semitic papyrology

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SEMITIC PAPYROLOGY IN CONTEXT


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CULTURE AND HISTORY OFTHE ANCIENT NEAR EAST

EDITED BY

B. HALPERN, M.H.E. WEIPPERT

TH. P.J. VAN DEN HOUT, I. WINTER

VOLUME 14


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SEMITIC PAPYROLOGY IN CONTEXT

A Climate of Creativity.

Papers from a New York University conferencemarking the retirement of Baruch A. Levine

EDITED BY

LAWRENCE H. SCHIFFMAN

BRILLLEIDEN BOSTON

2003


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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Semitic papyrology in context / edited by Lawrence A. Schiffman.p. cm. (Culture and history of the ancient Near East ; v. 14)

Papers given at a conference on March 5 7, 2000 at New York University.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 9004128859 (hc.)1. Manuscripts, Semitic (Papyri) Congresses. 2. Paleography, Semitic Congresses. I.

Schiffman, Lawrence H. II. Series.

PJ3091 .S45 2003

492'.0411 dc2l 2002032271

Die Deutsche Bibliothek CIP-Einheitsaufnahme

Semitic Papyrology in Context: A Climate of Creativity, Papers from a New YorkUniversity conference marking the retirement of Baruch A. Levine /ed. by Lawrence H. Schiffman -- Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2003(Culture and History of the Ancient Near East ; Vol. 14)

ISBN 90 04 12885 9

ISSN 1566-2055ISBN 90 04 12885 9

Copyright 2003 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands

All rights reser ved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, storedin a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior writtenpermission from the publisher.

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is grantedby Koninklijke Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directlyto The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive,Suite 910

Danvers, MA 01923, USA.Fees are subject to change.

printed in the netherlands


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CONTENTS

Preface ........................................................................................ vii

Abbreviations .............................................................................. ix

Ancient Egyptian ScriptsLiterary, Sacred, and ProfaneO G, J. ................................................................ 1

The Samaria Papyri and the Babylonio-Aramean SymbiosisD M. G ................................................................ 23

Elephantine and the BibleB P .................................................................... 51

The Corpus of the Qumran PapyriE T ........................................................................ 85

The Roman Census in the Papyri from the Judaean Desertand the Egyptian kat ofikan pografH M. C .............................................................. 105

The Language of Power: Latin in the Inscriptions ofIudaea/Syria PalaestinaW E .......................................................................... 123

Oral Establishment of Dowry in Jewish and Roman Law:hrymab ynqnh yrbd and dotis dictio

R K .................................................................... 145Witnesses and Signatures in the Hebrew and Aramaic

Documents from the Bar Kokhba CavesL H. S ...................................................... 165

The Roman Near East: The View from BelowF E. P .................................................................... 187

The Decipherment and Edition of the Petra Papyri:Preliminary ObservationsL K (In Collaboration with R.Ch.Caldwell, R.W. Daniel, and T. Gagos) .............................. 201

An Early Arabic Legal PapyrusG K .................................................................... 227

The Voice of the Jewish Poor in the Cairo GenizahM R. C .................................................................... 239


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vi

EpilogueB A. L ................................................................ 257

Index of Ancient Sources Cited ................................................ 275


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PREFACE

On 57 March 2000, a conference was held at New York University,sponsored by the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studiesas part of the Edelman Lectures, entitled A Climate of Creativity:Semitic Papyrology in Context. The conference was planned tomark the retirement of Professor Baruch A. Levine after thirty years

at New York University. Levine had been honored previously by aFestschrift,1 and so it was decided upon his retirement to organize aconference that would revolve around the work he was then engagedin, and which is now published, the edition of the Naal everpapyri first discovered by Yigael Yadin.2 As was characteristic ofLevine, this work had led him into far reaching, but related areasof Semitic and Greek papyrology, and it was thought that a con-ference on this subject would be an appropriate way of honoringhim on the occasion of his retirement.

The conference was meant to accomplish two major goals: First,we wanted to advance the cross-cultural aspect of research in thisfield, emphasizing specifically the relation of the various collectionsof Semitic papyri one to another and to the better known Greekmaterial. Second, we wanted to encourage and foster personal rela-tionships and scholarly cooperation between scholars working onthese diverse but in many ways related materials. The days we spenttogether more than justified the effort, as readers will see when theyread the various contributions to this volume. A summary of theresults of the conference and some personal reflections by BaruchLevine close the volume, and indicate the extent to which his ownwork in this field helped to form the conference agenda.

I wish to thank the contributors to this volume for their cooper-ation in the preparation of their presentations and papers. Andrew

1 R. Chazan, W.W. Hallo, L.H. Schiffman (eds), Ki Baruch Hu: Ancient Near Eastern,Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns,1999).

2 Y. Yadin, J.C. Greenfield, A. Yardeni, and B.A. Levine, The Documents from theBar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Hebrew, Aramaic and Nabatean-Aramaic Papyri( JDS 3; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society; Institute of Archaeology, HebrewUniversity; Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, 2002).


