clear elsewhere in the archive that he could not actually write; for discussion see e.g. H.C. YOUTIE, Βραδέως γράφων: Between Literacy and Illiteracy, in Scriptiunculae II (1982), p. 629–651, at p. 630–633; T.J. KRAUS, (Il)literacy in NonLiterary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt: Further Aspects of the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Times, in T.J. KRAUS (ed.), Ad Fontes: Original Manuscripts and their Significance for Studying Early Christianity, Leiden – Boston, 2007, p. 107–129, at p. 117– 121. 44

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copies. Yet the scribe does set the text out the same way, using enlarged lineinitial letters and ekthesis to signal the address which opens the text in lines 1–2 (even if the words are distributed differently),46 and keeping the names of some of those nominated in the same lineation between copies. We might compare this with P.Ryl. II 90, a list of candidates for office, from the same nome (the Arsinoite) from the early third century. Here, three different scribes copy the same information on a single sheet side by side, for reasons that are not immediately obvious.47 Not much can be deduced about the third column, which is mostly lost at the right; in its layout it resembles more column i than the one immediately to its left.48 What is more noticeable is the quite different lineation and layout between columns i and ii. Whereas columns i and iii have a new line for each new entry after the first, beginning καὶ εἰς … ‘and for the’,49 with the kappa of καί enlarged and in ekthesis, column ii does not even start new entries on new lines. The text in column ii also does not employ the space between entries which column i uses, giving the whole text a more vertically compressed appearance, even if the space between the lines is not noticeably different in sections where both have text.50 The scribe of column ii frequently expands words that are abbreviated in column i,51 and omits many things included in i (especially the statement of the nominees’ age, ὡς (ἐτῶν) etc),52 but in other respects slavishly follows the text of column i to the extent of reproducing grammatical errors, some of which are rectified in column iii.53 The layout of column i 46 Compare ll. 1–2 in P.Petaus 86a (= P.Mich. inv. 6871): Ἀπολλωνίῳ στρ(ατηγῷ) Ἀρσι(νοίτου) Ἡρακλεί(δου) | μερίδος; 83b (inv. 6872): Ἀπολλωνίῳ στρ[α]τηγῷ | Ἀρσι(νοίτου) Ἡρακλείδο[υ μ]ερίδος; and 83c (inv. 6873): Ἀπολλωνίῳ στρ(ατηγῷ) Ἀρσι(νοίτου) Ἡρακλεί|δου (vac.) μερίδος. 47 The situation also puzzled the first editors, who noted that as the text of the first column extends into the top of the second and the left edge of column iii extends into the text at the right of column ii, and occasionally overwrites the end of it, they cannot have been intended to be cut apart, as duplicates often were, see P.Ryl. II, p. 56. 48 Note especially the use of ekthesis to signal the start of entries and the more generous line spacing employed. 49 Λυσιμαχίδος in i.16, signalling the start of entries concerning Lysimachis, is also in ekthesis. 50 As a result of the spaces of ca. 1–1.5 cm between entries in column i, the surviving 29 lines use 17.3 cm (high) of papyrus for text for which column ii uses 19 lines and 10.5 cm. 51 While some words are kept abbreviated in column ii, e.g. ὁμοί(ως) (ii.43); ἐπ(ικαλούμενος), οἰκ(οπέδοις) (ii. 49; cf. οἰκοπ(έδοις) i.19); ἁλωνοφυλ(ακίαν) (ii.53), and the scribe of ii occasionally abbreviates things expanded in i (e.g. ὁμοί(ως) in ii.47), there are many more instances of words written in full in ii which are abbreviated in i, e.g. ἁλωνοφυλακίαν (ii.39, cf. ἁ]λωνοφυλ(ακίαν) i.2); ὁμοίως (ii.40, 46 cf. ὁμοί(ως) i.4, 12); δημοσίοις {δη[μοσ]ι[ο]ις} καὶ συνσφραγίζιν (ii.44, cf. δημ(οσίων) θησαυρ(ῶν) καὶ συνσφρα(γίζειν) i.11); εἰς φυλαγειας τῆς | στρατηγείας (ii.46– 47, cf. εἰς φυλ(ακίαν) τῆς στρα(τηγίας), i.13); χ[ωμα]τεγβολ[ί]αν (ii.48, cf. χωματεβολ(ίαν), i.17); γενηματοφυλακίαν (ii.50, cf. γ[ε]νηματοφυλ(ακίαν), i.22). 52 Note especially i.14–15, Ὡρίων Ἀρείου ὡς (ἐτῶν) κε ὁμοίως (δραχμὰς) χ | vac. ὡς (ἐτῶν(?)) κη ὁμοί(ως) (δραχμὰς) χ; compare ii.47, where the whole second entry is excised, and iii.19–20 Ὡ[ | Ἡρῶν[, where the missing name of the nominee is supplied. 53 See ἄδωλον τοῦ μετρουμένου δημοσίου | πυροῦ, l. ἄδολον τὸν μετ[ρού]μενον δημό[σιον πυρὸν ii.41–42, compare i.6, καὶ ἄδωλον τοῦ μετ[ρου]μένου δημο[σίου πυροῦ]; see also ii.55–56, ἄδωλων τοῦ μετρου|[μ]έν[ου] [δη]μοσίο[υ] πυροῦ. Compare iii.13, καὶ ἄδολο[ν.

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does however find a graphic reflection of a sort in column ii, in the occasional employment of oblique strokes and lengthened final sigmas in the middle of lines in places where there is a line break in column i.54 This and other duplicate documents on papyrus illustrate that a high premium was not usually placed on duplicating the exact layout of the original. In two copies of a lease of land by the same scribe in a tomos synkollesimos, SB XVI 13006 and 13007 (Arsinoite, AD 144), the scribe uses less vertical space, and a fewer number of lines with more letters on them, in making what is probably the second copy, 13007.55 These changes lead to a more compressed appearance: the 38 lines of 13007 take up the same space as 34 of the 41 total lines in 13006. This reduction in the amount of papyrus used is achieved despite the scribe expanding a considerable number of abbreviations that occur in the first copy.56 This difference in vertical density, lineation, and abbreviational practice notwithstanding, the scribe uses a very similar page layout in both documents, with ekthesis to set off the second line and highlight the address at the top of the document. A similar strategy can be seen in P.Oxy. XXXIII 3672A and B, two copies of a petition to the strategos of the Oxyrhynchite nome from AD 307 by different scribes, who both use ekthesis in the opening two lines: though the scribes use different lineation and a different abbreviation for Ὀξυρυγχίτου in line 2, the visual effect is similar. To some degree these scribes, and that of SB XVI 13006 and 13007, are simply following standard document-formatting procedure. Yet the mimicking of the format between copies may not be insignificant. In terms of navigational aids, P.Ryl. II 90 (discussed above) illustrates the use of ekthesis and enlarged line-initial letters to signal new sections of a document, as do documents such as a list of guard postings in Oxyrhynchus from the first half of the fourth century.57 One might also look at texts such as the Acts of Phileas preserved in P.Beatty 15. While this text is a quasi-literary work in 54 Compare ii.39 ἁλωνοφυλακίαν  Ἑκῦσις Σανπᾶτος with i.3 ἁλωνοφυλακίαν | Ἑκῦσις Σανπᾶτος; ii.42 πυρου  Ἀνουβᾶς with i.6–7 πυρου | Ἀνουβᾶς; ii.50 Στοτοῆτις Σοκμήνεως  καὶ ε[ἰ]ς γενηματοφυλακίαν with i.21–22 Στοτοῆτις Σοκμήνεως ὡς (ἐτῶν) [ -ca.?- ] | καὶ εἰς γ[ε]νηματοφυλ(ακίαν); ii.53: Ἀπ[ύγ]χεω[ς.]  καὶ εἰς with i.26–27: Ἑρμῆς Ἀπύγχεως ὡς (ἐτῶν) λε ὁμ[οί](ως) [(δραχμὰς) ̣ ]| καὶ εἰς ἁλωνοφυλ(ακίαν). For lengthened final sigma see ii.45: σιτολόγοις Πετενοῦφις (i.10–11, σιτολόγοις | Πετενοῦφις), ii.46: ὁμοίως (δραχμὰς) (i.12 ὁμοί(ως) [(δραχμὰς)], ii.47: στρατηγείας Ὡρίω[ν] (i.13–14 στρα(τηγίας) | Ὡρίων). 55 For the first edition, see S. OMAR, Eine Rolle mit sieben Hypomnemata aus dem Ägyptischen Museum zu Kairo, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 50 (1983), p. 73–91, at p. 77–81. 56 See 13007.3, 5, 10, 29 and 33, where words abbreviated in medial positions in lines in 13006 (i.e., not the more common practice of abbreviating at lines’ end) are expanded to be written in full in 13007; a number of spellings are also corrected in the latter. 57 P.Oxy. I 43, back; on the front is a series of military accounts dated to early AD 295; the first editors, B.P. Grenfell and A.S. Hunt, thought the text on the back was ‘written not long afterwards’, but the basis for this belief is not clear; cf. R.S. BAGNALL, Egypt in Late Antiquity, Princeton, 1993, ‘perhaps as late as the 320s’ (p. 164, n. 83, see also at 53, 91, 280). If guards are assigned to Christian ekklesiae, as they seem to be in this document (i.10, iii.19) then it more likely post-dates 324.

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terms of its function within the Christian community and textual transmission – being as it is one of the earliest preserved examples in the genre of the Christian acts of the martyr – it mimics a documentary format in using ekthesis for the prefect’s name when he speaks. It thus uses a paratextual device to construct its authenticity and enhance the sense that it is a real record of the trial of Phileas. Paragraphoi, a common device in literary texts to divide up the text and indicate different sections of it, can also be used in documentary texts. They can separate an extract from a census declaration from an administrative note (‘he registered them with his other arouras’) at the foot of the text, as in P.Col. VII 125 (Karanis, after AD 307); or they can divide the body of the contract from the signatures.58 In a paraliterary context, the fourth-century Panopolitan scholastikos Ammon used paragraphoi to divide representatives of various schools of philosophy from one another.59 In P.Petaus 93 (Ptolemais Hormu, ca. AD 182– 187), a list of names, a coronis aided the reader in navigating the document. At times, other elements can serve this function, such as the L-shaped etous sign for ‘year’, which serves as a divider between official letters in the collection P.Oxy. XLIII 3119 (after AD 259/60). A different sort of paratextual device in the papyri, part of what Genette would consider as the text itself, is provided by spaces between words. In New Testament papyri, such spacing has been cited as a forerunner to later chapter divisions, and it is true that sometimes these do line up, so that they form a type of ‘reading aid’.60 As documents such as petitions and records of earlier proceedings were read in court proceedings, features like this may have helped to guide that reading experience (if we could be sure any given copy we had of a document was used for such a purpose, which as noted above is difficult to determine). Yet spacing can also be put to other uses, such as to set off sections of a text. This is what the scribe does in P.Mert. 2.91, a petition sent in AD 316 to the strategos by Isidorus of Karanis.61 This petition, as do many, incorporates in its 58 E.g. P.Oxy. L 3599, an acknowledgment of a loan dated 9.12.460, where the paragraphos is written in the left margin between ll. 21–22, despite the fact the first word of the signature (Αὐρήλιοι) comes at the end of l. 21; or P.Got. 9, an acknowledgement of receipt of wages likewise from Oxyrhynchus, dated to AD 546, Feb. 14 (see between ll. 21–22); on the signature of this document see J. KEENAN, Notes on Papyri, in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 47 (2010), p. 232–233. 59 P.Ammon I 1 (Panopolis, 4th century AD). 60 See C. HILL, Rightly Dividing the Word: Uncovering an Early Template for Textual Division in John’s Gospel, in D.M. GURTNER, J. HERNÁNDEZ, JR. and P. FOSTER (eds), Studies on the Text of the New Testament and Early Christianity in Honor of Michael W. Holmes (New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents 50), Leiden, 2015, p. 221–242, who also takes into account paragraphoi and ekthesis. 61 This petition, sent to the strategos of the Arsinoite nome on AD 316, Jan. 31, incorporates into its text an earlier petition sent by Isidorus to the praeses, and the prefect’s reply instructing

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text an earlier petition to the prefect. The scribe – not Isidorus, who despite holding a number of public offices was also illiterate – introduces larger than usual spaces between words where the copy of the prefect’s petition begins, and where Isidorus comes to state clearly the precise amounts of seed to be sown and money for the hire of oxen.62 This technique of the scribe draws the strategos’ eye to important sections and makes them easy to find.63 In another duplicate petition, P.Oxy. XXIV 2410 (AD 120, March 18?), where two copies by the same scribe on separate sheets are pasted side by side,64 wider than normal spacing between words occurs in the right hand copy in four places where lines end in the left hand copy.65 It thus seems likely that column A formed the exemplar for the copy in the right hand column. This suggests that when larger than usual spacing between words occurs in texts, it need not always indicate that the spacing is a ‘reading aid’: it may just be the scribe telling us something about the lineation or layout of the original. In some cases, scribes construct the authority of their document by mimicking the format of an original. We can see this by looking again at the originals of the petition to the praeses that is incorporated into P.Mert. II 91, mentioned above. This itself survives in two copies as P.Cair.Isid. 74A–B (AD 315, Dec. 27); in one of them, P.Cair.Isid. 74B, the subscription of the prefect is recorded.66 When Isidorus had his scribe copy this petition into the one to the strategos (P.Mert. II 91, see above), the scribe includes (as is usual) the prefect’s subscription at lines 20– 21, and graphically invests it with authority by copying the style of handwriting in the model, P.Cair.Isid. 74. This is a clever way to (a) mark out what is important, and (b), perhaps more importantly, to signal its authority. the exactor (as the relevant official had recently been retitled) to hear the matter. On the original petition, itself extant in two copies (P.Cair.Isid. 74A–B), see below. 62 See P.Mert. II 91 line 5, Μεχεὶρ ε  ἐστὶ δέ· Αὐρηλίῳ Ἀντωνίῳ, where ἐστὶ δέ marks the introduction to the previous petition; and line 9, ἐκ προχρίας τοῦτʼ ἐστί παρέσχον, where παρέσχον introduces the goods lent; from the plate (P.Mert. II, pl. XXXIX, after p. 158), it looks like an oblique stroke may also have stood after προχρίας. 63 For a similar observation on a duplicate copy of an earlier petition, see J. STOOP, Two Copies of a Royal Petition from Kerkeosiris, 163–146 BCE, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 189 (2014), p. 185–193, at p. 186 and 188. 64 The addressee is lost in both copies, but both are signed at the bottom in the same hand, which is different from that which wrote the body of the petition. The editor comments only ‘remains of three columns, written along the fibres of a sheet of papyrus of good quality’, but that the two copies have been joined is clear from examination of the original in the Sackler Library, Oxford. This is most clear in B.24, where the etous sign is partially underneath the papyrus containing copy A. There are traces of a mostly lost first column (which has also been joined to the right of column ii) with what seems to be a different text in a different hand. This was thus a tomos synkollesimos which for some reason included two identical signed copies of a petition. 65 For larger than normal spaces between words in column B see B.5, χρᾶσθα]ι ου μονον, corresponding to the end of A.6; B.9, ] π[οιῆσαι] νομὰς, corresponding to the end of A.11; B.16, μι]σθῶν ὁ δὲ, corresponding to the end of A.17; and B.18, πεποίεται οὐδὲ, corresponding to the end of A.19. 66 See P.Cair.Isid. 74B.23–25. Copy A, which is imperfectly preserved, may have been a draft, or Isidorus’s file copy.

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Finally I want to note some interesting features which Rachel Yuen-Collingridge and I have observed in Christian letters of recommendation found on papyrus in the late 3rd and early 4th century, an intriguing genre of letter which travelling Christians, including catechumens, carried with them to vouchsafe their membership of the Christian community, and right to hospitality or further education.67 In P.Oxy. VIII 1162, different script sizes are used to mark out different sections of the text; in particular, the words ‘in peace’ (ἐν ἰρήνῃ, l. εἰρήνῃ) as well as those which follow in line 9 are enlarged, and the line is spaced out from those above and below. This draws attention to the character of the letter as a ‘letter of peace’, which seems to have been the official designation of these epistles.68 In PSI XV 1560, which may well have been sent from the Bishop of Alexandria, Theonas, to his contemporary Bishop of Carthage, Mensourios, in the late third century, the name of the catechumen being recommended, Serenos, is set off from the rest of the text by large spaces before and after it. In an unpublished paper,69 we argued that this is not because it is a form letter, with the name added later, but to draw attention visually to the most important item, in the same way as scribes of other letters of recommendation place spaces around a name, or make a deliberate attempt to have the name of the recommended person start a new line, spacing the final words in the preceding line more widely to ensure this. These various paratextual features I have pointed out in these documentary papyri do not all respond to the same conditions; they are not all for the same purposes; they range over time, place, genre; they proceed from a range of social situations, from scribes of varying abilities. What they indicate, however, is the multiplicity of situations the features respond to, the variety of causes and motives which call them forth. Paratexts may be, as Genette concludes, ‘only an assistant, only an accessory of the text’70; but they show us both how the purpose of the text was conceived, and how it was used; and they need to be understood as part of the reading experience. Yet these features are not all for ‘public reading’. Some help the user better articulate their understanding of the text; to help them easily find information within it; to make them more ‘user friendly’. But many of these documents are simply not for ‘public reading’ of any sort (whatever this construct might 67 On the genre see T.M. TEETER, Letters of Recommendation or Letters of Peace?, in B. KRAMER et al. (eds), Akten des 21. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses, vol. 2, Stuttgart, 1997, p. 954– 960; Introduction to P.Oxy. LVI 3857 (ed. M.G. Sirivianou); K. TREU, Christliche EmpfehlungsSchemabriefe auf Papyrus, in Zetesis. Bijdragen op het gebied van de klassieke Filologie, Filosofie, Byzantinistiek, Patrologie en Theologie, aangeboden aan Prof. Dr. Émile de Strijcker, Antwerp – Utrecht, 1973, p. 629–636. 68 For their likely categorisation in antiquity, see TEETER, Letters of Recommendation. We also see this marking of the phrase ‘in peace’ in another letter of recommendation (P.Oxy. LVI 3857, 4th century AD) by it being placed at the beginning of a line with a space after it. 69 Delivered at Macquarie University, 7th November 2015. 70 GENETTE, Paratexts, p. 410.

