"The Elephantine Papyri in English. Three Millennia of Cross-cultural Continuity and Change", by Bezalel Porten ; with J. Joel Farber [et al.], Leiden-New York-Köln 1996 : [recenzja]

Abstract

This important volume contains 175 documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Syene (Aswan), which yielded hundreds of papyri in hieratic, Demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Latin and Coptic, spanning a period of 2000 years. The documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives, and are thus an invaluable source of knowledge for scholars of varied disciplines such as epistolography, law, society, religion, language and onomastics. The volume includes seven sections, each containing carefully translated and extensively annotated documents of one language group. Excellent cross-referencing allows the user to trace forerunners and successors. Each section is preceded by an introduction. The Aramaic, Demotic and Greek sections are concluded with a prospography. The book closes with a select topical index.