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Gross, Research Assistant at New York University, prepared the vol-ume for publication and compiled the index of sources with his usual

combination of both technical and scholarly acumen. Hans van derMeij and Patricia Radder of Brill Academic Publishers were kindenough to publish the volume, and in so doing to show once againBrills commitment to advancing scholarship on the ancient worldand its complex cultural interactions.

Lawrence H. Schiffman3 June 2002


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ABBREVIATIONS

For full bibliographic information on papyrus publications, the readeris often referred to J.F. Oates, R.S. Bagnall and others, Checklist ofEditions of Greek, Latin, Demotic and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca and Tablets(BASPSup 9; Oakville, CN: American Society of Papyrologists, 20015);

and in permanently updated form:.

AASOR Annual of the American Schools of Oriental ResearchABAW Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissen-

schaftenABD D.N. Freedman (ed.),Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York:

Doubleday, 1992).

ADAJ Annual of the Department of Antiquities of JordanAE LAnne pigraphiqueAfO Archiv fr OrientforschungAGJU Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des

UrchristentumsAIPHOS Annuaire de lInstitut de philologie er dhistoire orientales et slavesALAD G. Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the

Cambridge Genizah Collections(CUL Genizah series 10; Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der rmischen WeltAPBH W. Diem, Arabische Briefe auf Papyrus und Papier aus der

Heidelberger Papyrus-Sammlung: Textband (Wiesbaden: OttoHarrasowitz, 1991).

APK G. Khan,Bills, Letters and Deeds: Arabic Papyri of the 7th11thCenturies (London: Nour Foundation in association withAzimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1993).

APEL A. Grohmann,Arabic Papyri in the Egyptian Library (Cairo:Egyptian Library Press, 193474).

ARU J. Kohler and A. Ungnad, Assyrische Rechtsurkunden inUmschrift und Uebersetzung nebst einem Index der Personen-namen und Rechtserlauterungen (Leipzig: E. Pfeiffer, 1913).

AS Assyriological Studies


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x

ASAW Abhandlungen der Schsischen Akademie der Wissen-schaften

BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental ResearchBASPSup Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists: Sup-plement

BAR Biblical Archeological ReviewBE The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Penn-

sylvaniaBGU Aegyptische Urkunden aus den Kniglichen (later Staatlichen)

Museen zu Berlin, Griechische Urkunden (Berlin: Weidmann,

18951912) [see Checklist].Bib BiblicaBIDR Bullettino dellIstituto di Diritto romanoBM British MuseumBN Biblische NotizenBRM A.T. Clay, Babylonian Records in the Library of J. Pierpont

Morgan (New York, 191223).CAD The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University

of Chicago (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1956).Camb J.N. Strassmaier, Inschriften von Cambyses, Knig von Babylon(529521 v. Chr.) von den Thontafeln des Britischen Museums(Leipzig: Eduard Pfeiffer, 1890).

CdE Chronique dgypte, Bulletin priodique de la Fondation gyp-tologique Reine lisabeth

ChLA Chartae Latinae Antiquiores CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum

CJ Codex JustinianusCOS W.W. Hallo and K.L. Younger (eds), The Context ofScripture (Leiden: Brill, 19972002).

CPA A. Grohmann and R.G. Khoury, Chrestomathie de papyro-logie arabe: documents relatifs la vie prive, sociale et adminis-trative dans les premiers siecles islamiques(HO. Erste Abteilung,Nahe und der Mittlere Osten. Erganzungsband II, 2;Leiden/New York/Kln: Brill, 1993).

CPL (= C.Pap.Lat.) R. Cavenaile (ed.), Corpus Papyrorum Latinarum(Wiesbaden, 1958) [see Checklist].CRAI Compte Rendu de lAcadmie des inscriptions et belle-lettresCTN Cuneiform Texts from NimrudCUL Cambridge University LibraryDAWW Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissen-

schaften in Wien, Phil. Hist. Klasse. Vienna


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DC The Drower Collection of Mandean manuscripts in theBodleian Library, Oxford

DE Discussions in EgyptologyDJD Discoveries in the Judaean DesertDJPA M. Sokoloff,Dictionary Of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic(Ramat-

Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1990).DNP H. Cancik and H. Schneider (eds),Der neue Pauly: Enzy-

klopdie der Antike: Altertum (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1996).Drower & E.S. Drower and R. Macuch,A Mandaic Dictionary (Oxford:

Macuch Clarendon Press, 1963).

ENA Elkan Adler Collection at the Jewish Theological Seminaryof AmericaErIsr Eretz IsraelFIRA Fontes Iuris Romani Antejustiniani[see Checklist].GAG W. von Soden, Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik(Analecta

orientalia 33; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum,19953).

GM Gttinger Miszellen: Beitrge zur gyptologische Diskussion.

GttingenGOF Gttinger OrientforschungenHALAT L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, and J.J. Stamm, Hebrisches

und aramisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament (Leiden: Brill,196795).