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be held to mean). They may be there to guide the reading experience, but we must set aside the idea that such features can be used to automatically categorise a text as produced for a public (whether secular or ecclesiastical) context, when we encounter them in literary texts. This is all the more necessary because in a number of cases, such features are transparently not ‘reading aids’ of any sort: they serve other purposes, such as constructing the authority of the text, visually augmenting the authority of the words with their physical form; and acting as markers of authenticity for those reading and using the text. References R. AST, Signs of Learning in Greek Documents: The Case of Spiritus Asper, in G.N. MACEDO and M.C. SCAPPATICCIO (eds), Actes du colloque international “Signes dans les textes, textes sur les signes”, Université de Liège, 6 et 7 septembre 2013, Liège, 2017, p. 143–157. R.S. BAGNALL, Egypt in Late Antiquity, Princeton, 1993. R.S. BAGNALL, A Mandate from the Great Oasis, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 116 (1997), p. 149–151. R.S. BAGNALL, The Undertakers of the Great Oasis, London, 2017 (= P.Nekr.). M. CAROLI, Il titolo iniziale nel rotolo librario greco-egizio: con un catalogo delle testimonianze iconografiche greche e di area vesuviana, Bari, 2007. G. CIOTTI and H. LIN, Tracing Manuscripts in Time and Space through Paratexts, Berlin, 2016. A.E. COOLEY, Paratextual perspectives upon the SC de Pisone patre, in L. JANSEN (ed.), The Roman Paratext: Frame, Texts, Readers, Cambridge, 2014, p. 143–155. A. DEL LUNGO, ‘Seuils’, vingt ans après: quelques pistes pour l’étude du paratexte après Genette, in Littérature 155 (2009), p. 98–111. T. DERDA, Necropolis Workers in Graeco-Roman Egypt in the Light of the Greek papyri, in Journal of Juristic Papyrology 21 (1991), p. 13–36. F. DUNAND, Les nécrotaphes de Kysis, in Cahiers de recherches de l’Institut de papyrologie et d’égyptologie de Lille 7 (1985), p. 117–127. J.-L. FOURNET, L’influence des usages littéraires sur l’écriture des documents: perspectives, in A. BÜLOW-JACOBSEN (ed.), Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Papyrology, Copenhagen, 23–29 August, 1992, Copenhagen, 1994, p. 418– 422. H. GAMBLE, Books and Readers in the Early Church, New Haven – London, 1995. G. GENETTE, Paratexts: Thresholds of interpretation, translated by J.E. LEWIN, Cambridge, 1997. Originally published as Seuils, Paris, 1987. G. GIANGRANDE, Preliminary Notes on the Use of “Paragraphos” in Greek Papyri, in Museum Philologum Londiniense 3 (1978), p. 147–151. C. HILL, Rightly Dividing the Word: Uncovering an Early Template for Textual Division in John’s Gospel, in D.M. GURTNER, J. HERNÁNDEZ, JR. and P. FOSTER (eds), Studies on the Text of the New Testament and Early Christianity in Honor of Michael W. Holmes (New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents 50), Leiden, 2015, p. 221–242. U. HORAK, Illuminierte Papyri, Pergamente und Papiere, Vienna, 1992. A.S. HUNT and C.G. EDGAR, Select Papyri II, Cambridge Mass., 1934. L. HURTADO, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins, Grand Rapids Mich., 2006.

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L. JANSEN (ed.), The Roman Paratext: Frame, Texts, Readers, Cambridge, 2014. W.A. JOHNSON, Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities, Oxford, 2010. J. KEENAN, Notes on Papyri, in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 47 (2010), p. 232–233. T.J. KRAUS, (Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt: Further Aspects of the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Times, in T.J. KRAUS (ed.), Ad Fontes: Original Manuscripts and their Significance for Studying Early Christianity, Leiden – Boston, 2007, p. 107–129. G.W.H. LAMPE, A Greek Patristic Lexicon, Oxford, 1969. H.G. LIDDELL, R. SCOTT, H.S. JONES and R. MCKENZIE, Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford, 1996, 9th ed. R.B. LUPI, La paragraphos: analisi di un segno di lettura, in A. BÜLOW-JACOBSEN (ed.), Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Papyrologists, Copenhagen, 23–29 August, 1992, Copenhagen, 1994, p. 414–417. R. MARTÍN HERNÁNDEZ, Reading the Magical Drawings in the Greek Magical Papyri, in P. SCHUBERT (ed.), Actes du 26e Congrès international de papyrologie, Geneva, 2012, p. 491–498. R.W. MCCUTCHEON, Silent Reading in Antiquity and the Future History of the Book, in Book History 18 (2015), p. 1–32. J. MCGANN, The Textual Condition, Princeton, N.J., 1991. K. MCNAMEE, Annotations in Greek and Latin Texts from Egypt, New Haven, 2007. S. OMAR, Eine Rolle mit sieben Hypomnemata aus dem Ägyptischen Museum zu Kairo, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 50 (1983), p. 73–91. A. PIETERSMA and B.G. WRIGHT, A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under That Title, New York – Oxford, 2007. J. REA, A New Version of P. Yale Inv. 299, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 27 (1977), p. 151–156. N. REGGIANI, The Corpus of the Greek Medical Papyri and a New Concept of Digital Critical Edition, in N. REGGIANI (ed.), Digital Papyrology II. Case Studies on the Digital Edition of Ancient Greek Papyri, Berlin, 2018, p. 3–62. C.H. ROBERTS, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt, London, 1979. F. SCHIRONI, Τὸ μέγα βιβλίον. Book-Ends, End-Titles, and Coronides in Papyri with Hexametric Poetry, Durham, 2010. H. SMITH and L. WILSON (eds), Renaissance Paratexts, Cambridge, 2011. G.M. STEPHEN, The Coronis, in Scriptorium 13 (1959), p. 3–14. J. STOOP, Two Copies of a Royal Petition from Kerkeosiris, 163–146 BCE, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 189 (2014), p. 185–193. T.M. TEETER, Letters of Recommendation or Letters of Peace?, in B. KRAMER et al. (eds), Akten des 21. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses, vol. 2, Stuttgart, 1997, p. 954– 960. The Editors, An Introduction to Book History, in Book History 1 (1998), p. ix–xi. K. TREU, Christliche Empfehlungs-Schemabriefe auf Papyrus, in Zetesis. Bijdragen op het gebied van de klassieke Filologie, Filosofie, Byzantinistiek, Patrologie en Theologie, aangeboden aan Prof. Dr. Émile de Strijcker, Antwerp – Utrecht, 1973, p. 629–636. E. TURNER, The Typology of the Early Codex, Philadelphia, 1977. G. VERHASSELT, Anonymous, On Critical Signs in the Manuscripts of Plato (PSI XV 1488) (1135), in S. SCHORN (ed.), Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker Part IV, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1873-5363_jciv_a1135, consulted on 14.2.2019.

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M. WIBIER, The Topography of the Law Book: Common Structures and Modes of Reading, in L. JANSEN (ed.), The Roman Paratext: Frame, Texts, Readers, Cambridge, 2014, p. 58–72. H.C. YOUTIE, Βραδέως γράφων: Between Literacy and Illiteracy, in Scriptiunculae II (1982), p. 629–651. R. YUEN-COLLINGRIDGE, Legibility in the Greek Magical Papyri: The Treatment of Formulae in PGM IV, in T. DERDA et al. (eds), Proceedings of the 27th International Congress of Papyrology, Warsaw, 2016, p. 717–734.

THE USE OF ABBREVIATIONS IN DUPLICATE DOCUMENTS FROM ROMAN EGYPT Korshi DOSOO

Abbreviation can be found in almost all types of Greek manuscripts from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, and yet it remains a little studied phenomenon. Editions of papyri will generally note abbreviations in the apparatus as they occur, and older editions at times listed them in indices,1 but the few existing synthetic works tend to focus on the development and form of abbreviations, serving essentially as reference works which papyrus editors may consult.2 These studies are thus generally interested in abbreviations as phenomena to be understood by modern readers rather than as the productions of ancient writers. The more theoretical work on the subject has, thus far, focused on the higher prestige literary (and often Biblical) texts, rather than on the tens of thousands of documentary texts.3 Yet these everyday administrative and legal documents can 1 I thank the anonymous reviewer who pointed out that a particularly rich example of such an index of abbreviations may be found in P.Lond. III (F.G. KENYON and H.I. BELL, Greek Papyri in the British Museum, London, 1907, vol. 3, p. 346–351), alongside an index of symbols (p. 344– 345). The support of the Australian Research Council for the project out of which this chapter grew (DP120103738) is gratefully acknowledged. 2 Some of the fuller discussions of the phenomenon of abbreviation in Greek papyri include F.W.G. FOAT, Sematography of the Greek Papyri, in The Journal of Hellenic Studies 22 (1902), p. 135–173; H.I. BELL, Abbreviations in Documentary Papyri, in G.E. MYLONAS (ed.), Studies presented to David Moore Robinson on his Seventieth Birthday, vol. 2, St. Louis, 1953, p. 424–433; U. WILCKEN, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde. Erster Band: Historischer Teil. Erste Hälfte: Grundzüge, Hildesheim, 1963, p. xxxix–xl; A. BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations dans les papyrus documentaires grecs, Diss. Faculté des Lettres et sciences humaines de Paris Sorbonne, 1969; A. BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations dans les papyrus documentaires grecs: recherches de paléographie, London, 1974; K. MCNAMEE, Abbreviations in Greek Literary Papyri and Ostraca, Ann Arbor, 1981; N. GIOVÈ MARCHIOLI, P. ELEUTERI and G. MENCI, Abbreviations, in H. CANCIK and H. SCHNEIDER (eds), Brill’s New Pauly, Brill Online 2006 at http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e100750; N. GONIS, Abbreviations and Symbols, in R.S. BAGNALL (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, Oxford, 2009, p. 170–178, F. LOGOZZO, Scritture Brevi in alfabeto greco: qualche considerazione linguistica, in F. LOGOZZO and P. POCETTI (eds), Ancient Greek Linguistics: New Perspectives, Insights, and Approaches, Berlin – Boston, 2017, p. 57– 76. See also A.N. OIKONOMIDES, Abbreviations in Greek Inscriptions: Papyri, Manuscripts and Early Printed Books, Chicago, 1974, which reprints several studies by M. Avi-Yonah, F.G. Kenyon, T.W. Allen, G.F. von Ostermann and A.E. Giegengack. For a discussion of later abbreviations in documentary papyri, see E. PETRA, Remarks to Symbols and Abbreviations in Non-Literary Greek papyri of the Early Arabic Period (640–800 A.D.), in Επιστημονική Επετηρίς της Φιλοσοφικής Σχολής του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών 43 (2011–2012), p. 397–425. For examples of more synthetic or theoretical works, see n. 3 below. 3 For earlier discussions of the role of abbreviation in literary and religious texts, see, for example, MCNAMEE, Abbreviations; A. MILLARD, Ancient Abbreviations and the Nomina Sacra,

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offer us a window into the daily practices of those literate individuals whose livelihoods were intimately implicated in the production of the texts demanded by the complex bureaucracy and society of Graeco-Roman Egypt. This practice – of producing, and more often, of copying, texts according to pre-existing models – may be vital for our understanding of the ways in which professional training, aesthetic norms, individual choice, and functional requirements all play into the production of written texts, and these insights could be applied, with appropriate caveats, to the literary and religious texts which are often considered to have greater inherent interest. Abbreviations are ubiquitous in documentary texts, and therefore serve as an excellent phenomenon through which to examine ‘scribal intervention’ – the degree to which individual copyists felt able to alter the text. Our concern here, however, will not be with the forms that abbreviations took, but rather why, and in what circumstances, they were used. Were there definite rules, imposed over the course of a scribe’s education? Was the use of abbreviations conditioned by the word’s physical or linguistic environment – its position in a line or in a grammatical construction? Or were they simply used haphazardly? When we look at an individual document, the rationale behind the decision to abbreviate can be opaque; each word stands at the centre of a large number of variables which make it difficult to compare it to other instances in the same document. Different instances of the same word may, for example, fulfil different semantic, syntactic, or pragmatic functions, or stand in a different physical relationship to the text and its support – they may be at the beginning, middle or end of a clause, line, page, or column, while imperfections in the papyrus’ production may make it necessary to leave blank spaces or compress text. This is where the study of duplicate documents, that is copies, may be useful. Like all bureaucracies, that of Roman Egypt required not only that texts be produced, but that they be copied, so that they could be registered with different levels of the administration, while private individuals – regardless of their level of literacy – might also require further copies, in order to prove their status, their participation in the poll-tax or compulsory sacrifices, their property rights, and so on. While the preservation of papyrus texts of all types is a haphazard affair, several hundred duplicate documents have survived, and this study will use these to examine scribal intervention in manuscripts; since the text itself remains the in C. EYRE, A. LEAHY and L. MONTAGNO LEAHY (eds), The Unbroken Reed: Studies in the Culture and Heritage of Ancient Egypt in Honour of A.F. Shore, London, 1994, p. 205–226; L.W. HURTADO, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins, Grand Rapids – Cambridge, 2006, p. 95–154; S.D. CHARLESWORTH, Consensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third-Century Gospel Manuscripts, in Aegyptus 86 (2006), p. 37– 68; A. MUGRIDGE, Copying Early Christian Texts: A Study of Scribal Practice, Tübingen, 2016, p. 117–137.

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same, the duplicates offer us a type of controlled experiment, in which we can begin to isolate relevant variables. Abbreviation in Greek papyri The earliest surviving Greek texts are not written on papyrus, but inscribed, usually on stone.4 In these inscriptions, which begin to appear in earnest from the 6th century BC, we already find some of the abbreviations that will become important in the later papyri, principally the numerals, and symbols for quantities of money. As artefacts that must be both written and read, Alain Blanchard points out that there is an inherent tension present in the use of abbreviations between “economy and clarity”.5 An abbreviation may save both space and time, but provides less information than a full writing, and requires particular knowledge on the part of the reader to understand. But as Giovè Marchioli, Eleuteri and Menci point out, Greek and Latin texts were written without word divisions, and often with minimal or no diacritics or punctuation, so that in some cases abbreviations may in fact have made the process of reading faster and more accurate, allowing particular words to be instantly recognisable, as long as the reader was familiar with the abbreviation.6 Abbreviated writings in Greek papyri can be broken down into four basic forms: slurs, contractions, suspension, and symbols.7 Slurs, better known by their German name ‘Verschleifungen’ represent a practice in which the word is written as a “wavy or ribbonlike line in which no individual letters are distinguishable”,8 although the initial letter may remain legible. Although these serve one of the functions of abbreviation – enabling faster writing – they are generally no longer considered as true abbreviations, since no letters are intentionally omitted, and so will not be considered here. 4 I thank the anonymous reviewer who reminded me that the earliest examples of Greek written in the alphabet derived from the Phoenician consonantal script are in fact inscriptions on clay, dating to the eighth century BC; the most famous of these are the Dipylon Jug (CEG 432; Athens, ca. 740 BC) and Nestor’s Cup (CEG 454; Ischia, ca. 725 BC), but there are other examples from this century. Similarly, there are a number of inscribed metal objects from before the sixth century; among the earliest, for example, is a statuette of a warrior with a dedication to Apollo (CEG 326; Boeotia, ca. 700–675 BC). For a recent discussion see J.K. PAPADOPOULOS, The Early History of the Greek Alphabet: New Evidence from Eretria and Methone, in Antiquity 90.353 (2016), p. 1238– 1254. 5 ‘… tension entre économie et clarté’, A. BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations (1969), vol. 1, p. 15. 6 GIOVÈ MARCHIOLI, ELEUTERI and MENCI, Abbreviations. 7 This basic insight was provided in U. WILCKEN, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde 1.1, p. xxxix–xl. His terms were Verschleifungen; Abbreviaturen, Abbreviationen or Suspensionen; Kontraktionen; and Symbole or Siglen. 8 GONIS, Abbreviations and Symbols, p. 177.

302 Form of abbreviation

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Example

Transliteration

Source

Word

Translation

Contraction (with supralineation)

θς

P.Gr.Mag. I 4 l.155

θ(εό)ς

God

Suspension (unmarked)

πρακ

CPR XVIIA 17a l.2

πρακ(τορίαν)

(taxation unit)

Suspension (with superposition or raising of final letter)

θ επερωτη or επερωτηθ

CPR XVIIA 17 b l.13

ἐπερωτηθ(είς)

having been asked…

Suspension (with supralineation)

γυμ

CPR XVIIA 17a col.2 l.1

γυμ(νασιάρχῳ)

(to the) gymnasiarch

Suspension (with stroke of abbreviation)

γραφ/

P.Cair.Masp. II 67324a l.15

γραφ(εῖσα)

written

Symbol

˪

P.Flor. I 48 l.10 (ἔτους)

year

Table 1: Examples of abbreviational strategies in Greek papyri

In the second type of abbreviation, contraction, the initial and (usually) final letter, are retained, with some or all of the medial letters removed.9 This form of abbreviation is relatively rare in Greek papyri, and virtually unknown in documentary texts before the 4th century AD. It is more often found in religious and magical texts, in the form of the words known as nomina sacra, generally nouns relating to Christian belief.10 Since none of these appear in the documentary texts discussed here, this phenomenon will not be discussed at length. The third type of abbreviation, suspension, is the most common in Greek, and consists of the simple practice of omitting one or more letters from the end of the word. While different strategies for marking (or not marking) suspension seem to have been available to scribes at any one period, Alain Blanchard, in 9 BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations (1974), p. 2, thinks that the examples Wilcken cites, principally nomina sacra, do not derive from the normal process of abbreviation, but should be considered separately; he does recognise the existence of a comparable form of abbreviation, ‘abréviation à thème discontinue’ (p. 12), which develops around the Byzantine period (by the 4th century AD, more common after the 6th century). GONIS, Abbreviations and Symbols, prefers this French term to ‘contraction’. 10 For discussions of nomina sacra, see for example HURTADO, The Earliest Christian Artifacts, p. 95–134; CHARLESWORTH, Consensus Standardization; MUGRIDGE, Copying Early Christian Texts, p. 119–137.

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his 1969 doctoral thesis, attempted to trace the process of temporal development of such strategies.11 In the earliest stages (4th and 3rd centuries BC), according to this reconstruction, suspensions were often unmarked,12 although already by the 3rd century BC other strategies were being used, notably the superposition of the final written letter over the penultimate, which later developed into the practice of writing the final letter smaller and above the baseline (‘raising’).13 During the Roman period, and particularly in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, a variety of marks developed in order to signal abbreviation – a supralinear stroke over the last written letter, or an oblique or horizontal stroke of abbreviation following or intersecting with the last letter.14 At all periods, certain frequently abbreviated words might have the letters merged into a sort of monogram, which might ultimately become a symbol. These symbols are final form of abbreviation to be considered here.15 Several of these developed from older monograms, while others were taken from epigraphic Greek or even Demotic; here we should remember that numerals are also a form of symbol, standing in for the full writing of a number.16 While it is generally agreed that most symbols originated from more conventional Greek abbreviations, that is, suspensions, several authors have seen symbols as a distinct phenomenon. For our purposes here, however, they will be treated as abbreviations, since they fulfil fundamentally the same role – alternating with full writings, but being more economical in terms of the space they occupy.

BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations (1969), p. 2–33. BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations (1969), p. 2–6; cf. BELL, Abbreviations in Documentary Papyri, p. 427. Examples of unmarked abbreviation in papyri from the 3rd century BC include BGU III 1008 l.5: ἀργυ(ρίου); P.Cair.Zen. IV 59688 ll.5, 20: λογισ(τήριον); P.Harrauer 27 l.4: πέπτω(κεν); P.Cair.Zen. I 59009 l.5: Μιν(αίου). It should be noted that contemporary papyri, and even these manuscripts in some cases, do use other abbreviational strategies. 13 BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations (1969), p. 16–23; BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations (1974), p. 8; cf. WILCKEN, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie, p. xl. 14 BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations (1969), p. 16–23; BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations (1974), p. 9–11; cf. WILCKEN, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie, p. xli; BELL, Abbreviations in Documentary Papyri, p. 427; GONIS, Abbreviations and Symbols, p. 174. As these authors note, the supralinear stroke probably developed from a reduced superposed letter. Blanchard suggests that the development of strokes to mark abbreviation may have been influenced by Latin practice; H.B. VAN HOESEN, Abbreviations in Latin Papyri, in Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 44 (1913), p. 42, notes the use in Latin papyri of a point to mark abbreviations, e.g. in P.Oxy. VII 1022 (AD 103), while an angled stroke or overline may serve the same function in texts from the second century onwards. 15 WILCKEN, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie, p. xlv, n. 1, prefers ‘Symbol’, to avoid confusion with the use of ‘sigle’ in Latin epigraphy to designate ‘litterae singulares’. By contrast, BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations (1974), p. 30, prefers the use of ‘sigle’ to ‘symbol’ in French, English and German, thinking ‘symbol’ to be appropriate in only a few cases (presumably as they are derived from letters rather than being purely iconic). I use ‘symbols’ here as a term that is both widely used and easily understood. 16 For the origins of the symbols see the discussions at n. 2, in particular those of Blanchard and Gonis. 11 12

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1. A survey of abbreviations in documentary texts I have already highlighted the fact that the administrative and legal systems of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt produced large quantities of documentary texts, and that these texts were almost always produced as part of duplicate sets. Indeed, a large number of the manuscripts that survive from antiquity – and this is also true of literary and sub-literary texts – are either themselves copies, or would have been copied at some stage of their existence. In practice, the number of Greek documents for which more than one copy has been identified is far smaller than the 50,000 or so published Greek papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt.17 In 2001 Bruce E. Nielsen published a list of 317 sets of duplicates of Greek documentary papyri,18 and the Macquarie University project on duplicate documents has added a further 148 sets of documentary and sub-literary texts to this list.19 This corpus of 465 duplicate sets formed the basis for the following analysis of the abbreviational habits of scribes, but given its size, a more restricted set had to be used. This study was restricted to texts from Roman Egypt, understood as the period between 30 BC and AD 639.20 This excluded 96 duplicate sets dating from the Ptolemaic period. Similarly, a focus on the Roman province of Egypt removed the smaller number of papyri surviving from ancient Arabia and Syria, and concerns about the interference of multilingual documents eliminated the few, though fascinating, bilingual texts containing Aramaic, Demotic, or Latin alongside Greek. 73 duplicate sets were randomly selected from this slightly reduced corpus, of which 13 had to be rejected as containing either no abbreviations, or no abbreviations in the overlapping text sections; thus, the final dataset contained 60 sets.21 Most of these sets contained two copies, but four contained between three and six copies, so that the 60 sets contained 76 duplicate pairs, and 126 individual papyri (Table 2). 17

This number is a rough estimate; the online database trismegistos.org contains 50,509 records for papyri from Egypt dating to between 332 BC and AD 639 as of the 25 October 2018. 18 B.E. NIELSEN, A Catalog of Duplicate Papyri, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 129 (2000), p. 187–214. Nielsen’s list ostensibly contains 337 entries, but is missing numbers 97, 211, 259, and 283. Of the remainder, three (269, 286, 321) are Latin, 12 are Demotic (107, 108, 132, 173, 238, 247, 248, 249, 250, 255, 256, 257), and one (75) is Aramaic. 19 The full name of this project is Knowledge Transfer and Administrative Professionalism in a Pre-Typographic Society: Observing the Scribe at Work in Roman and Early Islamic Egypt. 20 More fine-grained studies of differences between centuries and larger periods must remain a desideratum. In his study of literary papyri from Oxyrhynchus, for example, Johnson noted that column production seems to have differed between Ptolemaic and Roman scribes, so there may be further important differences in scribal practice between these two periods; W.A. JOHNSON, Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus, Toronto, 2004, p. 57. 21 A small number of duplicate sets with more than two copies (nos. 1, 13, 27 and 56 in the appendix) were deliberately selected as being particularly rich sources of information on abbreviation. The remaining duplicate sets were assigned continuous numbers, and were then selected using the RANDOM.ORG number generator (https://www.random.org).

THE USE OF ABBREVIATIONS IN DUPLICATE DOCUMENTS FROM ROMAN EGYPT

Century (AD)

Duplicate sets

Pair sets

1st

6

6

2nd

25

36

3rd

11

14

4th

15

17

5th

0

0

6th

3

3

Total

60

76

305

Table 2: Dataset used in analysis

Before discussing the results of the analysis of these papyri, a few words should be said about methodology. The basic method of comparing the abbreviational practice was to identify all abbreviated words in each papyrus, looking both for the presence of abbreviations, and the forms that those abbreviations took. If both papyri abbreviated a particular instance of a word, this was an agreement in presence; if both papyri abbreviated the same instance in the same way – with the same symbol, the same raised letter, a stroke of abbreviation at the same point, and so on – this was an agreement in presence and form. For each papyrus, the total number of agreements was divided by the number of comparison points – words abbreviated in at least one document – to arrive at a percentage describing the agreement in form and/or presence for each duplicate pair. This process was complicated by a few idiosyncrasies of papyrus manuscripts; since many of these survive in a damaged form, each papyrus might only contain part of the original document, and in each pair the amount of overlap in surviving text could be rather small. Thus, only comparison points which survived in both duplicates were considered. Secondly, variation between duplicates was more pronounced in a society that relied on manual copying than in our own age of digital reproduction, and thus some words might entirely drop out. While dropping a word could be seen as an extreme form of abbreviation, words which were not present in one document were not taken into account as comparison points, since other processes (revision, miscopying) might be better interpretations than abbreviation. Finally, in many documents there was intentional variation in particular segments of the text, especially where different copies were intended for different recipients; in these cases, the sections containing the name and title of the intended recipient were excluded from consideration when calculating agreement. The difficulty of reading damaged, often highly cursive, documents regularly requires the editor of the text to make educated guesses or inferences. In this analysis I examined digital images of all of the texts of the corpus, not only to

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ascertain the form of abbreviation, usually not noted in the papyrus edition, but also to ensure that the presence of an abbreviated or full form could be securely inferred. In most cases, I tried to be as conservative as possible, using only securely attested abbreviations and ignoring abbreviations restored in lacunae. Finally, while the use of numerals for numbers can certainly be considered as a form of abbreviation, they were generally not included in this analysis;22 this is because certain documents (particularly accounts) often contain a great number of numerals, which would increase the quantity of comparison points to an extent that would render the treatment of other abbreviated words almost invisible.

90 80

Number of poi nts

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Potential shared

Shared

Table 3: Number of shared abbreviation points for comparison

Table 3 shows the number of comparison points used for the analysis; it should be obvious that the number of potential comparison points (mean=14.26) was larger than the number of comparison points available after those attested in only one duplicate were excluded (mean=8.32), with an average of 32.5% of comparison points lost in lacunae; this represents a margin of error in all the subsequent results, although there is no reason to think these would significantly change the picture. 22 One notable exception is the word τέταρτος (‘quarter’), referring to a share of a house owned by a census declarant.

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Agreement between dupl i cate pai rs

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0% All pairs

Multiple hands

Single hand

Table 4: Overview of agreement rate in abbreviation presence

All pairs

Pairs with multiple hands

Pairs with a single hand

Average agreement in presence

62.3% (SD: 32.1%)23

46.96% (SD: 30.5%)

71.04% (SD: 32.02%)

Average full agreement

50.97% (SD: 33.27%)

36.48% (SD: 31.63%)

58.76% (SD: 34.45%)

Agreement in abbreviation form if present

72.86% (SD: 36.68%)

63.96% (SD: 38.95%)

74.67% (SD: 37.12%)

76

23

42

Pairs in sample

Table 5: Agreement rate SD indicates standard deviation, and measures the spread of the datapoints. ‘All pairs’ is greater than the sum of ‘pairs with multiple hands’ and ‘pairs with a single hand’ as there were some cases in which it was not possible to determine if the hands were identical or not, or in which more than one hand was responsible for one copy.

The available data, however, does present an interesting picture, presented in Tables 4 and 5. Immediately clear is the range of variation, with significant clusters of pairs having either no (0%) or full (100%) agreement, and another 23 Here, and elsewhere, calculations were generally performed using the built-in functions in Microsoft Excel 2013.

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cluster having 50% agreement. To an extent this is an artefact of the large number of pairs for which only one or two comparison points were available, but the spread of the remaining pairs suggests that the overall picture is valid. On average, there was a 62.3% agreement in the presence of abbreviation; where abbreviations were present, they were likely, though by no means always, abbreviated in the same form (72.86%). What this tells us is that abbreviations were not automatically replicated across copies, but neither was their presence completely random – if any word was equally likely to be abbreviated at any time in any copy, we would expect much lower agreement. So if randomness is excluded as a sufficient explanation, what factors were responsible for variation? Is this variation between geographical regions, between scribal traditions, between individuals, or on some other level? The most obvious next step is to break the dataset into two smaller samples, one containing all of the duplicate pairs written in a single scribal hand, and the other containing the duplicate pairs where the second copy is written in a different hand (Table 5). While both of these samples contain similar spreads, they reveal quite different patterns. Pairs with multiple hands were far less likely to maintain either the presence of abbreviations (49.96% vs 71.04%), and less often reproduced the same form of abbreviation where they did appear (63.96% vs 74.67%). Copyists reproducing texts written by other scribes did not necessarily ignore abbreviations, but they seem to have been quite willing to expand abbreviations in the original text, or add their own. Similarly, even when they retained the presence of an abbreviation, they might not reproduce the form of the abbreviation, implying that the manner of abbreviation chosen was, to an extent, an individual decision made by the scribe, rather than one strictly mandated by convention. Abbreviation presence agreement within pairs

70.6%

Abbreviations kept in second copy

81.9%

Abbreviations added in second copy

28.3%

Abbreviations lost in second copy

18.14%

Number of pairs

23

Table 6: Abbreviation treatment in pairs where order of writing known

While these results provide us with some preliminary principles, we can gain further insights by drawing out another smaller sample, this time of the 23 duplicate pairs where the order of copying is clear (Table 6).24 Only abbreviation 24 In most cases (21) the order of writing can be inferred from the fact that the copies are all written in adjacent columns on a single uncut sheet of papyrus, which was almost certainly written

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presence was considered in this case. On average, second copies retained 81.9% of the abbreviations from the original – the high number here is probably partially a consequence of the fact that most of the documents where the order is known are written in a single hand on a single sheet, and would have been written within a relatively short period of time. On average, the second copies drop 18.14% of abbreviations from the earlier documents, but add a number equivalent to 28.3%. Thus, while the analysis again reveals a complex process, it suggests that subsequent copies were generally more likely to introduce abbreviations than to remove them, supporting the idea that copyists tended to add abbreviations as time wore on and they became more familiar with texts, or wanted to write them more quickly. Rank

Word

Translation

Instances of abbreviations in sample

1

ἔτος

year

2

ἄρουρα

aroura (area of land)

33

3

δραχμή

drachma (unit of coinage)

20

4

αὐτός

same, self

18

5

βασιλικός

royal

16

=6

ζεῦγος

pair

13

=6

στρατηγός

strategos (official title)

13

=6

ἀπογεγραμμένος

registered

13

=9

μητρός

whose mother is…

12

=9

οὐλή

scar

12

=9

ἰδιωτική

private

12

112

Table 7: Most abbreviated words in corpus

The final piece of analysis from the corpus I will present here is one which could easily be extended beyond the corpus of duplicates, and this is a list of the words most often abbreviated in the sample. There are 1,044 word tokens abbreviated in the duplicate sets, which constitute 492 words, or 376 lemmata.25 The 11 most common are presented in Table 7. As we might expect, these are the words which might appear most often in documentary texts, the words for left to right, although in two cases the order is marked as such in-text. In cases where there were more than two copies, only adjacent pairs were considered for analysis, thus if there were three copies, copies 1 & 2 and copies 2 & 3 would be considered. 25 A ‘lemma’ here refers to a particular Greek word, while a ‘word’ (often ‘word type’ in corpus linguistics) is one of its declined or conjugated forms, and a ‘token’ is a single occurrence of a ‘word’ in a duplicate set.

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Frequency (per 1000 abbreviations)

units of time, land, and money, and words relating to titles. Three words are particular to the form and syntax of Greek documentary texts: ‘same/self’, used to refer metonymically to a noun already mentioned; ‘registered’, noting that documents or individuals had been officially registered; and ‘pair’. Two (‘[with a] scar’, ‘whose mother is…’) serve as ways to identify named individuals within documentary texts, while a further two designate legal categories of land (‘royal’ and ‘private’). We should note here that not all of these words are evenly distributed: 11 of the 13 instances of ζεῦγος, for example, occur within a single duplicate set,26 so a more fine-grained analysis distinguishing between words frequent across papyri would doubtless reveal slightly different results. Nonetheless, we can see an interesting pattern in the frequency of word abbreviation: 95 lemmata are abbreviated 3 or more times, 54 are abbreviated exactly twice, and the remaining 227 are only abbreviated once. This suggests that the likelihood of particular words to be abbreviated was heavily skewed towards certain words; a small group of words were frequently abbreviated, while a much larger number were abbreviated only occasionally. We will return to this in more detail below. 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0

10

20

30

40

50

Frequency (per 1000 words)

Table 8: Correlation between abbreviation rate and word frequency

For now, a tentative exploration of word treatment patterns can be found by comparing the frequency of abbreviation with the overall frequency for words.27 26

P.Mil.Vogl. III 150 & P.Mil.Vogl. III 151. The overall frequency was calculated using the program AntConc (AntConc 3.4.4w, developed by Laurence Anthony) using text from papyri.info, supplemented by my own readings of unpublished copies where necessary. 27

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This analysis, presented in Table 8, dealt with a much larger dataset, 5,144 word types, with 22,008 word tokens, so that sorting them into lemmata would have been a mammoth task in itself. For this reason, this analysis must be considered provisional, but the results are nonetheless interesting. A small but clear correlation (0.24, linear regression, p=1.22 × 10-70) can be observed between word frequency and abbreviation frequency – that is, the words which appear most often, are, as we might expect, generally those which are most often abbreviated. The distribution of datapoints in Table 8 suggests that there may be multiple groups of words, and that the correlation for some may be higher than this overall average; I explore this in more detail below. In all, the results from this large survey have been suggestive – abbreviations are often retained between copies, but this is inconsistent, and varies wildly between duplicate sets. We have seen that treatment of abbreviations is more consistent when copies are made by single scribes, and that abbreviations are more likely to be added in later copies. Finally, we have also seen suggestions that the words most likely to be abbreviated are those which are most common, both in an absolute sense, and in terms of what we might expect in particular document types. Nonetheless, the limitations of this survey should be clear – the raw numbers can show us variation, but they cannot fully explain it. To explore the reasons why scribes might abbreviate in particular instances, I will now turn to three smaller case studies. 2. Heron, son of Saturos, and the grapheion of Karanis The first study concerns a duplicate pair (P.Mich. IX 555 & 556) containing a contract for the division of parcels of land between two brothers, written in AD 107.28 The document is written by three separate scribes who write the same sections in each copy, the first, and longest, containing the main body of the contract; the second and third consisting of the subscriptions in which the parties agree to the contract, and the fourth recording the document’s registration; the body of the contract and the second subscription are written in the same hand.29 Since the two brothers were illiterate in Greek and could not write their own subscriptions, all four sections seem to have been written by professional 28 For a more holistic look at these papyri and the career of Heron see W.G. CLAYTOR, Heron, Son of Satyros: A Scribe in the Grapheion of Karanis, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 190 (2014), p. 199–202; for my readings I have drawn extensively upon improved transcriptions kindly provided by Claytor. 29 The original editor of the papyri, E.M. Husselman, identified four different hands, one for each section, P.Mich. IX, p. 84–88. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer who pointed out that the same hand is responsible for the contract and second subscription (here Hand 1). While the subscription is more compressed than the contract in both copies, the same range of letterforms and ligatures can be found in both sections.

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scribes who worked in the town grapheion, the office functioning simultaneously as administrative archive and scribal centre. Hand Hand 1

Section

Number of lines Number of abbreviations 30

5

Hand 2 (555) Subscription I

11

≥14

Hand 2 (556) Subscription I

12

≥24

1

2

Hand 3

Contract & Subscription II

Record of registration

Table 9: Abbreviations in P.Mich. IX 555 & 556

Numbers for Hands 1 and 3 represent maximum numbers, assuming that abbreviations in one copy are present in the other where not preserved.

This document offers us an interesting illustration of the variability which could be displayed by scribes working at the same time, on a single document type, and who presumably had received similar training. In Table 9 we can see the number of abbreviations used by each scribe. Hand 1 writes 30 lines in both documents, within which he apparently uses five abbreviations; Hand 2 uses between 14 and 24 in about 12 lines;30 Hand 3, writing the brief six-word registration, uses 2 abbreviations in one line.31 This is a great deal of variation; Hand 1 is quite sparing in its use of abbreviations, and while Hand 3, writing a brief and very formulaic registration note might be expected to use a large proportion of abbreviations, Hand 2 clearly uses far more than Hand 1. Hand

Surviving appearances of forms of ἄρουρα

Number of lines

Abbreviations

Abbreviation %

Hand 1 (P.Mich IX 555 & 556)

15/15

30

0/0

0%

Hand 2 (P.Mich IX 555 & 556)

4/7

11/12

4/7

100%

Table 10: Treatment of ἄρουρα in P.Mich. IX 555 & 556

This difference is even more pronounced when we look at a single word – aroura, a unit of area, which, unsurprisingly, appears frequently in a document 30 Slight difference in line length and extensive damage to these sections make it difficult to give more precise numbers. 31 The abbreviational practices in Hands 1 and 3, while not fully preserved, appear to be consistent between the two copies, and so the figure given is based on the assumption that abbreviations which survive in only one copy would have also been found in the other.