HO Handbuch der OrientalistikHSM Harvard Semitic MonographsIEJ Israel Exploration Journal

IFAO Papyrus grecs de lInstitut Franais dArchologie Orientale. Cairo.(Institut Franais dArchologie Orientale du Caire. Bib-liothque dtude) [cf. P.IFAO in Checklist]

IG Inscriptiones Graecae ILS H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae(Berlin: Weidmann,

18921916).IstMitt Istanbuler MitteilungenJAC Jahrbuch fr Antike und Christentum

JAOS Journal of the American Oriental SocietyJastrow M. Jastrow,A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babliand Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature(New York: G.P.Putnam, 1903).

JBL Journal of Biblical LiteratureJCS Journal of Cuneiform StudiesJDS Judean Desert Studies


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JEA Journal of Egyptian ArchaeologyJJP Journal of Juristic Papyrology

JNES Journal of Near Eastern StudiesJQR Jewish Quarterly ReviewJRA Journal of Roman ArchaeologyJRASup Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement SeriesJRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic SocietyJRS Journal of Roman StudiesJSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement

Series

JSJ Journal for the Study of JudaismJSS Journal of Semitic StudiesKAJ E. Ebeling, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur juristischen inhalts(Leipzig:

J.C. Hinrichs, 1927).KT Kleine gyptische TexteKTU M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J. Sanmartin, Keilalphabetischen

Texte aus Ugarit(Alte Orient und Altes Testament 24/1;Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1976). 2nd

enlarged edition: The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit,Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places (KTU) (Abhandlungen zurLiteratur Alt-Syrien-Palastinas und Mesopotamiens 8;Mnster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995).

Le LeshonenuLexSyr C. Brockelmann, Lexicon Syriacum (Halle: Max Niemeyer,

19282; reprint, Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1995).LingAeg Lingua Aegyptia

LSJ H.G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H.S. Jones, A Greek-EnglishLexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 19969).MAOG Mitteilungen der Altorientalishen GesellschaftMDAIK Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archologischen Instituts: Abteilung

KairoMEF Y. Rib, Marchands dtoffes du Fayyoum au IIIe/IXesicle

dapres leurs archives (actes et lettres) (Cairo: Institut francaisdarcheologie orientale, 1985).

MRS Mission de Ras ShamraMur (= P. Murabba't)Wadi Murabba'at Papyri [see Checklist].Nbk J.N. Strassmaier, Inschriften von Nabuchodonosor, Knig von

Babylon (604561 v. Chr.) von den Thontafeln des BritischenMuseums (Leipzig: Eduard Pfeiffer, 1889).

Nbn J.N. Strassmaier, Inschriften von Nabonidus, Knig von Babylon


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(555538 v. Chr.) von den Thontafeln des Britischen Museums(Leipzig: Eduard Pfeiffer, 1889).

NJPS New Jewish Publication Society translationNovT Novum TestamentumNRV M. San Nicol and A. Ungnad, Neubabylonische Rechts-

und Verwaltungsurkunden (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 192935).NTOA Novum Testamentum et Orbis AntiquusOEANE E.M. Meyers (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in

the Near East(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).Or Orientalia (NS)

PAAJR Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish ResearchPIASH Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences andHumanities

P.Cair.Isid. The Archive of Aurelius Isidorus in the Egyptian Museum,Cairo, and the University of Michigan [see Checklist].

P.Flor. Papiri greco-egizii, Papiri Fiorentini [see Checklist].P.Hever (= Xev/Se) The Seiyl Collection [see Checklist].P.Lond. Greek Papyri in the British Museum [see Checklist].

P.Mich. Michigan Papyri [see Checklist].P.Oxy The Oxyrhynchus Papyri [see Checklist].P.Ryl. Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John

Rylands Library, Manchester [see Checklist].P.Tebt. The Tebtunis Papyri [see Checklist].P.Yadin (= P.Babatha = 5/6ev) Naal ever papyri [see

Checklist].PRU C.F.-A. Schaeffer and J. Nougayrol, Le Palais royal dUgarit

(Paris: Impr. nationale, 195565).P-S R. Payne-Smith,A Compendious Syriac dictionary: founded uponthe Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1903; reprint, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998).

PSI Papiri greci e latini (Pubblicazioni della Societ Italianaper la ricerca dei papiri greci e latini in Egitto; Florence:E. Ariani, 191229) [see Checklist].

RA Revue dAssyriologie

RB Revue Biblique Rd Revue dgyptologie RE J.J. Herzog (ed.), Realencyklopdie fr protestantische Theologie

und Kirche (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 18961913).RIDA Revue internationale des droits de lantiquitRSO Rivista degli studi orientali


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SAOC Studies in Ancient Oriental CivilizationsSAPKC G. Khan,Arabic Papyri: Selected Material from the Khalili Collec-

tion (London; New York: Nour Foundation in associationwith Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1992).SB Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Aegypten [see Checklist].SBLSymS Society of Biblical Literature Symposium SeriesSBLWAW Society of Biblical Literature Writings from the Ancient

WorldSCI Scripta Classica Israelica SEG Supplementum epigraphicum graecum

SJLA Studies in Jewish Law in AntiquitySTDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of JudahTAD B. Porten and A. Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents

from Ancient Egypt ( Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Dept.of the History of the Jewish People, 198999).

Tal A. Tal, A Dictionary of Samaritan Aramaic (HO; Leiden:Brill, 2000).

TCL Textes cuniformes du Louvre

ThWAT G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren, Theologisches Wrterbuchzum Alten Testament (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer 1970).TLOT E. Jenni (ed.), with assistance from C. Westmann, Theo-

logical Lexicon of the Old Testament (trans. M.E. Biddle;Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997).

TS Taylor Schechter Collection at Cambridge UniversityTSAJ Texte und Studien zum antiken JudentumVAB Vorderasiatische Bibliothek

VAS Vorderasiatische SchriftdenkmlerVAT Vorderasiatische TontafelsammlungWb. A. Erman und H. Grapo (eds), Wrterbuch der aegyptischen

Sprache (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 19824).W.Chr. (= Chrest.Wilck.) L. Mitteis and U. Wilcken, Grundzge

und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde (Leipzig-Berlin: B.G.Teubner, 1912) [see Checklist].

WDSP Wadi Daliyeh Samaritan Papyri

WZKM Wiener Zeitschrift fr die Kunde des MorganlandesYClS Yale Classical Studies YOS Yale Oriental SeriesZDPV Zeitschrift des deutschen Palstina-VereinsZPE Zeitschrift fr Papyrologie und Epigrafik


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ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SCRIPTSLITERARY,SACRED, AND PROFANE

Ogden Goelet, Jr.

Introduction: The Egyptian Systems of Writing

Since Egypt represents the geographical as well as the chronologi-cal margins of this conference, so to speak, if I were simply to pre-sent a well-illustrated sketch of Egyptian writing systems, many inthis audience would probably find that alone rather informative.Although I shall concentrate on those scripts found on papyri, I shallfirst provide a brief overview of the Egyptian writing system as awhole. At the same time there is another theme I wish to developtoday that reaffirms Egypts distinctive character, namely the closeconnection that always existed between Egyptian writing and mon-umentalitythe connection between papyrus and hard copy in itstruest and most literal meaninginscriptions on the stone surfacesof stelae, tombs, and temples. Stone inscriptions may seem at firstto take one far afield from a conference on papyrology, but it is fairto say that some parts of Egyptian writing systems were informedby an intimate workingrelationship between papyrus and monumen-tal writing. This integration of script and monument, inherent in thestrongly decorative character of the Egyptians scripts in all theirforms, was, in turn, intimately connected to their desire to maketexts and representations closely cohere as they tried to recreate thecosmos in tombs and temples. I hope to show one aspect of this,namely how books could act as substitutes for tombs as well as thereverse of the situationhow a tomb could become a book.

The Terminology of Egyptian Script Forms

One of the most interesting and accurate accounts in classical liter-ature of the Egyptian writing system comes from the early Christianauthor, Clement of Alexandria, in a passage describing the trainingof the literate Egyptians of the second century : . . . the men of


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1 Clement of Alexandria: Stromata V 4, 20, as quoted by R. Parkinson andS. Quirke, Papyrus (The Egyptian Bookshelf; London: The British Museum Press,1995) 29.

2 Illustrations of this object (BM EA 24) are far too common to list, but tworecent publications by the British Museum are particularly useful. For a discussionof the discovery of the Stone, its role in the decipherment of the hieroglyphs, aswell as its subsequent treatment and conservation, see R. Parkinson, Cracking Codes:The Rosetta Stone and Decipherment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999)1245, esp. Fig. 3 on p. 18, and Color Plate 1; a line-drawing restoration of theentire object appears in Fig. 8 on p. 26. S. Quirke and C. Andrews have produceda brief study which presents a full-size facsimile and line drawing of the objectalong with a translation of all three texts on the stela; see S. Quirke and C. Andrews,The Rosetta Stone: Facsimile Drawing with an Introduction and Translation (New York andLondon: British Museum Press, 1988).

3 The remark appears in line 14, the final line of the preserved hieroglyphic text,see Parkinson, Cracking Codes, 54, for an enlarged representation of this part of theinscription, supplemented by a transliteration and translation. The Demotic version(line 32) is similar, except that the term for the Greek language is translated asthe script of the Ionians. The Greek parallel (line 54) has tow te flerow ka gxvroiw

learning among the Egyptians learnt first of all that method of writ-ing called the epistolographic, and second the hieratic, which the

sacred scribes use, and then, last of all, the hieroglyphic.1

The evi-dence is strong that this situation was essentially true throughoutEgyptian history. Actually, Clement might have taken his narrativeone step further and added Greek to this picture, because, fromabout the middle of the Ptolemaic Dynasty onwards, many educatedEgyptians knew how to write Greek as well. I would like to exam-ine Clements statement a bit more in light of what prevailed at thetime when the Rosetta Stone was written, close to four centuries