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concerning land (Table 10). It appears with a fairly high frequency in each of the initial three sections of the document, but while Hand 1 never abbreviates it, Hand 2 abbreviates it in every surviving instance. As we have seen, aroura is one of the most commonly abbreviated words in our sample, but its abbreviation was clearly not automatic, and must instead have depended upon the choice or habits of the particular scribe.32 Text

Type of text

P.Lond. II 143

Acknowledgement of payment

Date No. of Number of Abbreviations Abbreviations lines abbreviations per line per word 97

10

18

1.8

0.23

P.Mich. IX Sale of a Theban 550 mill

99

8

4

0.5

0.1

PSI VIII 879

99

6

≥2*

≥0.33*

0.13

P.Mich. IX Division of 558 leasehold

103111

3

≥3*

≥1 *

0.18

P.Mich. IX Lease contract 555

107

11

15 (+≤6)**

≥1.36

0.16

P.Mich. IX Lease contract 556

107

12

25 (+≤5)**

≥2.1

0.26

P.Mich. IX Contract of lease 563 of land

128129

3

4

1.33

0.27

P.Athen. 21 Contract for loan of silver and wheat

131

8

15

1.88

0.27

Sublease of land and receipt of rent

*Lacunae in these papyri make it uncertain if more words would have been abbreviated within these 22 lines. **This error margin takes into account words abbreviated in one of the two copies which are lost in lacunae in the other copy; they may have been abbreviated.

Table 11: Abbreviational habits of Heron, son of Saturos

Since the owner of Hand 2 identifies himself at the end of the subscriptions as Heron, son of Saturos, we can actually track his career in some detail; there are at least six other papyri (shown in Table 11) in which he appears as a scribe in a little over 30 years.33 Across all of these documents he displays a consistently high abbreviation rate, abbreviating between 10% and 27% of words, far more than his fellow scribe in P.Mich. IX 555 & 556. Heron was clearly a keen 32 In a literary context, a similar observation was made by McNamee, who examined the practice of four scribes who copied the Ἀθηναιῶν Πολιτεία, cf. MCNAMEE, Abbreviations, p. xiii– xiv. 33 Texts where Heron appears that are not included here, as they do not contain enough writing in his hand, include BGU XV 2478 and P.Warr. I 1.

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user of abbreviations, but his own practice still displayed a great deal of variation. More importantly, it seems that this practice was noticeably different from the other scribes of his grapheion, who were not only of his own time and place, but had presumably received similar training. 3. Environmental conditioning of abbreviations As we might expect, abbreviations often seem to be used as a response to the physical environment of the writing surface itself. While duplicate sets are usually, though not always, written in similar column sizes on papyrus sheets of similar size, minor differences in the column dimensions, and in the size of letters can become significant, so that words do not appear in the same position on the line in each duplicate; in general duplicates seem to share only about a quarter of their line breaks.34 The most obvious way in which abbreviation might be used as a reaction to a word’s environment is where the word begins close to the end of the right margin. Here, the scribe would have two options: either to write the entire word and exceed the margin set by previous lines, or to abbreviate the word to keep the margin intact. Clear instances of this latter choice occur in several sets from our sample; one occurrence is found in SPP XX 72, a document for the sale of a house from AD 271. In the second line of the first column, the word ἀπηλιώτου (‘eastern’) appears in a line medial position and is unabbreviated, but in the subsequent copies in the second and third columns the word appears at the end of the line and is abbreviated to fit in with the right margin established by the first line (απη in col.2, l.2);35 the reason for this change is probably tied to the size of the columns: the first is 33.5–34.5 cm wide, while the second and third are several centimetres narrower – 28.2–30.5 cm for column 2, and 27.5–28 for column 3.36 That certain words might only be abbreviated where their position in the column made this necessary is further suggested by another example. In P.Heid. IV 323 we have a receipt from AD 310 in which three copies are, again, written on successive columns. In the first two copies, the word διασημοτάτου (‘of the most eminent’) appears at the end of a line and is abbreviated to fit the right-hand margin (διασημ);37 by contrast, different line breaks in the third copy mean that the word still appears at the end of the line, but there is far more space, and so, 34 More precisely 25.87%; this figure is based on a survey of 38 duplicates sets carried out as part of the project Knowledge Transfer and Administrative Professionalism in a Pre-Typographic Society: Observing the Scribe at Work in Roman and Early Islamic Egypt mentioned above, to be published by Malcolm Choat. 35 The word does not survive in column 3, but from the available space it is clearly abbreviated. 36 I thank Malcolm Choat for providing me with these measurements from examination of the papyrus. 37 In col. 1 l. 2 and col. 2 l. 6.

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315

rather than abbreviating it and fitting the next word onto the same line, the word is written out in full, suggesting that the scribe preferred to leave the word unabbreviated where space allowed, that is, to expand the abbreviation where possible. In other cases, however, we may also observe an opposing tendency. In the same papyrus, the word ἐπιμελητῇ (an official title) appears three times in the text, and thus nine times across all three copies. The word appears to be abbreviated in all of these instances, but the form of the abbreviation varies. The preferred form seems to be επιμελ/, with the abbreviation marked by an oblique stroke; this appears in four of the seven surviving instances.38 But an alternative form of abbreviation, επιμ, with a high horizontal stroke of abbreviation ligatured to the final letter, appears in three instances, all in columns 2 and 3. The most plausible explanation is that this form was first introduced, in column 2 at the end of line 9, due to insufficient space remaining for the preferred writing; this shorter form was then copied in the corresponding part of column 3 (l. 9), where it occurs in the middle, instead of at the end, of the line. Its final appearance, in a medial position in l. 10 of column 3, was probably influenced by the fact that the scribe had previously written it with the same form, but in the last instance of the word (l. 11) the preferred form returned. These three tendencies – to introduce abbreviations to maintain the integrity of the right margin, to expand abbreviations if there is space, and to copy abbreviations introduced for particular reasons in earlier texts even when the original rationale did not apply – go some way towards explaining the complexity of the practices demonstrated in the previous surveys. They must be understood not as rules, but as a few of the range of strategies and idiosyncrasies that particular scribes might display, and they would have interacted with tendencies unrelated to the practice of abbreviation – the choice of letterform, manipulation of letter dimensions and spacing, and so on.39 4. Abbreviation in the census return of Hatres, son of Satabous The fourth and final case to be discussed here is of one of the most fascinating set of duplicates from Roman Egypt, a census return of which several copies have survived to the modern day, submitted by Hatres, son of Satabous, a resident of the city of Soknopaiou Nesos in the Fayum, in AD 161. This unique census return survives in six copies, addressed to four levels of the administration.40 The copies themselves are all written in a single hand, allowing us to observe the changing 38

These are in col. 1 l. 4; col. 1 l. 5; col. 2 l. 9; col. 3 l. 11. For a discussion of the manipulation of letter spacing, or ‘leading’, to alter the line length, see JOHNSON, Bookrolls and Scribes, p. 40–49. 40 These are BGU I 90, 224, 225; BGU II 410, 537 and P.Grenf. II 55. An edition of BGU II 410 was published in 1898, but the papyrus itself was lost during the Second World War. For this 39

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treatment of abbreviations under the subtly shifting conditions in each exemplar. Here we will focus on two questions – the ways in which scribes might categorise words as more or less suitable for abbreviation, and the considerations that might condition the abbreviation of each category of word. There are 17 words which are abbreviated in the census documents, which we can reduce to 12 categories by combining words that share a similar abbreviational logic: μαμμικόν (‘of the grandmother’) and παππικόν (‘of the grandfather’) are semantically and graphically similar, and treated the same way when abbreviated – the final two letters are omitted, and the final written letter is raised (μαμμικ, παππικ). Similarly, the words derived from the root γραφ- (‘to write’) share not only their lexical root, but also their method of abbreviation, being reduced to –γρ.41 Total attestations

Total abbreviated instances

Abbreviation rate

στρατηγῷ

2

2

100%

High

διεληλυθότος

6

6

100%

High

27

26

96.3%

High

6

5

83.33%

High

Σοκνοπαίου

11

5

45.45%

Low

μαμμικόν/παππικόν

22

8

36.36%

Low

Ἡρακλείδου

3

1

33.33%

Low

Ἀρσινοΐτου

5

1

20%

Low

ἄσημος

22

4

18.18%

Low

οἰκία

27

3

11.11%

Low

9

1

11.11%

Low

20

1

5%

Low

Word or word group

–γρ– Σεγάθιος

ἀπάτορα κώμη

Category

Table 12: Abbreviations in Hatres’ census return

If we look at the number of times each of the word categories is abbreviated, we can begin to see a pattern (Tables 12 and 13).42 Four words are abbreviated reason, it was not possible to study images of the manuscript, and it was excluded from the following analysis. 41 These words are γραμματεύς (‘scribe’), λαόγραφος and κωμογραμματεύς (two official titles), ἀπογράφω (‘to register’), προγράφω (‘to write first’). 42 Here I have assumed a model with two categories of words, but it would be possible to argue for an alternative model with a high (83–100% abbreviation rate), medium (33–46%), and low

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100%

Abbrevi ati on rate

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%

Table 13: Abbreviation rates of words in Hatres’ census returns

in 80–100% of the instances they appear. We will refer to these words as the ‘high-abbreviators’. What do these words have in common? The most straightforward answer would seem to be that they would occur regularly in census returns from Soknopaiou Nesos, in quite predictable positions. Στρατηγῷ and the titles of the other administrative officials containing variants of the title grammateus (‘scribe’), would appear at the top of all documents addressed to the relevant officials, while it was common to refer to the census as belonging to the ‘past (διεληλυθότος) year’, to refer to the registration process, and to describe the chief householder as the ‘aforementioned’ (literally, the ‘previously written about’). Σεγάθιος, a name, would seem to be something of an outlier, and its high abbreviation rate is perhaps best understood as an idiosyncrasy of the scribe who wrote the text; a survey of the word’s appearances in other papyri suggests a much lower overall abbreviation rate of 16.92%.43 While it is the (5–20%) abbreviation rate. In this model, the chi-square test found that the results for the medium abbreviating words were significant (p=0.0027), while those for the high were not (as in the twocategory model, p=0.4102). Those in the low finality group were intermediate (p=0.2098), but did not fall within the 0.01 significance test. The two-category model seems better suited to describe the situation in this duplicate set; a three-category model where very high- and very-low abbreviating words are random and only those in the middle are affected by position makes less intuitive sense, and may be an artefact both of the relatively small amount of available data, and of the fact that ‘finality’ is used here as an approximate stand-in for the situation of lacking space to write a word in full. 43 This calculation was made using a search for the string σεγαθ using papyri.info; as of 8/11/ 2018, there were 260 instances of the name Σεγάθιος in 67 papyri, of which 44 were abbreviated.

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only name that began with the letters σεγαθ- (the form of the abbreviation), and was fairly common in the Fayum, a fuller study of the practice of abbreviating names would be necessary to state whether these reasons might offer a partial explanation for the scribe’s choice. The remaining words, which we can refer to as ‘low-abbreviators’, are abbreviated in 5–46% of their appearances, and consist of further words that might be expected in a census return, but might be understood as less distinctive, or less consistent, than the previous group; they describe geographical areas,44 terms relating to habitation,45 and words descriptive of the inhabitants and their possessions.46 To these we may add a third category – the unabbreviated words, among them the names of the declarants. Again, we might assume that these words would vary the most between declarations, and so be the most important to write in full, but it is worth stressing that the reasons suggested here are less important than the fact that three categories appear in the way that the scribe who wrote these returns treated words.

Abbreviated

Initial/medial

Final

Sum

9

15

24

Unabbreviated

73

22

95

Sum

82

37

119

p-value: 0.0002 Table 14: Chi-square test for low-abbreviating words

Abbreviated Unabbreviated Sum

Initial/medial

Final

Sum

29

10

39

2

0

2

31

10

41

p-value: 0.4102 Table 15: Chi-square test for high abbreviating words

Tables 14 and 15 present the results of an analysis of the treatments of the two groups of word types, taking into account each instance, whether it is abbreviated or unabbreviated, and whether it appears at the end of the line or 44 Σοκνοπαίου (part of the name of the village Soknopaiou Nesos), Ἡρακλείδου (the area, or meris, to which the village belonged), Ἀρσινοΐτου (the larger region, or nome). 45 κώμη (‘village’), οἰκία (‘house’). 46 Μαμμικόν/παππικόν (property inherited from a grandmother/grandfather), ἄσημος (‘without distinguishing features’), ἀπάτορα (‘no legal father’).

THE USE OF ABBREVIATIONS IN DUPLICATE DOCUMENTS FROM ROMAN EGYPT

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not.47 The chi-square test then applied calculates the likelihood of the arrangement occurring by chance; the p-value for the high-abbreviators was 0.4102, a highly insignificant result,48 which suggests that the abbreviation rate of these words was not significantly affected by their line position: they are almost always abbreviated, regardless of their physical environment. By contrast, the low-abbreviators have a very low p-value of 0.0002, considerably below the 0.01 considered here as necessary for statistical significance. These words are abbreviated at the end of a line far more often than we would expect if their abbreviation were simply a matter of chance or whim; it seems that the scribe generally preferred to write them in full, abbreviating them only where the lack of space at the end of a line forced this decision.49

100%

Finality Rate

80% 60% 40% 20% 0% 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Abbreviation Rate

Table 16: Relationship between finality and abbreviation rates 47 Whether there is enough space for a word to fit in full at the end of a line is a subjective question; line-finality is therefore substituted as a more easily established approximation. 48 The significance threshold (α) was set at 0.01, meaning that the chance of a Type I error (a false positive) is 1 in 100. 49 A binomial probability distribution test of this two-category model showed similar results, using the formula:

Where P (x) is the probability of x or more abbreviations appearing in line final positions due to chance, and p is the probability of a word appearing in a line-final position in an abbreviated form, calculated using the formula:

The p-values for the two groups were 0.4884 (high-abbreviators) and 0.0077 (low-abbreviators), confirming the results of the chi-analysis. For the three-category model (discussed and rejected at n.42) the p-values were 0.4884 (high-abbreviators), 0.0533 (medium-abbreviators), 0.2214 (lowabbreviators).

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Correlation between finality rate and abbreviation rate

P-value

Low-abbreviating

0.49

0.2196

High-abbreviating

0.04

0.9623

Table 17: Relationship between finality and abbreviation rates

These results can be pushed a little further. If we plot the relationship between the finality rate50 and the abbreviation rate for the two groups (Table 16) we can see that the same relationship holds. Again, there is a clear correlation (0.49, linear regression, p=0.22; Table 17) between finality and abbreviation rate for the low-abbreviators, while the high-abbreviators show very little correlation (0.04, linear regression, p=0.96). Unfortunately, the p-value for the low abbreviators is an order of magnitude higher than the cut-off for statistical significance (p>0.01), so that we must speak here of a tendency rather than a definitively proven correlation. To a large extent, however, the p-value of a correlation is a function of the quantity of data available, and it is unlikely that we will have access to another set of documentary texts where so many words are abbreviated in such quantities by a single scribe, let alone one which will provide us with enough data to make a more rigorous test of their abbreviational habits. Conclusions If the results of these analyses have been to highlight the complexity of abbreviational practices among the scribes of Roman Egypt, a few general trends have emerged in scribal behaviour. In general, duplicates of the same document reproduce abbreviations slightly more often than they do not (62.3%), and where abbreviations are reproduced, they are generally, but not always, abbreviated in the same fashion (72.86%). Both of these tendencies are more pronounced for duplicates written by a single scribe, and less pronounced where one scribe is copying a document written by another. This tendency towards individualism can be very pronounced indeed, with Heron providing an example of a scribe whose abbreviational practice was significantly different from another scribe working in the same grapheion. But individual practice is not the whole story – despite his general consistency, even Heron displays variation over time and document type. Some of this variation may be explained by what we could consider as environmental or aesthetic factors – most obviously the desire to preserve the right-hand 50 Finality rate here is the proportion of instances a word type appears in a final position versus in all other positions, expressed as a percentage.

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321

margin, abbreviating words where necessary to meet this goal. As we have seen with the example of Hatres’ census return, this rule seems to hold best for that category of words we have termed ‘low-abbreviators’, since the ‘high-abbreviators’ – which were probably different words depending on the scribe and the document type – may have been abbreviated more consistently. Once abbreviations had been introduced in one copy, they might be retained in later copies, even when they were words which were normally unabbreviated, or which were abbreviated according to a less preferred pattern. This tendency may go some way towards explaining another effect which took place over the copying process, the slight tendency of scribes to add more abbreviations to later copies – ‘low-abbreviators’ which had been carried over from earlier copies would be kept, while other instances of words of this category might be freshly abbreviated in their new positions. None of these tendencies fully explains the behaviour of every scribe; not only was abbreviation only one of the many techniques scribes might employ in a text, but the copyists themselves were not writing machines, but individuals with their own training, tendencies and predilections, and any performance of writing would be affected by such unmeasurable factors as the quality and shape of their writing tools and papyrus, their state of health and mind, the amount of time they had to copy a text, and so on. Nonetheless, the general tendencies we have observed do seem real, and future work may explore and refine them against the larger corpus of duplicate documentary texts, and seek to measure change over time and place. Appendix: Duplicate sets used in analysis Set

Copy 1

Copy 2

1

BGU I 90

BGU I 90

2

BGU I 163

P.Mich. inv. 6060

3

BGU I 192

P.Lond. II 328.23– 29 p. 75

4

BGU I 321r

P.Berlin inv. 7081

5

BGU I 322

SB I 6

6

BGU I 326

P.Berlin inv. 7047

7

BGU 2.465 col. 1

BGU 2.465 col. 2

8

BGU 2.638 col. 1

BGU 2.638 col. 2

9

BGU VII 1572

P.Phil. 10

10

BGU XIII 2217 col. 2

SB X 10281

Copy 3 BGU I 224

Copy 4

Copy 5

Copy 6

BGU I 225 BGU II 410 P.Grenf. II 55

322 Set

Copy 1

K. DOSOO

Copy 2

11

BGU XV 2467

12

CPR VIII 27 col. 1 CPR VIII 27 col. 2

13

CPR XV 8

CPR XV 9

14

CPR XVIIA 5a

CPR XVIIA 5b

15

CPR XVIIA 12

CPR XVIIA 13

16

CPR XVIIA 17a

CPR XVIIA 17b

17

P.Berl.Leihg. I 16c SB XVIII 13289

18

P.Bodl. I 29

P.Bodl. I 30

19

P.Bodl. I 86

BGU VII 1573

20

P.Cair.Masp. II 67153

P.Cair.Masp. II 67253

21

P.Cair.Masp. II 67170

P.Cair.Masp. II 67171

22

P.Cair.Masp. III 67324 col. 1

P.Cair.Masp. III 67324 col. 2

23

P.Cair.Preis. 16

P.Cair.Preis. 17

24

P.Col. X 287 col. 1 P.Col. X 287 col. 2

25

SB 24 15936 col. 1 SB 24 15936 col. 2

26

P.Grenf. II 68

P.Grenf. II 70

27

P.Heid. IV 323a

P.Heid. IV 323b

28

P.Heid.V 344

P.Col. X 284

29

P.Herm 52

P.Herm 53

30

P.Mich. IX 555

P.Mich. IX 556

31

P.Mich. IX 568

P.Mich. IX 569

32

P.Mich. XII 626

P.Col. VII 124

33

P.Mich. XVIII 785a

P.Mich. XVIII 785b

34

P.Mil. 2.52 col. 1

P.Mil. 2.52 col. 2

35

P.Mil.Vogl. III 130/1

P.Mil.Vogl. III 131

36

P.Mil.Vogl. III 132/3

P.Mil.Vogl. III 133

Copy 3

BGU II 432ii

CPR XV 10

P.Heid. IV 323c

Copy 4

Copy 5

Copy 6

THE USE OF ABBREVIATIONS IN DUPLICATE DOCUMENTS FROM ROMAN EGYPT

Set

Copy 1

Copy 2

37

P.Mil.Vogl. III 150/51

P.Mil.Vogl. III 151

38

P.Mil.Vogl. III 180/81

P.Mil.Vogl. III 181

39

P.Mil.Vogl. III 195 P.Mil.Vogl. II 63

40

P.Mil.Vogl. VI 284 P.Mil.Vogl. VI 285

41

P.Oslo III 91

PSI III 160

42

P.Oxy. XXXVIII 2855 col. 1

P.Oxy. XXXVIII 2855 col. 2

43

P.Oxy. XLIII 3099 P.Oxy. XLIII 3099 (ii) (i)

44

P.Oxy. XLIV 3183 P.Oxy. XLIV 3183 col. 1 col. 2

45

P.Oxy. XLIV 3192 P.Oxy. LXV 4491

46

P.Oxy. XLV 3251 col. 1

P.Oxy. XLV 3251 col. 2

47

P.Oxy. LVII 3908

P.Oxy. LVII 3909

48

P.Oxy. LXI 4124 col. 1

P.Oxy. LXI 4124 col. 2

49

P.Petaus 12a

P.Petaus 12b

50

P.Prag. I 15

P.Prag. I 16

51

P.Select 7 col. 1

P.Select 7 col. 2

52

P.Ups.Frid. 5 col. 1

P.Ups.Frid. 5 col. 2

53

P.Wisc. I 34

P.Wisc. I 35

54

PSI VIII 905

P.Mich. V 252

55

SB XII 10955 col. 1

SB XII 10955 col. 2

56

SPP XX 72 col. 1 SPP XX 72 col. 2

57

P.Oxy. XII 1452 col. 1

P.Oxy. XII 1452 col. 2

58

SB XIV 11586

SB XIV 11587

59

SB VI 9627a

SB VI 9627b

60

P.Cair.Preis. 13

P.Cair.Preis. 14

Copy 3

SPP XX 72 col. 3

Copy 4

Copy 5

323 Copy 6

324

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Bibliography H.I. BELL, Abbreviations in Documentary Papyri, in G.E. MYLONAS (ed.), Studies presented to David Moore Robinson on his seventieth birthday, vol. 2, St. Louis, 1953, p. 424–433. A. BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations dans les papyrus documentaires grecs, Diss. Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines de Paris, Sorbonne, 1969. A. BLANCHARD, Sigles et abréviations dans les papyrus documentaires grecs: recherches de paléographie, London, 1974. S.D. CHARLESWORTH, Consensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third-Century Gospel Manuscripts, in Aegyptus 86 (2006), p. 37–68. W.G. CLAYTOR, Heron, Son of Satyros: A Scribe in the Grapheion of Karanis, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 190 (2014), p. 199–202. F.W.G. FOAT, Sematography of the Greek Papyri, in The Journal of Hellenic Studies 22 (1902), p. 135–173. N. GIOVÈ MARCHIOLI, P. ELEUTERI, and G. MENCI, Abbreviations, in H. CANCIK and H. SCHNEIDER (eds), Brill’s New Pauly, Brill Online 2006, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/ 1574-9347_bnp_e100750. N. GONIS, Abbreviations and Symbols, in R.S. BAGNALL (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, Oxford, 2009, p. 170–178. L.W. HURTADO, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins, Grand Rapids – Cambridge, 2006. W.A. JOHNSON, Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus, Toronto, 2004. F.G. KENYON and H.I. BELL, Greek Papyri in the British Museum, vol. 3, London, 1907 (= P.Lond. III). F. LOGOZZO, Scritture Brevi in alfabeto greco: qualche considerazione linguistica, in F. LOGOZZO and P. POCETTI (eds), Ancient Greek Linguistics: New Perspectives, Insights, and Approaches, Berlin – Boston, 2017, p. 57–76. A. MILLARD, Ancient Abbreviations and the Nomina Sacra, in C. EYRE, A. LEAHY and L. MONTAGNO LEAHY (eds), The Unbroken Reed: Studies in the Culture and Heritage of Ancient Egypt in Honour of A.F. Shore, London, 1994, p. 205–226. K. MCNAMEE, Abbreviations in Greek Literary Papyri and Ostraca, Ann Arbor, 1981. A. MUGRIDGE, Copying Early Christian Texts: A Study of Scribal Practice, Tübingen, 2016. B.E. NIELSEN, A Catalog of Duplicate Papyri, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 129 (2000), p. 187–214. A.N. OIKONOMIDES, Abbreviations in Greek Inscriptions: Papyri, Manuscripts and Early Printed Books, Chicago, 1974. J.K. PAPADOPOULOS, The Early History of the Greek Alphabet: New Evidence from Eretria and Methone, in Antiquity 90.353 (2016), p. 1238–1254. E. PETRA, Remarks to Symbols and Abbreviations in Non-Literary Greek papyri of the Early Arabic Period (640–800 A.D.), in Επιστημονική Επετηρίς της Φιλοσοφικής Σχολής του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών 43 (2011–2012), p. 397–425. H.B. VAN HOESEN, Abbreviations in Latin Papyri, in Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 44 (1913), p. 39–42. U. WILCKEN, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde. Erster Band: Historischer Teil. Erste Hälfte: Grundzüge, Hildesheim, 1963.

SCRIBAL PROCESS AND COGNITIVE PHILOLOGY IN DIDYMUS THE BLIND’S LECTURES ON PSALMS (TURA CODEX V)* Gregg SCHWENDNER Introduction The Tura Codices, discovered in Quarry 35 at Tura, south of modern Cairo, in 1942, were a singular find in many respects, not least because of the state of preservation of many of its 2000+ pages.1 All known quires (21 of 22) of Tura Codex V, Didymus the Blind’s lectures on Psalms 20–41, have been published.2 Since the publication history is somewhat complex, I append this list: Publication as given in the Checklist3

Designation in the ed. pr.

Contents

Codex and quire number [lost pages or quires in square brackets]

Pap.Texte Abh. VII

PsT Teil I

Ps. 20–21 LXX (Ps. 21–22 )

Tura Codex V, quires 1–4, p. 1–56

Pap.Texte Abh. IV

PsT Teil II

Ps. 22–26.10 LXX (Ps. 23–27.10 )

Tura Codex V, quires 5–7, p. 57–112

P.BYU I

PsT addendum 1 Ps. 26.10–29.2 LXX Tura Codex V, quire 8, (Ps. 27–30.2 ) p. 113–128

Pap.Texte Abh. VIII

PsT Teil III

Ps. 29–34 LXX (Ps. 30–35 )

Tura Codex V, quires 9–10, [11] quires 12–15, p. 129.1–160, [161–176], 177–230.22

* Thanks to Lincoln Blumell for sponsoring the panel where this paper was delivered at the San Diego SBL in 2014, to the editors of this volume for encouraging me to publish it and for their patience; also to Brent Nongbri for our shared interest in palaeography, and to Georgia Andersen, who helped me clarify several obscure points, and to Ariel Loftus because, you know. I owe a debt, finally, to Ludwig Koenen who introduced me to Didymus’ writing long ago. 1 On the discovery, see O. GUÉRAUD, Notes préliminaires sur les papyrus d’Origène découverts à Toura, in Revue de l’histoire des religions 131 (1946), p. 85–108, at p. 85. Usually described as a cave, Guéraud’s term ‘carriere no 35’ (quarry) is more accurate, cf. the description in N. CHARLTON, The Tura Caves, in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 64 (1978), p. 128: “In spite of the name, Tura Caves were not a natural phenomenon, but a huge beautifully wrought quarry, or stone mine, whence had come the limestone blocks for the pyramids.” 2 P.BYU I: L. BLUMELL, T.J. MACKAY and G.W. SCHWENDNER with M. TROTTER (eds), Didymus the Blind, Didymus the Blind’s Commentary on Psalms 26:10-29:2 and 36:1-3, (Tura), Turnhout, 2019. The editorial designation of this commentary in the ed. pr. was PsT for Psalmenkommentar (von) Tura (TM 59674). See L. KOENEN and L. DOUTRELEAU, Nouvel inventaire des papyrus de Toura, in Recherches de science religieuse 55 (1967), p. 557–559. 3 See http://www.papyri.info/docs/checklist.

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G. SCHWENDNER

Designation in the ed. pr.

Contents

Codex and quire number [lost pages or quires in square brackets]

Pap.Texte Abh. VI

PsT Teil IV

Ps. 35 LXX (Ps. 36 )

Tura Codex V, quire 15 p. 230.23–240

P.BYU I

PsT Addendum 2 Ps. 36 LXX (Ps. 37 )

Tura Codex V, quire 16 p. 241–242

Pap.Texte Abh. VI

PsT Teil IV

Ps. 36–39 LXX (Ps. 37–40 )

Tura Codex V, quires 16–18, p. [243–234], 245–252, [253–254], 255–290.7

Pap.Texte Abh. XII

Teil V

Ps. 40–44.4 (Ps. 41–45.4 )

Tura Codex V, quires 19–22, p. 290.13–250.36

It is necessary to distinguish between works published by Didymus during his lifetime (ca. 313–398 CE) and those that were, for whatever reason, unpublished (anecdota). A published commentary on all the Psalms is known from the catenae, In Psalmos (ⲉⲓⲥ ⲯⲁⲗⲙⲟⲥ) but is very different from PsT, both in scope and content; Tura Codex V might be better described as Anecdota or Scholia (lecture notes) in Psalmos.4 Correspondingly, the ‘commentary’ on Ecclesiastes (Tura Codex III) would be Anecdota or Scholia in Ecclesiasten (here, EcclT). Although the text of PsT is almost fully known, against all odds, many questions remain about its transmission, and the scribal process of ancient texts in general. Here, I want to focus on how we imagine a scribe read and copied texts. This in turn will depend on how we think about the reading process and handwriting production. Here we can take advantage of advances in the areas of cognitive science. Current psycholinguistic models of the reading process and the study of graphomotor skills and working memory can help put our understanding of how a scribe read and copied a text on a firmer footing than before. 1. Cognitive philology: is scriptio continua readable? Scribal process and habits must be tied to how an exemplar written in scriptio continua was read. Reading a line of script without word breaks is sometimes considered a daunting task by scholars.5 But, to judge from comparative evidence, 4 For this other work, covering all the Psalms, which was published, but is known to us only through quotations in catenae, see E. MÜHLENBERG, Psalmenkommentare aus den Katenüberlieferung (Patristiche Texte und Studien 15–17), Berlin, 1975–1977. 5 For example, R. CRIBIORE, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, Princeton – Oxford, 2005, p. 189, “Reading at first sight was practically impossible: a text needed to be scrutinised beforehand to identify the relationship between elements of a sentence and to understand their function of conveying meaning”; G. NAGY, Performance and Text in Ancient Greece, in G. BOYS-STONE, B. GRAZIOSI and P. VASUNIA (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic

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we are prone to exaggerate the obstacles this poses for a reader. Thai, for example, is written in scriptio continua, and studies have found no difference in the eye movements (saccades, fixations, regressions) among Thai readers from those used in alphabetic languages with word division,6 although reading speeds have been increased experimentally by introducing spaces between words.7 Reading at sight has sometimes been understood as a kind of prodigy, although one of Trimalchio’s slave boys could do it.8 What has made the idea that scriptio continua posed a ‘cognitive barrier’ appealing until recently is our perception of a ‘continuous visual experience’ when reading.9 That is, “despite continual fluctuations of the retinal image we perceive a stable world in which objects have continuity.”10 The fluctuating Studies, Oxford – New York, 2009, p. 417–431, at p. 421: “Why were words run together in scriptio continua if they impeded the cognitive flow of reading?” (for ‘phonological realism’ he concludes, although I don’t understand what this may mean); J. SVENBRO, Archaic and Classical Greece, in G. CAVALLO and R. CHARTIER (eds), A History of Reading in the West, tr. L. COCHRANE, Amherst – Boston, 1999, p. 37–63, at p. 43: “By pronouncing the letters, the reader recognises whether or not they form an intelligible sequence”; B.M. METZGER, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: An Introduction to Palaeography, Oxford – New York, 1981, p. 31: “This kind of writing … is easiest to read when one is reading aloud, syllable by syllable.” 6 H. WINSKEL, R. RADACH, S. LUKSWANEEYANAWIN and D. BURN, Eye Movements When Reading Spaced and Unspaced Thai and English: A Comparison of Thai-English Bilinguals and English Monolinguals, in Journal of Memory and Language 61 (2009), p. 339–351, and B. KASISOPA, R.G. REILLY, S. LUKSANEEYANAWIN and D. BURNHAM, Child Readers’ Eye Movements in Reading Thai, in Vision Research 123 (2016), p. 8–19. The evidence is applied to Greek by L. BATTEZZATO, Techniques of Reading and Textual Layout in Ancient Greek Texts, in The Cambridge Classical Journal: Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 55 (2009), p. 1–23, at p. 4–5, and A. VATRI, The Physiology of Ancient Greek Reading, in Classical Quarterly 62 (2012), p. 633– 647, at p. 639. For a medieval perspective, see D. DONOGHUE, How the Anglo-Saxons Read Their Poems, Philadelphia, 2018, p. 32–25. But not everyone agrees that the comparison with written Thai is useful, of course, cf. “Our impression is that studies such as these are still in a pioneering stage … it seems unwise for the time being to take their conclusions as scientific fact,” in M. WORTHINGTON, Principles of Akkadian Textual Criticism, New York – Berlin, 2013, p. 262; J. MCDANIEL, Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words Histories of Buddhist Monastic Education in Laos and Thailand, Seattle, 2008, p. 145–146. 7 C. KOHSOM and F. GOBET, Adding Spaces to Thai and English: Effects on Reading, in M.G. SHAFTO and P. LANGLEY (eds), Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Stanford University August 7–10, 1997, Marwah N.J. – London, 1997, p. 388– 393. 8 librum ab oculo legit (‘he reads a book at sight’), Petronius, Satyr. 75.4.3. References to the uncanny ability to read at sight presumably show that this method of reading was the exception that proves the rule. Cf. A. CAMERON, Last of the Pagans, Oxford – New York, 2011, p. 486; D. NÄSSELQVIST, Public Reading in Early Christianity, Leiden, 2016, p. 26–27. 9 “Prior to the widespread recognition of the saccade-and-fixate oculomotor strategy, it was widely believed that eye movements were continuous, with the eye making uninterrupted sweep across the scene,” N.J. WADE and B.W. TATLER, Origins and Applications of Eye Movement Research, in S. LIVERSEDGE, I. GILCHRIST and S. EVERLING (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Eye Movements, Oxford, 2011, p. 17–44, at p. 27. 10 R. HEYDT and P. O’HERRRON, Representation of Object Continuity in the Visual Cortex, in Journal of Vision 11(2):12 (2011), p. 1–9, at p. 1; http://www.journalofvision.org/content/11/2/12, doi:10.1167/11.2.12.

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retinal images, in the case of reading, are the series of fixations in which the eyes focus on a small portion of the text, with saccades (jumps) of 7–9 letters ± to a new fixation point. Sometimes words are skipped altogether, are not fixated at all; sometimes there is a regressive saccade, clarifying something unclear or misunderstood on the first pass. The focus of the eye (the foveal view), is fixed at 1º = about 8 letters.11 In addition, the eye can preview primarily to the right of fixation (called the ‘parafoveal preview’), offering the reader an increasingly fuzzy view of what follows the fixation. To a limited degree,12 this preview helps the reader anticipate what comes next and direct the landing place for the next saccade. So the reader only has to make sense of one short group of letters at a time, not an entire line. The reader begins at the beginning of the line; a new line will always begin at a rational place with a new word, or be a continuation of a word from the previous line.13 In the hypothetical fixations below I assume a skilled Greek reader would be able to clearly focus on about 8 letters clearly, and a parafoveal preview (capable of identifying letters) as many as 9 letters to the right of fixation.14 Saccade length varies between languages: in English, 7–9 letters is typical, 5.5 letters in modern Hebrew (because it is considered ‘denser’, since vowels must be inferred). The comparative evidence of Thai suggests a pattern not very different from space separated languages, but in Ancient Greek, we can only guess. Fixations, and overall reading time, were probably longer than we are used to. Word identification, even in space-separated text, is often not possible in a single fixation, as with compound words hyphenated at line-end. I assume, with Vatri, that word boundaries could be determined by ‘orthographically illegal’ letter combinations.15 D. DRIEGHE, Parafoveal on Foveal Effects on Eye Movements during Reading, in S. LIVERSI. GILCHRIST and S. EVERLING (eds), Oxford Handbook of Eye Movements, Oxford, 2011, p. 839–841. 12 It seems clear some information can be gleaned in this preview, phonological information certainly, morphological less certainly, and semantic information least certain of all. This appears to be variable depending on the language. 13 Cf. “The fact that words at line end were divided according to strict syllabic rules meant that every line of the narrow column began at a rational point, either at word beginning or at the start of a syllable (often, in ancient Greek, a morphemic boundary). The width of a column was such that the whole line could be taken in by the parafoveal vision, and approximated the amount of text typically read by the eye ahead of the voice. The result was that the line beginnings themselves provided natural points for the ocular fixation, and the decoding the letters could proceed regularly on a line-by-line basis. Contrary to Saenger’s contention, it would seem that there were in fact good points of reference to keep the reader oriented; and the number of letters to decode in each line was small enough that we can begin to think more understandable the evident ancient indifference to the matter of spaces between words,” W.A. JOHNSON, Toward a Sociology of Reading in Classical Antiquity, in The American Journal of Philology 121 (2000), p. 593–627, at p. 611. 14 J. HYÖNÄ, Foveal and Parafoveal Processing During Reading, in S. LIVERSEDGE, I. GILCHRIST and S. EVERLING (eds), Oxford Handbook of Eye Movements, Oxford, 2011, p. 819–838, at p. 830. 15 VATRI, Physiology of Ancient Reading. 11

EDGE,

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Fig. 1. fixtions and saccades

Fig. 2. fixation 1

1. The first fixation serves to orient the reader, since each line will either begin with a new word, or the continuation of the last word from the previous line. We can only guess how Greek readers identified words in scriptio continua, of course, but here, the fact that αυτοι is a high frequency word must play a role.