earlier.The Rosetta Stone,2 which should really be called the MemphisDecree after the place where the document was probably first com-posed and published, is often described as a trilingual stela. Thisis not quite accurate. First of all, no version of the text could beproperly described as an accurate translation of the others. Secondly,the stela presents roughly the same text written in three differentscripts, but not in three languages. There are really only two unre-

lated tongues here, Greek and Egyptian, but the latter occurs in twodialects, each in its own script. This distinction is made explicitlyin the last line of the hieroglyphic text where it commands thatcopies of the decree are to be made on a hard stone stela in thewriting of the gods words (mdw nr), in the writing of letters, andin the script of the Aegeans.3 In fact, the scripts on the stela were


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3

inscribed in that same order that Decree requiredthe hieroglyphson top;4 in the middle was demotic, the script which Clement called

epistolographic; then, finally, Greek appears at the bottom. Theword demotic, the term most frequently employed, conveys wellthe middle scripts extensive employment in all aspects of daily life:letters, legal texts, decrees, and, eventually, literary documents too.Once demotic had been introduced in the early Twenty-sixth Dynastyc. 650 , the hieratic script, which had for centuries previouslybeen the primary means of communication among literate Egyptians,was thereafter rapidly relegated to what we might broadly describe

as the realm of religious and mortuary arcania: the Book of theDead, the so-called magico-medico papyri, hymns and prayers, etc.In that sense, Clements term hieratic, i.e., priestly, was quiteaccurate at the time he was writing. Hieratic had long since becomean esoteric form of writing used almost exclusively by priests andscribes for copying out religious documents on papyri. In keepingwith the theme of this conference, I shall focus primarily on hier-atic long before it became such a fossilized script, as well as on hier-

atics half-brother, so to speak, the cursive hieroglyphs.By contrast, the term hieroglyphs had always been essentiallyaccuratethe translation of the Greek term, sacred writing, is agood description of a script which may have had the widest rangeof use, but was distinctly preferred when it came to religious texts,i.e., for tombs, temples, stelae, and other inscriptionalmaterial, in theliteral sense. The term used in the Memphis Decree for the hiero-glyphs, mdw nr the words of the god,5 reveals much about the

Egyptians attitude towards this script and had been used to describethe most pictorial form of the language for centuries before thePtolemies. It is striking that even at this late stage, there was still aform of Egyptian that was written with rather concrete signs. Althoughit would be inaccurate to call the hieroglyphs picture writing, never-theless their connection with pictures was never lost. The pictures

ka Ellhnikow grmmasin in sacred and native and Greek characters; see Quirkeand Andrews, The Rosetta Stone, 22, with the accompanying original-size reproduc-tion of the stela.

4 The Egyptian term used here for the hieroglyphs, mdw-nr, might be better lit-erally rendered into Greek as theoglyphos, than as hieroglyphos. For a recon-struction of the Rosetta Stone, see Parkinson, Cracking Codes, 26 (Fig. 8).

5 Wb. 2.180, 15181, 6; this was occasionally replaced by the expression mdt-nrafter Dyn. 18, see Wb. 2.182, 5.


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underlying the hieroglyphs, furthermore, had a distinctly decorativenature which meant that art and language were basically insepara-

ble in the Egyptian mind, whence the strong association betweenthe hieroglyphic script and monumentality which shall be anothertheme in my presentation. Because of that association, the hiero-glyphs never underwent an extensive abstraction of their underlyingforms as happened with cuneiform. Formal abstraction was confinedto hieratic and demotic. Although we have now covered the basicrelationship between the Egyptian script forms and sketched theirdevelopment, a most important factor is missing from this brief his-

torical overview.Any attempt to explain under what circumstances one or anotherof the various Egyptian script forms were used must take accountofregister. Register is a term used to describe the variety of languageemployed according to such social factors as class and context. Forexample, the way in which people speak and write in academic dis-course, in religious contexts, or in legal documents are all consider-ably different from each other and different from how those same

individuals might speak in their daily lives. Each situation representsa different register. Furthermore, in Egypt different registers of speechhad preferences for different scripts and, occasionally, even differentdialects as well. At the risk of stating the obvious, I would like toemphasize that in the case of ancient Egypt, register is closely relatedto the context in which a text is physically located as well as to thetype of surface on which it is found, that is, a tomb vs. a temple;papyrus vs. stone stela.6 Furthermore, the choice of script and sur-

face often combine in such as way as to provide us with valuableinsights into the Egyptians attitude towards a given text. Certainly,such considerations played a similar role elsewhere in the ancientNear East. An example which immediately comes to mind wouldbe the Prologue and the Epilogue of the Hammurapi Stela whichemploy the so-called Hymnic-Epic dialect of Akkadian that is dis-tinct from the dialect used for the laws of the Codex proper. Never-theless, I believe that register had a much more influential role in Egypt,

largely because of the wider varieties of script forms available.