Fig. 3. fixation 2

2. After the first saccade, the second fixation covers the first half of the compound κληρονομ-ησουσιν which, at 15 letters, is too long to be identified in a single fixation.

Fig. 4. fixation 3

3. κληρονομ-ησουσιν What the reader views in fixation 2 would survive in memory as abstract information (not the image itself) and could be used to process the visual information from this fixation (3), a process called transsaccadic memory.16 Vatri’s frequency study of which letter combinations 16 “There is good evidence that visual information coded in an abstract form survives from fixation to fixation and is functional in subsequent visual processing,” J.M. HENDERSON, Eye

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most often form word boundary shows -ιν (ιν at word end) comes at word end 67.5% of the time. The verbal morpheme -ουσιν always is followed by a word boundary.

Fig. 5. fixation 4

4. την γην both are high frequency words. The bigram -ην occurs at wordend 75.8%, according to Vatri. The morphological awareness of the reader, that an accusative feminine morpheme will likely follow την, should also be considered.

Fig. 6. fixation 5

5. εστιν and δε both high frequency words.

Fig. 7. fixation 6

6. Hiatus: δεαυτη h η

Fig. 8. fixation 7

Movements and Scene Memory, in S.J. LUCK and A. HOLLINGWORTH (eds), Visual Memory, Oxford, 2008, p. 87–122, at p. 97.

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7. Blank space at hiatus ηγη αλλη

Fig. 9. fixation 8

8. την a high frequency word

Fig. 10. fixation 9

9. Line end = word end. In addition, the orthographic indicators demonstrated by Vatri, orthographic hiatus between words (δεhαυτηhηγηhαλλη) would be prima facie a good indicator of a word boundary. Of course, ‘hiatus within a word is not uncommon’17 but even within a word, it often indicates an approaching word boundary, e.g. ἀληθείαϲ, εὐθεία εὐϲεβεία, ἀδικία, Αἰγυπτία, ἐπιθυμία, ϲπουδαίου, ϲκιάν, διά, θεόϲ, κύριοϲ. The morphological awareness of readers would also help them predict word division: τηνγην, αυτηhηγηhαλλη, παρατηνορωμενην, τωhουρανω. Regardless of other factors, having seen the first morpheme in a sequence, the reader’s expectation will be primed for others. Thai readers show a similar pattern of fixations to those reading a script that divides words by space. The preferred viewing location (PVL)18 – the ‘landing place’ for each saccade within a word – in Thai is near the word centre, similar to English.19 The Greek pattern might be comparable, but we lack the means to test such a hypothesis. 17 A.M. DEVINE and L.D. STEPHENS, The Prosody of Greek Speech, Oxford – New York, 1995, p. 253. 18 R. REILLY, South Asian Writing Systems, in H. WINSKEL and P. PADAKANNAYA (eds), South and Southeast Asian Psycholinguistics, Cambridge, 2014, p. 272–284, at p. 275 19 This is contrary to Wolfgang Raible’s intuition that “Die typischen Saccaden der Augen sind beim Lesen von Scriptio continua dementsprechend wesentlich kleiner, unruhiger, rascher als bei Texten in Scriptio discontinua.” (“The typical saccade when reading scriptio continua are accordingly substantially smaller, more unstable, and quicker than in space separated texts.”) W. RAIBLE, Zur Entwicklung von Alphabetschrift-Systemen: is fecit cui prodest (Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 1991.1), Heidelberg, 1991, p. 8.

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6. The dual route model for reading Paul Saenger’s application of cognitive science to ancient and medieval reading in Spaces Between Words offered most of us a first glimpse into the science of reading.20 Although he presents no model of how Greek and Latin texts were read as such,21 he seems to advocate a single-route, sublexical model of the reading process whereby the reader of scriptio continua has only very restricted access to a lexical process,22 or none at all, until the visual image has been transformed into oral speech. Such a model is at odds with much contemporary research, as Vatri has shown.23 One prevalent theory of the neuro-cognitive process of reading is the Dual Route Cascaded model.24 This model assumes there are two ‘routes’ by which words are read. The first is the lexical (or ‘direct’) route that operates in parallel (all letters decoded at once), and the other, is called the ‘sublexical route’, a phonological process that operates serially (letter by letter). This is necessary to explain research that shows known, high-frequency words are processed faster than low-frequency or unknown words. There are at least three contending models, of which the one I have adapted below is only the most commonly referenced. 6a. Direct (or lexical) route A familiar word is recognised by a parallel process (holistically), sometimes described as the direct ‘mapping of orthography onto semantics.’25 This is associated with the ‘ventral pathway’26 in neuro-anatomical terms. The details P. SAENGER, Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading, Stanford Calif., 1997. ‘Lexical access’ is the term used by Saenger, which seems to refer what is usually called ‘Semantic information’; lexical processing per se usually refers to the recognition of a word, and the information about the orthography for copying purposes (or oral spelling). 22 “In Western scripts, spatial organization is a determinative element in the effect of different transcription systems on the cognitive process required for lexical access,” SAENGER, Spaces Between Words, p. 39. 23 M. COLTHEART, Modeling Reading: The Dual-Route Approach, in M.J. SNOWLING and C. HULME (eds), The Science of Learning to Read: A Handbook, Oxford – Malden Mass., 2005, p. 6–23, at p. 21, summarises: “So, while it is of course logically possible that a system humans use for reading aloud has a single-route architecture, there are no theoretical proposals embodying such an architecture that can escape refutation from available data from studies of normal and impaired readers. All models are dual-route models. Current and future theorizing is and will be about the details of what these two routes actually look like.” 24 M. COLTHEART et al., DRC: A Dual Route Cascaded Model of Visual Word Recognition and Reading Aloud, in Psychological Review 108 (2001), p. 204–256. 25 J. GRAINGER and J.C. ZIEGLER, A Dual-Route Approach to Orthographic Processing, in Frontiers in Psychology 2 (2011), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00054, Figure 3. 26 R. BOROWSKY, et al., FMRI of Ventral and Dorsal Processing Streams in Basic Reading Processes: Insular Sensitivity to Phonology, in Brain Topography 18 (2006), p. 233–239, at p. 233: “Most current models of the neurophysiology of basic reading processes agree on a system involving two 20

21

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of the process are not especially relevant here, but are as follows: 1) Letter analysis (scribe reads the word); 2) it is recognised by Orthographic Input Lexicon;27 3) then it is referred to semantic memory, and then, 4) to the scribe’s Orthographic Output Lexicon,28 and then on to the Graphemic buffer (see § 6.c below). 6b. Phonological (or sublexical) route An unfamiliar word is recognised by a serial process – one letter at a time, through phonological recoding, using rules governing letter-sound correspondence: θεραπεια → / tʰε.ra.ˈpi.a/. This in turn is associated with the dorsal neuro-anatomical pathway, which maps orthography onto phonology.29 The process is as follows: 1) Letter analysis (scribe reads the word); 2) graphemes are re-coded into phonemes → /tʰε.ra.ˈpi.a/;30 3) For copying, phonemes would be converted to graphemes /tʰε.ra.ˈpi.a/ → or < θεραπεια>. 6c. Graphemic buffer31 For a copying task, both routes, lexical and sub-lexical, arrive at the graphemic buffer, ‘final output stage of the spelling process.’32 Phonological information is cortical streams: a ventral Stream (occipital – temporal) used when accessing familiar words encoded in lexical memory, and a dorsal Stream (occipital – parietal – frontal) used when phonetically decoding words (i.e., mapping sublexical spelling onto sounds). This account fits with the evidence that brain structures located on the dorsal pathway, such as the supramarginal gyrus and the angular gyrus, are thought to be involved in the mapping of orthography to phonology, whereas orthographic processing would be performed by brain structures in ventral occipital–temporal (VOT) regions.” 27 The Orthographic Input Lexicon, sometimes referred to as the Visual Input Lexicon, matches the spelling of the word as read with the graphemic sequence stored in memory: A.E. HILLIS and A. CARAMAZZA, The Reading Process and its Disorders, in D.I. MARGOLIN (ed.), Cognitive Neuropsychology in Clinical Practice, Oxford – New York, 1992, p. 229–261, at p. 232. 28 Cf. B. RAPP, Uncovering the Cognitive Architecture of Spelling, in A.E. HILLIS (ed.), The Handbook of Adult Language Disorders, London – New York, 2002, p. 59–86, at p. 49, 50: “According to this architecture, it is not necessary to go from a word’s meaning to its phonology to retrieve its spelling; instead, orthography can be retrieved independently of phonology” (p. 49). The spelling of a word at this point is considered to be in an ‘abstract format-independent manner’ i.e. “our memories of the letter combinations that make up word spellings do not consist of letter shapes or letter names; rather they consist of abstract letter representations, or graphemes” (p. 50). 29 See above, n. 26. 30 I indicate a stress accent, /tʰε.ra.ˈpi.a/ rather than a pitch accent /tʰε.ra.pí.a/, cf. DEVINE and STEPHENS, The Prosody, p. 215; F. GIGNAC, A Grammar of the Greek Papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, vol. 1. Phonology, Milan, 1975, p. 25–27. 31 “The graphemic buffer is a working memory component of the spelling system that temporarily holds the sequence of graphemes (abstract letters) during production of letter shapes for written spelling or letter names for oral spelling,” L. CLOUTMAN et al., A Neural Network Critical for Spelling, in Annals of Neurology 66 (2009), p. 249–253, at p. 249. 32 L. CIPOLOTTI, Towards a Unified Process Model for Graphemic Buffer Disorder and Deep Dysgraphia, in Cognitive Neuropsychology 23 (2006), p. 479–512, at p. 480.

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available at this point, if not before, in the form of e.g. inner speech.33 The process is as follows: 1) Words ↔ /tʰε.ra.ˈpi.a/ are broken down into 2) syllables , 3) then individual letters and 4) letter co-occurrences (non-open bigrams): . The fact that phonological information is available in the graphemic buffer before any motor programs are assigned, i.e. before oral reading can take place, should make clear that phonetic spellings (phoneme /i/→ grapheme or ) could have been introduced by a copyist per se in the ‘spelling module’ (/tʰε.ra.ˈpi.a/→ ) without the intervention of a lector. This of course does not disprove the ‘dictation theory’, but it does put the evidence for it beyond our grasp.34 This model supports the idea that the ancient habit of reading aloud rather than silently, is a cultural, not cognitive issue.35 Simply put, to accept the thesis that scriptio continua made reading comprehension difficult or impossible until the text was articulated into speech, we need a single route, sublexical model of reading for which there is no evidence. We would also need to accept that only oral speech could trigger comprehension, not inner speech, nor the phonological information as it passes through the various steps of the motor module preceding articulation, some of which can now be recovered electronically.36 In the salutation at the beginning of documents, words are often separated by spaces. For example, P.Oxy. XLVII 3332 (53 CE, Fig. 11) begins, if diplomatically transcribed: Θρακιδαι γυμνασιαρχωι Βυβλιοφυλακι τηϲεντωι |2 αρϲινοιτηι βυβλιοθηκηϲ, “Thrakidasdat gymnasiarchdat Archivistdat oftheinthe |2 arsinoitedat, record-officegen.” Can it really be that a reader could understand everything in this salutation but the most common words (τηϲεντωι), until they were fully articulated as τῆϲ ἐν τῶι?

33 K. RAYNER and A. POLLATSEK, The Psychology of Reading, New York – London, 1989, p. 190–191. 34 An overlooked observation by P.J. PARSONS, Copyists of Oxyrhynchus, in A.K. BOWMAN, N. GONIS, D. OBBINK and P.J. PARSONS (eds), Oxyrhynchus: A City and Its Texts, London, 2007, p. 262–270, at p. 267, mentions the part played by dictée interieure in scribal process, shortcircuiting the need for a lector to explain ‘oral/aural’ mistakes. On dictation theory, cf. T.C. SKEAT, The Use of Dictation in Ancient Book Production, in Proceedings of the British Academy 42 (1957), p. 179–208 = J.K. ELLIOTT (ed.), The Collected Writings of T.C. Skeat (Novum Testamentum Suppl. 113), Leiden – Boston, 2004, p. 3–32; D. JONGKIND, The Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus, (Texts and Studies, Third Series 5), Piscataway N.J., 2007, p. 21–24. 35 “Is reading solely, or even mostly, a neurophysiologically based act of cognition? Anthropologists, ethnographers, sociolinguists have increasingly come to recognize in reading a complex sociocultural construction that is tied, essentially, to particular contexts,” W.A. JOHNSON, Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities, Oxford, 2010, p. 9. 36 G.K. ANUMANCHIPALLI, J. CHARTIER and E.F. CHANG, Speech Synthesis from Neural Decoding of Spoken Sentences, in Nature 568 (April 24, 2019), p. 493–498.

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Fig. 11. P.Oxy. XLVII 3332 (AD 53)

6d. Motor module The most important feature of this module is ‘allographic conversion’, the transition from abstract graphemes to their visible, graphic equivalent, allographs. The technical description of the procedures is ‘by which graphemic representations are directly mapped onto the appropriate letter-specific graphic motor programs.’37 For Tura Codex V, and much Byzantine cursive and semi-cursive writing besides, it is important to note this includes not only differentiating between display letters, ordinary letters etc., but letter combinations, i.e. bigrams. “Writing a word is not just producing one letter after the other as if it was a mere linear sequence of letters. We tend to group the letters of a word into chunks to optimise the recovery of spelling. This chunking procedure has an influence on the way the writing system programs the movements to produce the letters of a word.”38 This summary of how the writing process groups letters would seem to have little to do with how ancient scribes wrote. But a careful look at the semi-cursive script used by the copyist of PsT (Tura Codex V) and EcclT (Tura Codex III) is enough to understand the problem. 7. Graphic bigrams In a semi-cursive script, such as that of Tura Codex V, most letters are connected, usually in sequences of two or three, although certain letters can be left unjoined: β, ζ, ι, κ, ο, φ, ψ, ω for example. Often letters are joined up extrinsically,39 by a connective feature, such as an exit or entrance stroke, as most modern western cursives do. In addition, our copyist, like other Byzantine scribes, sometimes combines successive intrinsic graphic features of two adjacent letters, e.g. the bigram θε, or ερ, say, in the word θεραπία. Such bigrams can be contained within a single syllable, or else cross syllabic boundaries. The medial graphic feature of epsilon (ε2 or ε3) is normally linked to the following letter via a shared stroke. B. RAPP, Cognitive Architecture of Spelling, p. 89. S. KANDEL, R. PEEREMAN and M. FAYOL, For a Psycholinguistic Model of Handwriting Production: Testing the Syllable-Bigram Controversy, in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 37 (2011), p. 1310–1322, at p. 1310. 39 By an extrinsic feature I mean one that plays no role in the identification of the letter. 37

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Fig. 12. σ1(A→B). σ2=θ1(C→D), The second stroke40 of sigma (σ2), the ballistic stroke between C and D, is a shared feature of sigma and theta. θ3=ε1 (E→F), The ballistic stroke between E and F is a shared intrinsic feature of both epsilon and rho. Although, in this case, it seems likely that the line EF stops and f, not F. Fig. 13. ε3= ρ1 (D→E): The ballistic stroke between D and E is a shared feature of epsilon and rho, intrinsic to both, viz., the medial stroke of epsilon continuing into the bowl of rho.

Fig. 14. Β→C: Stroke two of alpha acts as the entrance stroke to pi, an extrinsic graphic feature of pi per se; E→F is a connective stroke only, also an extrinsic graphic feature of either pi or iota.

Fig. 15. α3=ϲ1 (C→D): The oblique stroke of alpha (α3) is the same as the first stroke of sigma, making C→D a shared feature of α and ϲ, intrinsic to both.

40 Stroke meaning, in this context ‘a (pen) trajectory between two consecutive velocity minima’, or between pen-down and pen up, L. SCHOMAKER, From Handwriting Analysis to Pen-computer Applications, in Electronics & Communication Engineering Journal 10.3 (1998), p. 93–102, at p. 96. ‘Velocity minima’ are the points at which the pen tip velocity is slowest between two consecutive points. A ballistic movement ‘is very rapid [100 ms], and their characteristic feature is that they are too fast to enable sensory feedback control’, P. BRODAL, The Central Nervous System, Oxford – New York, 20104, p. 278. This type of movement is pre-programmed (learned), and stored in memory. The opposite of a ballistic movement is called ramp movement, ‘which is slow enough to enable sensory feedback information to influence the movement during its execution’, BRODAL, Central Nervous System, p. 278. Ballistic strokes typically indicate skilled writers, strokes made by ramp movement indicate the writer who is either learning, or is either unskilled, or has only low skill levels (slow writers, in other words).

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8. The length of copy-unit and baseline skew The way the papyrus was held by the scribe is consequential for our papyrus because of its extremely wide column of writing, 17.2 cm, 75 letters, which is two to three times the width of a typical column of prose. This means that there will be a tendency for discontinuity in the baseline (skew), or tau-height56 of PsT, because it is necessary for the scribe to readjust his grip on the papyrus every 6–7 cm (or whatever width the scribe’s knee could support). Also, in this style of script, some letters (omicron, upsilon, for example) are not bilinear, that is, they are written even with the tau-height, but ‘float’ above the baseline. The base of the next letter to be written after these ‘floating’ letters tends to be higher than that of the previous bilinear letter.

Fig. 16. PsT 114.3 απε--θανον κ(αι) οι π--ροφηται

The skew of each copy-unit differs slightly from those adjacent to it: so below, copy-units AB and BC differ in their angle of ascent by about 2.5%.41

Fig. 17. PsT 113.10 τηοδωτουθεουενομοθετη θηϲαν αλλοιγνοντεϲοτι Fig. 17. PsT 113.10 τῇ ὅδῳ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐνομοθετήθηϲαν ἄλλοι γνόντεϲ ὅτ

In memory span tasks, adults can recall five-six word in the form of a list, but by ‘chunking’ words together in sentence form, recall more than doubles, to ‘about 15’ words.42 The task of the scribe, however, is not memory span per se, but handwriting production. The scribe of PsT chunks letter combinations as syllables, then words or partial words to produce copy-units of between three 41 In the illustration, I use the tau-height (by which I mean the equivalent of x-height, the approximate top line of bilinear letters) rather than the baseline. 42 “Although adults can typically remember a sequence of five or six unrelated words, chunking allows them to recall sentences of about 15 words,” M.J. DEHN, Working Memory and Academic Learning: Assessment and Intervention, Hoboken N.J., 2008, p. 71.

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and seven syllables in length.43 Syllable boundaries are sometimes not observed, as evidenced by the number of intrinsic bigrams that do so, e.g. κληρονομουμ εν η. Sometimes, syllables are divided orthographically rather than phonologically: PsT 114.11 π αρ ελευϲεται, where α and ρ form an intrinsic bigram. Word boundaries are typically preserved within copy-units, but not always: PsT 113.10 1 ενομοθετη 2 θ ηϲαν, and PsT 114.11: ει ϲα ιωνα, where ϲ and α form an intrinsic bigram. Copy-units of up to 12 syllables occur infrequently, almost exclusively in quotations. The increased memory span in such instances implies that the scribe’s prior knowledge of the passage reduced the load on their working memory. 9. Re-inking the pen Our ability to recognise where our scribe refilled his pen is limited by several factors. The papyrus, being a palimpsest, has been scraped in certain sections, so that the ink is absorbed less well in those areas.44 Of the 71 times where it seems sure that our copyist refills the pen in PsT 113, 40 come at a boundary of a grammatical clauses or prosodic boundary,45 20 come at word boundaries, and 11 occur mid-word. For example, the phrase (in PsT 113.10, see Fig. 17) ἐκεῖνοι οὐ τῇ ὁδῷ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐνομοθετήθησαν, is chunked into three short copy-units, to judge from the shifts in the baseline and the spaces between words:46 εκινοιουτηοδω τουθεουενομοθετη θησαν. The copyist re-inks the pen at εκινοι, write ενομοθετη, refills the pen again and writes θησαν. The scribe interrupts other long verb forms in this way e.g. PsT 113.3 οὐ μισοῦντες οὐκ ἀπο7syll.στρεφόμενοι4 syll., PsT 113.5 οἷον περ3syll. ιτεμνόμενοι5syll, μὴ παραδῷς με εἰς ψυχὰς θλιβ9 syll. όντων, (quotation), καὶ οἶνος ἐψ6syll. εύσατο αὐτούς. Whether this was because the copyist read only up to ενομοθετη, then misdivided the word as ἐνομοθέτη, or whether there was a line-break at this point in the exemplar, or whether the number of syllables in this copy-unit strained the scribe’s working memory, causing the hesitation, we cannot know. 43 Colwell says 75 was copied one letter at a time, 66 was copied on syllable at a time, and in 45, he imagines, the copy units were ‘phrases and clauses’. E. COLWELL, Method in Evaluating Scribal Habits: A Study of    45,    66,    75, Leiden, 1969, p. 116. But these conclusions are not based on observations of writing, but are derived from his analysis of error types, and are of questionable value palaeographically. 44 See the groundbreaking article P. HEAD and M. WARREN, Re-inking the Pen: Evidence from P. Oxy. 657 (P13) Concerning Unintentional Scribal Errors, in New Testament Studies 43 (1997), p. 466–473. 45 PsT 113.18: τις παραδίδοται ὅταν ἐγκαταλείπῃ; PsT 113.24: πάντες δὲ οἱ ψευδοδοξοῦντες μάρτυρες ἄδικοί εἰσιν, where πάντες begins a grammatical clause, and μάρτυρες a phonolgical, or minor, phrase. 46 ε shaded letters = fresh ink; = blank space; underlined words = letters written along a continuous baseline, with some form of discontinuity before and after (e.g. the baseline is adjusted up or down, blank space, evidence of re-inking).

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Sometimes our scribe refills the pen, then writes over a faintly written letter or word before beginning the new copy chunk. In the instance below (Fig. 19), the scribe’s calamus runs dry at the end of the unit: εἰσὶν αἱ ἀρεταὶvac. πρὸς τὸνvac. He refills the pen, but before going on, he overwrites the word ἀρεταὶ. Going on then, he makes several errors: he writes εκλινεν, then adds κ in superscript, εκκ, strikes out εν, and adds the correct participial endings above.

Fig. 18. PsT 113.10 τουνομου—οιτοφ- : ἀλήθειαν τοῦ νόμου, | οἱ τὸ φ-

Fig. 19. Error caused by the distraction of overwriting: αιαρεται .προστον .εκκλινονταεν εἰσιν αἱ ἀρεταί. | πρὸς τὸν ἐκλίνοντα γοῦν ⟨λέγει·⟩ “... the virtues. to the one turning away…”

One predictor of failure in working memory is called the ‘recency effect’47 whereby the first and last items in a list are more securely recalled than items in the middle. In a list ABCD, items A and D are less apt to be mis-recalled than C or D. For example, PsT 124.18 contains the following (Fig. 20):

Fig. 20. Error caused by recency, PsT 124.18 οταντουτοφαναιρεθηvac.φαναιρουται ὅταν τοῦτο ἀναιρεθῇ, φανεροῦται ἡ ὑποκειμένη φύσις “When this has been destroyed, the underlying nature appears…”

Our scribe misremembers or miswrites φαναιρεθη, affected no doubt by the proximity of φαναιουται, but also by its weak position as one of the middle word of this copy-unit.

47 See A. BADDELEY, The Concept of Working Memory, in S. GATHERCOLE (ed.), Models of Short Term Memory, Hove, 1996, p. 1–28, at p. 7; A. BADDELEY, M.W. EYSENCK and M.C. ANDERSON, Memory, London – New York, 20152, p. 50.

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The vestiges of the writing process are not enough to understand the mental state of the scribe with any certainty. I wish only to call attention to the possible role cognitive phenomena can play. These, alongside our traditional rational explanations such as homoioteleuton, haplography, dittography, etc., can better help us understand why scribes do what they do. 10. Pauses in speech: intonational units As a consequence of this and of the excellent state of preservation of this papyrus codex, the scribal process can be observed in PsT in finer detail than is usually possible, especially as it pertains to the ductus litterarum (stroke sequence). The copyist uses frequent blank space as punctuation. In some cases he marks the end of a clause or at line-end by distinct letter forms (Fig. 27), or by extending the last stroke of the last letter (Fig. 26). Conversely, our scribe uses display text (litterae notabiliores) both at the start of a line, and at the beginning of a clause (Fig. 25).

Fig. 21. non-cursive elements

Fig. 23. PsT 113.29 Space before a quotation48

Fig. 24. space between two sentences PsT 114.549

Fig. 22. cursive elements: επιτωνπολλων: π is n-shaped; the bigram λλ share an intrinsic graphic feature (the second stroke of the first lambda is the same as the first stroke of the second) PsT 120D.3

Fig. 25. λεγι Υμιν PsT 114.6 a50 display letter begins a quote

48 καὶ τοῦτο· ἅλων καὶ οἶνος ἐψεύσατο αὐτούς, “and this: ‘the threshing floor and wine deceived them’,” an abbreviation of ἅλων καὶ ληνὸς οὐκ ἔγνω αὐτούς, καὶ ὁ οἶνος ἐψεύσατο αὐτούς (LXX Hosea 9:2). 49 ὁ ζῳοποιός. οὐχ αὕτη οὖν ἡ ὑπὸ πόδας ἡμῶν γῆ, “the creator of life. This is not, therefore, the land under our feet…” 50 ἐ[ν τῶ] τριακοστῷλων καὶ ἑκτὼ ψαλμῷ λέγει· ὑπόμεινον τὸν κ(ύριο)ν “in the 36th Psalm he says: ‘Wait on the Lord’.”

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Fig. 26. PsT 114.5 σου— κατα  PsT 114.2051

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Fig. 27. PsT 114.552 εστιν— ο distinguishing an appositive phrase from the preceding clause

Blank spaces with and without punctuation are not uncommon in other papyri from the Tura and elsewhere. Jean Scherer’s comment on the blank spaces in Tura Codex I could double as a description of their use in PsT: “Les blancs, parfois de belle largeur, très distincts, marquent un arrêt de la pensée ou de la phrase, signalent le changement d’interlocuteur, séparant la citation de son commentaire, etc.”53 The goal of this paper is to explain this phenomenon better by correlating what palaeography tells us, with psychological considerations about scribal process together with sub-palaeographical details. Aloys Kehl, in his first edition of Folio 10 of Tura Codex V (Pap.Colon. I), draws attention to some of these unusual features, but concludes that they either have no significance, or at least no discernible significance for his edition. Die Spatien im Druck kenntlich zu machen, schien darum wenig sinnvoll und ist kaum möglich bei den zahlreichen Stellen, an denen man zweifeln kann, ob echtes Spatium gemeint ist oder nicht.54

The full edition55 likewise makes no note of them. Nevertheless, the spaces left by the scribe are seldom random or devoid of meaning. Space as a form of punctuation is not uncommon in either literary or documentary texts,56 but those described by Kehl are of an uncommon type. Tura 51 κραταιὸς ἔσσο κατὰ τῆς καρδίας σου—κατὰ τῆς ὑπερθέσεως τοῦ χρόνου, “be strong in your heart, against the passage of time.” Here, the space filler indicates prosodic pause before the following phonological (minor) phrase. 52 καὶ ὁ θ(εὸ)ς θ(εὸ)ς αὐτῶν ἐστιν—ὁ ζῳοποιός, ‘for God is their God, the creator of life.’ 53 “The blank spaces, sometimes rather wide, very distinct, mark a stop in thought or phrase, signaling a change of speaker, separating the lemma from commentary, etc.” Publ.Soc.Fouad IX, p. 9. 54 “There seems little use, therefore, in making spaces discernible in the edition, and it is hardly possible in the numerous places in which there is doubt whether a space is genuine (or accidental).” Pap.Colon. I, p. 21. 55 Pap.Texte Abh. (PTA) VII, IV, VIII, VI, XII; see Introduction above. 56 See E.G. TURNER, revised ed. P.J. PARSONS, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World, London, 1987, no. 40, 55, 58; and H. MAEHLER and G. CAVALLO, Hellenistic Bookhands, Berlin – New York, 2008, p. 86, 100; and W.A. JOHNSON, Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus, Toronto, 2004, p. 30. See H.A. SANDERS, The Washington Manuscript of the Four Gospels, New York, 1912, p. 12–14 (W 032), and H.A. SANDERS, A Third Century Papyrus Codex of the Epistles of Paul, Ann Arbor, 1935, p. 16–19 (P46), contrary to the opinion of F.G. Kenyon in P.Beatty II, p. xiv. See now E. EBOJO, Punctuation and Other Visual Features in P 46 as Readers Aids, in A Scribe and His Manuscript: An Investigation into the Scribal Habits of Papyrus 46 (P.Beatty II — P.Mich. inv. 6238), Diss. Birmingham 2014, p. 169–170, http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/4838.

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Codex V (PsT) is an oral document, which retains the prosodic structure of the Didymus’s speech.57 It has not, that is, been edited into the prose style Didymus uses in his published works. Didymus’s lectures must have been recorded as notae by a stenographer, because he was blind and unable to write for himself. This transcript would have then been read back e codice tabularum to Didymus and revised orally. This revision (recensio) would be copied (descripta) into plain writing. In the case of the Ecclesiastes (Tura Codex III) and Psalms ‘commentaries’ found at Tura, the initial notarial transcript was apparently unrevised, making it more comparable to the class notes of Olympiodorus’s lectures on Plato and Aristotle,58 i.e. a variety of σχόλια (notae) ἀπὸ φωνῆς, rather than of Didymus’s published commentaries, such as the εἰς τὴν Γένεσιν (Tura Codex IV, TM 59673), εἰς τὸν Ζαχαρίαν (Tura Codex VI, TM 59670), εἰς τὸν ᾿Ιώβ (Tura Codex VII, TM 59672). Short asyndetic phrases are distinguished by space where the editors punctuate: PsT (P.BYU I) 113.27–28, διαψεύδεται ἑαυτήν, διαπίπτει, οὐκ ὑφίσταται. Topic and Focus are sometimes distinguished by spacing too, where editors would not punctuate: PsT (P.BYU I) 115.15-16 (discussing Ps. 27.1d), πολλαχοῦ 16 γὰρ τῶν θείων παιδευμάτων ὁ λάκκος τὸν ᾅδηνFOC σημαίνει. PsT 120.B.3 λοιπὸν προηγουμένως μὲν τοῖς υἱοῖς τοῦ θ(εο)ῦFOC τοῦτο λέγει τιμὴν καὶ δόξαν ἀγαγεῖν. Short transitional phrases can be differentiated by spacing as well: PsT 120 D 13, καὶ ὥσπερ ; PsT 120.9: μὴ ἐπὶ μίαν ἢ δευτέραν ἡμέραν. Participial phrases, too, are often isolated in this way at the beginning, or more frequently, at the end of an utterance. Pauses divide adjectives: PsT 120A 22, ὅτε τοίνυν πρακτικῷ καὶ θεωρητικῷ βίῳ τις κεκόσμηται ; PsT 120.A 9–10 οὐ]δεὶς γὰρ πο-10 λυπλασιασθείς ἢ 57

I mean prosody in the linguistic sense: duration, frequency (i.e. intonation), and intensity (stress). These are defined as suprasegmental, since they serve to contrast individual segments within a phrase and between phrases. For other examples of this phenomenon, see A. OLIVAR, La predicación cristiana antigua, Barcelona, 1991, p. 910–922. At the Council of Carthage in 411 (new edition of the Gesta: C. WEIDMANN [ed.], Collatio Carthaginis 411, Berlin – Boston, 2018) the proceedings (acta / gesta) were recorded as follows: notarii (or exceptores) took down what was said in shorthand (notae §43) on waxed tablets (tabulae §53) bound together in a codex (codex tabularum §53); a copy was then made (descriptio §59) in plain writing on vellum leaves (in paginas §39, 46 / schedas §28, 41, etc.) to be read and revised by the author (legere et recensere). The Donatist bishop, Petilianus, objects that a notarius or exceptor has read back the proceedings from shorthand transcript (ex codice ... notarum, §44) rather than the copy (de scheda §28, 41, 64). In these terms, the process for Didymus would have been: 1) viva voce → 2) notae (which would have been read out to him by the notarius) → 3) oral revision → 4) copy into plain writing (in apices evidentes). The manscript found at Tura is probably the copy in step 4, or else an apograph of it. On the date, see below. On stenography in this period, see H. TEITLER, Notarii and Exceptores: An Inquiry into Role and Significance of Shorthand Writers in the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Bureaucracy of the Roman Empire (from the Early Principate to c. 450 A.D.), Amsterdam, 1985. 58 See M. GRIFFIN (trans.), Olympiodorus, Life of Plato and On Plato, Alcibiades 1–9, London, 2015, p. 46, and the Greek edition by L.G. WESTERINK, Olympiodorus, Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato, Amsterdam, 1982.

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διπλασιασθεὶς ἢ τριπλασιασθείς. They also divide different elements of an explanation (120Α 5) κύβος δέ ἐστιν ἰσάκις ἴσος ἰσάκις ἴσος ἰσάκις, δὶς βἠδ. 11. Is palaeography a science or an art? Finally, should we define palaeography as a ‘science’ or an ‘art’?59 This question presents a problem of method as though it were a choice. But we cannot choose the world we want. We are unused to thinking of ancient traces of handwriting in scientific terms, as a behavioural biometric, as the product of cognitive and biomechanical processes, yet they are. This ground truth cannot be altered by classifying and describing these traces in purely humanistic terms, however systematically. Aus dieser Welt können wir nicht fallen.60 Bibliography G.K. ANUMANCHIPALLI, J. CHARTIER and E.F. CHANG, Speech Synthesis from Neural Decoding of Spoken Sentences, in Nature 568 (April 24, 2019), p. 493–498. A. BADDELEY, M.W. EYSENCK and M.C. ANDERSON, Memory, London – New York, 20152. A. BADDELEY, The Concept of Working Memory, in S. GATHERCOLE (ed.), Models of Short Term Memory, Hove UK, 1996, p. 1–28. L. BATTEZZATO, Techniques of Reading and Textual Layout in Ancient Greek Texts, in The Cambridge Classical Journal: Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 55 (2009), p. 1–23. L. BLUMELL, T.J. MACKAY and G.W. SCHWENDNER, with M. TROTTER (eds), P.BYU I: Didymus the Blind, Didymus the Blind’s Commentary on Psalms 26:10-29:2 and 36:1-3, (Tura), Turnhout, 2019. R. BOROWSKY, et al., FMRI of Ventral and Dorsal Processing Streams in Basic Reading Processes: Insular Sensitivity to Phonology, in Brain Topography 18 (2006), p. 233– 239. P. BRODAL, The Central Nervous System, Oxford – New York, 20104. A. CAMERON, Last of the Pagans, Oxford – New York, 2011. N. CHARLTON, The Tura Caves, in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 64 (1978), p. 128. L. CIPOLOTTI, Towards a Unified Process Model for Graphemic Buffer Disorder and Deep Dysgraphia, in Cognitive Neuropsychology 23 (2006), p. 479–512. L. CLOUTMAN et al., A Neural Network Critical for Spelling, in Annals of Neurology 66 (2009), p. 249–253. M. COLTHEART, Modeling Reading: The Dual-Route Approach, in M.J. SNOWLING and C. HULME (eds), The Science of Learning to Read: A Handbook, Oxford – Malden Mass., 2005, p. 6–23. 59 B. NONGBRI, Palaeographic Analysis of Codices from the Early Christian Period: A Point of Method, in Journal for the Study of the New Testament 42 (2019), p. 88. By ‘art’ I understand a reference to the intuitive decision making process used by palaeographers, based on visual memory, experience, and good judgement, rather than ‘good taste’ which ‘art’ implies. 60 S. FREUD, Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, Vienna, 1930, p. 10.