6 For a good introduction to the influence of context on the form of script andother stylistic issues, see H.G. Fischer, Archaeological Aspects of Epigraphy andPalaeography, Ancient Egyptian Epigraphy and Palaeography (H.G. Fischer and R.A.Caminos; New York: Metropolitan Museum Press, 19792) 2950.


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The Creation of Papyrus Documents

The complexity of the interrelationship between text and register isperhaps best seen in the factors which influenced the production ofliterary, religious, and documentary papyri of the New Kingdomwhen the art of writing reached its full flower. Papyrus and writingon papyrus seem to have been Egyptian inventions, going back tothe earliest days of Egyptian historythat is, history in its very nar-row sense of written texts. A sheet of uninscribed papyrus wasfound in a First Dynasty tomb where it had presumably been put

at the deceaseds disposal for use in the afterlife. Sporadic findsthroughout the Old Kingdom attest to the fact that papyrus quicklybecame the primary means of writing letters and keeping officialadministrative documents during the Old Kingdom.7 Thus, right atthe beginnings of Egyptian writing there developed a division betweenthe monumental and funerary registers, represented by hieroglyphs,and the documentary and literary registers, represented by hieratic.

Despite the abundance of the papyrus plant in Egypt and the per-

vasive use of papyri, the Egyptians themselves have, ironically, leftno description of how it was made, perhaps because that may havebeen a trade secret.8 Several competing theories have been put forthas to how strips offibrous material were peeled away from the stalkof the plant and treated. The details of papyrus technology as wellas the pros and cons of the various proposals are fascinating, butshall not concern us here. What is more to the point is the man-ner in which these strips were handled in forming sheets. First, strips

of papyrus fiber were laid down on top of each other at right angles,the join most likely relying only on the natural mucilage in thepapyrus itself. Once the sheets had been formed, dried, then bleachednaturally in the sunlight, scrolls were made by pasting sheets togetherso that fibers ran horizontally on the top inner surface of the roll.9

7 During the Old Kingdom there were some rare examples of clay tablets usedfor writing, see G. Soukiassian, A Governors Palace at 'Ayn Asil, Dakhla Oasis,Egyptian Archaeology 11 (1997) 17. These rare objects were found at Balat in theDakhla Oasis where papyrus may have been rather hard to come by. The textswere incised in cursive hieroglyphs by means of a wooden stylus, reminiscent ofthe manner in which Mesopotamian texts were executed.

8 For a description and history of the manufacture of papyrus, see Parkinson andQuirke, Papyrus, 23, esp. 1316.

9 Three suggestions for cutting the stem of the papyrus plant and the method of


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Let us now examine how register made its influence felt. Normally,when the Egyptians wished to write a religious or literary text, sheets

were cut out from the roll and inscribed so that the text ran hori-zontally along with the fibers. Of course, this practice varied overthe course of time. From the Old Kingdom to the late Middle King-dom, for example, most texts were written in vertical columns run-ning down the sheet. At all periods the script employed on papyriwas overwhelmingly hieratic. The major exception, the so-called cur-sive hieroglyphs, I shall discuss along with my treatment of theBook of the Dead shortly. However, for reasons we do not under-

standthere does not seem to be any practical reasona scribewishing to write a letter or official document turned his roll 90, cutoffa sheet, and then wrote his text normally in horizontal rows, butwith the fibers now running vertically to the text.10 Thus, with achange of register from literary to official, the papyrus underwent adifferent orientation offiber to writing direction at the same time.

In addition, there was an accompanying switch in dialects. Althoughthe difference between the grammar and vocabulary of everyday let-

ters and that found in religious and literary texts was not particu-larly great at first, by the late Eighteenth Dynasty, the language ofdaily business and the language of religious-literary writing haddiverged rather sharply. This distinction, moreover, was maintainedin inscribed materialstexts on stelae, tombs, and temple walls essen-tially follow the diction of the literary-religious papyri. That registerutilized a dialect both archaic and synthetic which is conventionallycalled late Middle Egyptian, a dialect whose artificiality was increased

by its frequent association with hieroglyphic text, whether cursive orfully-formed.11 Since late Middle Egyptian was more or less divorcedfrom the speech of everyday life, it probably took on a quality thatthe churchy and antiquated English of the King James Bible has

forming the sheets from the resulting sheets are illustrated in Parkinson and Quirke,Papyrus, 14 Fig. 4.

10 Convenient illustrations of the relationship between the direction of writing andthe fiber arrangement on papyri can be found in F. Junge, Einfhrung in die Grammatikdes Neugyptischen (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 19992) 2324.

11 A summary of the characteristics of the various stages of the late MiddleEgyptian and where it fits within the development of the Late Egyptian dialect inparticular appears along with a helpful table in Junge, Neugyptischen, 21. Moredetailed expositions of this subject have been presented by J.-M. Kruchten, FromMiddle Egyptian to Late Egyptian, LingAeg6 (1999) 197 and K. Jansen-Winkeln,Diglossie und Zweisprachigkeit im alten gypten, WZKM85 (1995) 85115.