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42. G. REININK, H.E.J. VAN STIPHOUT (eds.), Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East. 43. C. TRAUNECKER, Coptos. Hommes et dieux sur le parvis de Geb. 44. E. LIPIŃSKI (ed.), Phoenicia and the Bible. 45. L. ISEBAERT (ed.), Studia Etymologica Indoeuropaea Memoriae A.J. Van Windekens dicata. 46. F. BRIQUEL-CHATONNET, Les relations entre les cités de la côte phénicienne et les royaumes d’Israël et de Juda. 47. W.J. VAN BEKKUM, A Hebrew Alexander Romance according to MS London, Jews’ College no. 145. 48. W. SKALMOWSKI, A. VAN TONGERLOO (eds.), Medioiranica. 49. L. LAUWERS, Igor’-Severjanin, His Life and Work — The Formal Aspects of His Poetry. 50. R.L. VOS, The Apis Embalming Ritual. P. Vindob. 3873. 51. F. LABRIQUE, Stylistique et Théologie à Edfou. Le rituel de l’offrande de la campagne: étude de la composition. 52. F. DE JONG (ed.), Miscellanea Arabica et Islamica. 53. G. BREYER, Etruskisches Sprachgut im Lateinischen unter Ausschluß des spezifisch onomastischen Bereiches. 54. P.H.L. EGGERMONT, Alexander’s Campaign in Southern Punjab. 55. J. QUAEGEBEUR (ed.), Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East. 56. A. VAN ROEY, P. ALLEN, Monophysite Texts of the Sixth Century. 57. E. LIPIŃSKI, Studies in Aramaic Inscriptions and Onomastics II. 58. F.R. HERBIN, Le livre de parcourir l’éternité. 59. K. GEUS, Prosopographie der literarisch bezeugten Karthager. 60. A. SCHOORS, P. VAN DEUN (eds.), Philohistôr. Miscellanea in honorem Caroli Laga septuagenarii. 61. M. KRAUSE, S. GIVERSEN, P. NAGEL (eds.), Coptology. Past, Present and Future. Studies in Honour of R. Kasser. 62. C. LEITZ, Altägyptische Sternuhren. 63. J.J. CLÈRE, Les Chauves d’Hathor. 64. E. LIPIŃSKI, Dieux et déesses de l’univers phénicien et punique. 65. K. VAN LERBERGHE, A. SCHOORS (eds.), Immigration and Emigration within the Ancient Near East. Festschrift E. Lipiński. 66. G. POLLET (ed.), Indian Epic Values. Ramayana and its impact. 67. D. DE SMET, La quiétude de l’Intellect. Néoplatonisme et gnose ismaélienne dans l’œuvre de Hamîd ad-Dîn al-Kirmânî (Xe-XIe s.). 68. M.L. FOLMER, The Aramaic Language in the Achaemenid Period. A Study in Linguistic Variation. 69. S. IKRAM, Choice Cuts: Meat Production in Ancient Egypt. 70. H. WILLEMS, The Coffin of Heqata (Cairo JdE 36418). A Case Study of Egyptian Funerary Culture of the Early Middle Kingdom. 71. C. EDER, Die Ägyptischen Motive in der Glyptik des östlichen Mittelmeerraumes zu Anfang des 2. Jts. v. Chr. 72. J. THIRY, Le Sahara libyen dans l’Afrique du Nord médiévale. 73. U. VERMEULEN, D. DE SMET (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras I. 74. P. ARÈNES, La déesse sGrol-Ma (Tara). Recherches sur la nature et le statut d’une divinité du bouddhisme tibétain. 75. K. CIGGAAR, A. DAVIDS, H. TEULE (eds.), East and West in the Crusader States. Context – Contacts – Confrontations I. 76. M. BROZE, Mythe et Roman en Égypte ancienne. Les Aventures d’Horus et Seth dans le papyrus Chester Beatty I. 77. L. DEPUYDT, Civil Calendar and Lunar Calendar in Ancient Egypt. 78. P. WILSON, A Ptolemaic Lexikon. A Lexicographical Study of the Texts in the Temple of Edfu.

79. A. HASNAWI, A. ELAMRANI, M. JAMAL, M. AOUAD (eds.), Perspectives arabes et médiévales sur la tradition scientifique et philosophique grecque. 80. E. LIPIŃSKI, Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar. 81. S. CAUVILLE, Dendara I. Traduction. 82. C. EYRE (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Egyptologists. 83. U. VERMEULEN, D. DE SMET (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras II. 84-85. W. CLARYSSE, A. SCHOORS, H. WILLEMS (eds.), Egyptian Religion. The Last Thousand Years. 86. U. VERMEULEN, J.M. VAN REETH (eds.), Law, Christianity and Modernism in Islamic Society. 87. U. VERMEULEN, D. DE SMET (eds.), Philosophy and Arts in the Islamic World. 88. S. CAUVILLE, Dendara II. Traduction. 89. G.J. REININK, A.C. KLUGKIST (eds.), After Bardaisan. Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Han J.W. Drijvers. 90. C.R. KRAHMALKOV, Phoenician-Punic Dictionary. 91. M. TAHTAH, Entre pragmatisme, réformisme et modernisme. Le rôle politicoreligieux des Khattabi dans le Rif (Maroc) jusqu’à 1926. 92. K. CIGGAAR, H. TEULE (eds.), East and West in the Crusader States. Context – Contacts – Confrontations II. 93. A.C.J. VERHEIJ, Bits, Bytes, and Binyanim. A Quantitative Study of Verbal Lexeme Formations in the Hebrew Bible. 94. W.M. CALLEWAERT, D. TAILLIEU, F. LALEMAN, A Descriptive Bibliography of Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938). 95. S. CAUVILLE, Dendara III. Traduction. 96. K. VAN LERBERGHE, G. VOET (eds.), Languages and Cultures in Contact: At the Crossroads of Civilizations in the Syro-Mesopotamian Realm. 97. A. CABROL, Les voies processionnelles de Thèbes. 98. J. PATRICH (ed.), The Sabaite Heritage in the Orthodox Church from the Fifth Century to the Present. Monastic Life, Liturgy, Theology, Literature, Art, Archaeology. 99. U.VERHOEVEN, Untersuchungen zur späthieratischen Buchschrift. 100. E. LIPIŃSKI, The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion. 101. S. CAUVILLE, Dendara IV. Traduction. 102. U. VERMEULEN, J. VAN STEENBERGEN (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras III. 103. H. WILLEMS (ed.), Social Aspects of Funerary Culture in the Egyptian Old and Middle Kingdoms. 104. K. GEUS, K. ZIMMERMANN (eds.), Punica – Libyca – Ptolemaica. Festschrift für Werner Huß, zum 65. Geburtstag dargebracht von Schülern, Freunden und Kollegen. 105. S. CAUVILLE, Dendara. Les fêtes d’Hathor. 106. R. PREYS, Les complexes de la demeure du sistre et du trône de Rê. Théologie et décoration dans le temple d’Hathor à Dendera. 107. A. BLASIUS, B.U. SCHIPPER (eds.), Apokalyptik und Ägypten. Eine kritische Analyse der relevanten Texte aus dem griechisch-römischen Ägypten. 108. S. LEDER (ed.), Studies in Arabic and Islam. 109. A. GODDEERIS, Economy and Society in Northern Babylonia in the Early Old Babylonian Period (ca. 2000-1800 BC). 110. C. LEITZ (ed.), Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, Band I. 111. C. LEITZ (ed.), Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, Band II. 112. C. LEITZ (ed.), Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, Band III. 113. C. LEITZ (ed.), Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, Band IV. 114. C. LEITZ (ed.), Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, Band V. 115. C. LEITZ (ed.), Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, Band VI. 116. C. LEITZ (ed.), Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, Band VII. 117. M. VAN MOL, Variation in Modern Standard Arabic in Radio News Broadcasts.

118. M.F.J. BAASTEN, W.T. VAN PEURSEN (eds.), Hamlet on a Hill. Semitic and Greek Studies Presented to Professor T. Muraoka on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday. 119. O.E. KAPER, The Egyptian God Tutu. A Study of the Sphinx-God and Master of Demons with a Corpus of Monuments. 120. E. WARDINI, Lebanese Place-Names (Mount Lebanon and North Lebanon). 121. J. VAN DER VLIET, Catalogue of the Coptic Inscriptions in the Sudan National Museum at Khartoum (I. Khartoum Copt.). 122. A. ŁAJTAR, Catalogue of the Greek Inscriptions in the Sudan National Museum at Khartoum (I. Khartoum Greek). 123. H. NIEHR, Ba῾alšamem. Studien zu Herkunft, Geschichte und Rezeptionsgeschichte eines phönizischen Gottes. 124. H. WILLEMS, F. COPPENS, M. DE MEYER, P. DILS, The Temple of Shanhûr. Volume I: The Sanctuary, The Wabet, and the Gates of the Central Hall and the Great Vestibule (1-98). 125. K. CIGGAAR, H.G.B. TEULE (eds.), East and West in the Crusader States. Context – Contacts – Confrontations III. 126. T. SOLDATJENKOVA, E. WAEGEMANS (eds.), For East is East. Liber Amicorum Wojciech Skalmowski. 127. E. LIPIŃSKI, Itineraria Phoenicia. 128. D. BUDDE, S. SANDRI, U. VERHOEVEN (eds.), Kindgötter im Ägypten der griechischrömischen Zeit. Zeugnisse aus Stadt und Tempel als Spiegel des Interkulturellen Kontakts. 129. C. LEITZ (ed.), Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, Band VIII. 130. E.J. VAN DER STEEN, Tribes and Territories in Transition. 131. S. CAUVILLE, Dendara V-VI. Traduction. Les cryptes du temple d’Hathor. 132. S. CAUVILLE, Dendara V-VI. Index phraséologique. Les cryptes du temple d’Hathor. 133. M. IMMERZEEL, J. VAN DER VLIET, M. KERSTEN, C. VAN ZOEST (eds.), Coptic Studies on the Threshold of a New Millennium. Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Coptic Studies. Leiden, August 27 - September 2, 2000. 134. J.J. VAN GINKEL, H.L. MURRE-VAN DEN BERG, T.M. VAN LINT (eds.), Redefining Christian Identity. Cultural Interaction in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam. 135. J. MONTGOMERY (ed.), ‘Abbasid Studies. Occasional Papers of the School of ‘Abbasid Studies, Cambridge, 6-10 July 2002. 136. T. BOIY, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon. 137. B. JANSSENS, B. ROOSEN, P. VAN DEUN (eds.), Philomathestatos. Studies in Greek Patristic and Byzantine Texts Presented to Jacques Noret for his Sixty-Fifth Birthday. 138. S. HENDRICKX, R.F. FRIEDMAN, K.M. CIAŁOWICZ, M. CHŁODNICKI (eds.), Egypt at its Origins. Studies in Memory of Barbara Adams. 139. R. ARNZEN, J. THIELMANN (eds.), Words, Texts and Concepts Cruising the Mediterranean Sea. Studies on the Sources, Contents and Influences of Islamic Civilization and Arabic Philosophy and Science. 140. U. VERMEULEN, J. VAN STEENBERGEN (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras IV. 141. H.T. DAVIES, Yusuf al-irbīnī’s Kitab Hazz al-Quhuf bi-arh Qasīd Abī aduf (“Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abu aduf Expounded”). Volume I: Arabic text. 142. P. VAN NUFFELEN, Un héritage de paix et de piété. Étude sur les histoires ecclésiastiques de Socrate et de Sozomène. 143. A. SCHOORS, The Preacher Sought to Find Pleasing Words. A Study of the Language of Qoheleth. Part II: Vocabulary. 144. M.E. STONE, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha and Armenian Studies. Collected Papers: Volume 1. 145. M.E. STONE, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha and Armenian Studies. Collected Papers: Volume 2.

146. M. CACOUROS, M.-H. CONGOURDEAU (eds.), Philosophie et sciences à Byzance de 1204 à 1453. Les textes, les doctrines et leur transmission. 147. K. CIGGAAR, M. METCALF (eds.), East and West in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean I. 148. B. MICHALAK-PIKULSKA, A. PIKULSKI (eds.), Authority, Privacy and Public Order in Islam. 149. E. CZERNY, I. HEIN, H. HUNGER, D. MELMAN, A. SCHWAB (eds.), Timelines. Studies in Honour of Manfred Bietak. 150. J.-Cl. GOYON, C. CARDIN (eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Egyptologists. Actes du neuvième congrès international des Égyptologues. Grenoble, 6-12 septembre 2004. 151. S. SANDRI, Har-pa-chered (Harpokrates). Die Genese eines ägyptischen Götterkindes. 152. J.E. MONTGOMERY (ed.), Arabic Theology, Arabic Philosophy. From the Many to the One: Essays in Celebration of Richard M. Frank. 153. E. LIPIŃSKI, On the Skirts of Canaan in the Iron Age. Historical and Topographical Researches. 154. M. MINAS-NERPEL, Der Gott Chepri. Untersuchungen zu Schriftzeugnissen und ikonographischen Quellen vom Alten Reich bis in griechisch-römische Zeit. 155. H. WILLEMS, Dayr al-Barsha Volume I. The Rock Tombs of Djehutinakht (No. 17K74/1), Khnumnakht (No. 17K74/2), and Iha (No. 17K74/3). With an Essay on the History and Nature of Nomarchal Rule in the Early Middle Kingdom. 156. J. BRETSCHNEIDER, J. DRIESSEN, K. VAN LERBERGHE (eds.), Power and Architecture. Monumental Public Architecture in the Bronze Age Near East and Aegean. 157. A. CAMPLANI, G. FILORAMO (eds.), Foundations of Power and Conflicts of Authority in Late Antique Monasticism. 158. J. TAVERNIER, Iranica in the Achaemenid Period (ca. 550-330 B.C.). Lexicon of Old Iranian Proper Names and Loanwords, Attested in Non-Iranian Texts. 159. P. KOUSOULIS, K. MAGLIVERAS (eds.), Moving Across Borders. Foreign Relations, Religion and Cultural Interactions in the Ancient Mediterranean. 160. A. SHISHA-HALEVY, Topics in Coptic Syntax: Structural Studies in the Bohairic Dialect. 161. B. LURSON, Osiris, Ramsès, Thot et le Nil. Les chapelles secondaires des temples de Derr et Ouadi es-Seboua. 162. G. DEL OLMO LETE (ed.), Mythologie et Religion des Sémites occidentaux. 163. N. BOSSON, A. BOUD’HORS (eds.), Actes du huitième congrès international d’études coptes. Paris, 28 juin - 3 juillet 2004. 164. A. BERLEJUNG, P. VAN HECKE (eds.), The Language of Qohelet in Its Context. Essays in Honour of Prof. A. Schoors on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday. 165. A.G.C. SAVVIDES, Byzantino-Normannica. The Norman Capture of Italy and the First Two Invasions in Byzantium. 166. H.T. DAVIES, Yusuf al-irbīnī’s Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abu aduf Expounded (Kitab Hazz al-Quhuf bi-arh Qasīd Abī aduf). Volume II: English translation, introduction and notes. 167. S. ARGUILLÈRE, Profusion de la vaste sphère. Klong-chen rab-’byams (Tibet, 1308-1364). Sa vie, son œuvre, sa doctrine. 168. D. DE SMET, Les Épîtres sacrées des Druzes. Rasa᾿il al-Hikma. Volumes 1 et 2. 169. U. VERMEULEN, K. D’HULSTER (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras V. 170. W.J. VAN BEKKUM, J.W. DRIJVERS, A.C. KLUGKIST (eds.), Syriac Polemics. Studies in Honour of Gerrit Jan Reinink. 171. K. D’HULSTER, J. VAN STEENBERGEN (eds.), Continuity and Change in the Realms of Islam. Studies in Honour of Professor Urbain Vermeulen. 172. B. MIDANT-REYNES, Y. TRISTANT, J. ROWLAND, S. HENDRICKX (eds.), Egypt at its Origins 2.

173. J.H.F. DIJKSTRA, Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian Religion. A Regional Study of Religious Transformation (298-642 CE). 174. I. UYTTERHOEVEN, Hawara in the Graeco-Roman Period. Life and Death in a Fayum Village. 175. P. KOUSOULIS (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Demonology. Studies on the Boundaries between the Demonic and the Divine in Egyptian Magic. 176. A. KARAHAN, Byzantine Holy Images – Transcendence and Immanence. The Theological Background of the Iconography and Aesthetics of the Chora Church. 177. J. NAWAS (ed.), ‘Abbasid Studies II. Occasional Papers of the School of ‘Abbasid Studies, Leuven, 28 June - 1 July 2004. 178. S. CAUVILLE, Dendara. Le temple d’Isis. Volume I: Traduction. 179. S. CAUVILLE, Dendara. Le temple d’Isis. Volume II: Analyse à la lumière du temple d’Hathor. 180. M. ZITMAN, The Necropolis of Assiut. 181. E. LIPIŃSKI, Resheph. A Syro-Canaanite Deity. 182. C. KARLSHAUSEN, L’iconographie de la barque processionnelle en Égypte au Nouvel Empire. 183. U. VERMEULEN, K. D’HULSTER (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras VI. 184. M. IMMERZEEL, Identity Puzzles. Medieval Christian Art in Syria and Lebanon. 185. D. MAGEE, J. BOURRIAU, S. QUIRKE (eds.), Sitting Beside Lepsius. Studies in Honour of Jaromir Malek at the Griffith Institute. 186. A. STEVENSON, The Predynastic Egyptian Cemetery of el-Gerzeh. 187. D. BUMAZHNOV, E. GRYPEOU, T.B. SAILORS, A. TOEPEL (eds.), Bibel, Byzanz und Christlicher Orient. Festschrift für Stephen Gerö zum 65. Geburtstag. 188. J. ELAYI, A.G. ELAYI, The Coinage of the Phoenician City of Tyre in the Persian Period (5th-4th Century BCE). 189. F. HAGEN, J. JOHNSTON, W. MONKHOUSE, K. PIQUETTE, J. TAIT, M. WORTHINGTON (eds.), Narratives of Egypt and the Ancient Near East. Literary and Linguistic Approaches. 190. V. VAN DER STEDE, Les pratiques de stockage au Proche-Orient ancien du Natoufien à la première moitié du troisième millénaire avant notre ère. 191. W. CLAES, H. DE MEULENAERE, S. HENDRICKX (eds.), Elkab and Beyond. Studies in Honour of Luc Limme. 192. M. MARÉE (ed.), The Second Intermediate Period (Thirteenth-Seventeenth Dynasties). Current Research, Future Prospects. 193. I. JACOBS, Aesthetic Maintenance of Civic Space. The ‘Classical’ City from the 4th to the 7th c. AD. 194. H. KNUF, C. LEITZ, D. VON RECKLINGHAUSEN (eds.), Honi soit qui mal y pense. Studien zum pharaonischen, griechisch-römischen und spätantiken Ägypten zu Ehren von Heinz-Josef Thissen. 195. I. REGULSKI, A Palaeographic Study of Early Writing in Egypt. 196. S. CAUVILLE, Dendara XIII. Traduction. Le pronaos du temple d’Hathor: Façade et colonnes. 197. M. KUHN, Koptische liturgische Melodien. Die Relation zwischen Text und Musik in der koptischen Psalmodia. 198. B. SNELDERS, Identity and Christian-Muslim Interaction. Medieval Art of the Syrian Orthodox from the Mosul Area. 199. K. CIGGAAR, V. VAN AALST (eds.), East and West in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean II. 200. E. LIPIŃSKI, Studies in Aramaic Inscriptions and Onomastics III. 201. S. CAUVILLE, Dendara XIV. Traduction. Le pronaos du temple d’Hathor: Parois intérieures. 202. K. DUISTERMAAT, I. REGULSKI (eds.), Intercultural Contacts in the Ancient Mediterranean. 203. F.S. JONES, Pseudoclementina Elchasaiticaque inter Judaeochristiana. Collected Studies.

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