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to the ears of modern Americans. The dialect that came to be em-ployed in official documents and letters is known as Late Egyptian

and was presumably fairly close to popular speech. Eventually thegap between the language of papyri and that of stelae and monu-ments closed considerably, with literary manuscripts, at least, adopt-ing many features of Late Egyptian. Nevertheless, even then, literaryLate Egyptian and documentary Late Egyptian retained enough gram-matical, orthographic, and phraseological distinctions so that, thoughthey became closer, they still represented clearly distinct registers.

At this juncture, one can add yet another aspect of register to our

portrait of ancient Egyptian writing, especially when dealing withpapyri. When texts are still living entities undergoing constant change,we can speak of them as belonging to a productive stage. Onemight say that the Coffin Texts, for example, with their many localvariants and constantly changing repertoire, always remained in theproductive stage of textual development. With the passage of time,however, there was a pronounced tendency for some texts such asliterary classics or religious materialthe Book of the Dead, for exam-

pleto be produced primarily in the form of increasingly canonicalcopies, at which point we can speak of them existing in a reproduc-tive mode only.12 Needless to say, the same terminology could beapplied fruitfully to texts elsewhere in the ancient Near East.

For a practical example of how such aspects of register can havea significant import when considering the nature of even familiartexts, I would like to discuss a work well-known to most who havestudied the ancient Near EastThe Tale of Wenamun. This text

narrates the misfortunes of an Egyptian official conducting businessalong the Syro-Palestian coast at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty.The standard hieroglyphic text edition used by me and all othersteaching Late Egyptian appears in Gardiners Late Egyptian Stories.The papyrus itself is derived from a single copy, which, on bothpaleographic and archaeological grounds, is most likely to be dated

12 We owe the distinction between the productive and reproductive, whichis fundamental for our conception of the mechanisms of the transmission and can-onization of texts, to J. Assmann, Egyptian Solar Religion in the New Kingdom: Re, Amunand the Crisis of Polytheism (trans. A. Alcock; New York and London: Kegan PaulInternational, 1995) 111. The Book of the Dead of the Saite Period, when boththe text and the order of the chapters became fairly canonical, would represent anideal example of the reproductive stage of a genre.


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in the Twenty-first Dynasty. Wenamun, however, is markedly differentin both its grammatical style and its choice of vocabulary from all

the rest of the works in the volume, so much so, in fact that it wasemployed as a major source for the erny-Groll, Late Egyptian Grammar,a textbook focussed on the documentary register of Late Egyptian.13

There is, furthermore, another aspect of this papyrus which indi-cates even more strongly that the Tale of Wenamun is neitherfictitious nor truly literary in nature. I am referring here to the man-ner in which the papyrus has been inscribed. As erny pointed out,the papyrus sheets of Wenamun, unlike those of every single other

work in Gardiners Late Egyptian Stories, have their fibers running atright angles to the text, that is, like a typical official document.14

The Wenamun papyrus is, in fact, one of a group of three papyriprobably found together at el-Hibe, all evidentially the product ofa single scribal school, judging by the strong similarity in thehieratic handwriting of these manuscripts. The other two papyridemonstrateas the so-called Moscow Literary Letter shows15theiraffinity to the literary-religious register not only by their content and

grammar, but also by their non-documentary orientation of text andfibers. Taken together, this evidence suggests that the Tale ofWenamun, highly colorful though the narrative may seem at points,was in every respect conceived written out as an actual official report,and, therefore, it should be credited with greater accuracy concern-ing contemporary conditions than is sometimes done.16

13J. erny and S.I. Groll,A Late Egyptian Grammar (Studia Pohl. Series Maior 4;Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute Press, 19943).

14 See the illustration of the papyri in M.A. Korostovstev, Puteshestvie Un-Amuna vBibl; Egipetskii ieraticheskii papirus no. 120 Gosudarst. Muzeia . . . im A.S. Pushkina(PamiatnikiLiteratury Narodov Vostoka, Teksty. Bolshaia Seriia 4; Moscow: Akademija naukSSSR, 1960) Pl. 1 where one can clearly distinguish between the fiber direction ofthe end-strengthening strip and the body of the papyrus itself.

15 R. Caminos,A Tale of Woe from a Hieratic Papyrus in the A.S. Pushkin Museum ofFine Arts in Moscow (Oxford: Griffith Institute. Ashmolean Museum Press, 1977) Pl.3 shows clearly that the direction of the text and those of the fibers coincide.

16 Whether this work represents a later copy of an actual official document orwhether it is a literary work, pure and simple, has been the source of considerablecontroversy ever since the work was discovered. Three recent studies present manyof the arguments pro and con, see J. Baines, On Wenamun as a Literary Text,Literatur und Politik im pharaonischen und ptolemischen gypten: Vortrge der Tagung zumGedenken an Georges Posener, 5.10. September 1996 in Leipzig (eds J. Assmann andE. Blumenthal; Bibliothque dtude 127; Cairo: Institut Franais dArchologie Orien-


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For another example of how a close examination of register canadd to our appreciation of how a text may have been perceived by

its ancient audience, I would like to discuss briefly a remarkable doc-ument that has entertained and fascinated both myself and our dis-tinguished honoree, Professor Levine, for several years in a mostproductive joint project. I am referring here to the Akkadian andEgyptian versions of the Peace Treaty between Ramesses II andHattuili III.17 Since the Egyptian version was inscribed in hiero-glyphs in at least two temples and since the text invokes many deitiesas witnesses, one might expect that it would adhere strictly to the

religious-literary register. A detailed examination of the grammar andvocabulary, however, surprisingly revealed that the Treaty actuallyclosely conforms to the conventions of the Late Egyptian official anddocumentary register. It fact, it conforms to the diction and gram-mar of documentary Late Egyptian to a much greater extent thanmost contemporary papyri from the Nineteenth Dynasty.18 By avoid-ing the archaic diction of Middle Egyptian religious texts and insteadopting for the more colloquial documentary register, those inscrib-

ing the text would have deliberately made the Treaty far more acces-sible to the average educated Egyptian of the age. Such measureswould surely help publish and broadcast, so to speak, the newsthat the two great rival powers of the age were now in a state ofamity. The choice of the documentary register also enhanced theTreatys connection to certain aspects of those phenomena knownas popular religion and personal piety, but a closer examinationof those points would take us too far afield today.

tale, 1999) 20933 and C.J. Eyre, Irony in the Story of Wenamun: The Politicsof Religion in the 21st Dynasty, Literatur und Politik im pharaonischen und ptolemischengypten, 23552; P. Vernus, Langue littrare et diglossie,Ancient Egyptian Literature:History and Forms(ed. A. Loprieno; Probleme der gyptologie 10; Leiden: Brill, 1996)56061.

17 O. Goelet and B. Levine, Making Peace in Heaven and on Earth: Religiousand Legal Aspects of the Treaty between Ramesses II and Hattuili III,Boundariesof the Ancient Near Eastern World: A Tribute to Cyrus H. Gordon (eds M. Lubetsky et al.;JSOTSup 273; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998) 25299.

18 For a discussion of the Late Egyptian dialectal features of the Treaty, seeGoelet and Levine, Making Peace, 25862.


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Religious Texts and their Scripts

I shall now return to a vast genre of Egyptian papyri, the myriadexemplars of the Book of the Dead, and examine aspects of regis-ter as well as the intricate relationship between papyri and monu-ments in ancient Egypt. I begin by expanding on a remark that Imade while sketching the place of hieratic within the Egyptian writ-ing system. It was, I noted, related to yet another form of scriptemployed on papyrithe cursive hieroglyphs.19 As far as their formsare concerned, cursives occupy a position between hieratic and hiero-

glyphs and were developed primarily for use on papyri.20

The firstdefinitive examples may have occurred not on papyri, but rather onthe walls of a few Old Kingdom tombs, such as portions of theinscriptions and decoration from the Sixth Dynasty tomb of Kai-emankh at Giza.21 Although most of the walls of the chamber wherethis scene appears were decorated with representations of everydaylife and ornate colored hieroglyphs so characteristic of tombs ofimportant officials during the Old Kingdom, for some reason the

decoration was not completed in the portion of the tombs under-ground chamber where the cursives appear. If we consider the inten-tion for using cursive hieroglyphs along with the strange stick-figurepeople, one quickly understands that the cursive writing and figureswere meant as sketchy substitutes for normal tomb dcor. Similarly,one sometimes encounters unfinished spots in tombs where cursivehieroglyphs have been used as the next-to-last stage before the actual

19 The relationship between various grades of script forms ranging from thehigh prestige, elaborately painted or sculpted forms used primarily in tomb inscrip-tions, outline forms for inscriptions on carved inscriptions on stelae, abbreviatedand cursive forms for papyri and occasionally stone, and finally hieratic for papyriprimarily for documentary purposes, is well-illustrated in Fischer, ArchaeologicalAspects of Epigraphy and Palaeography, 41 Fig 4. A brief summary of under whatcircumstances the cursive hieroglyphs were used can be found in the same work,pp. 4042 and in a recent study.

20 One of the first examples of cursive hieroglyphs, however, was on the walls ofthe hypogeum in a Sixth Dynasty tomb at Giza; see H. Junker, GizaIV (DAWW;Vienna and Leipzig: Hlder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1940). For discussion of the cursivehieroglyphs and how they were used, see Parkinson and Quirke, Papyrus, 2428;Fischer, Archaeological Aspects of Epigraphy and Palaeography, 3945; M.S. Ali,Die Kursivhieroglyphen: Eine palographische Betrachtung, GM180 (2001) 921.

21Junker, GizaIV pls 9, 10. The scenes in the rest of the chamber are not onlycomplete, but in places they are colorfully executed, compare, for example, ColorPlate VIII.


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carving of the final inscription as was done in the unfinished tombof King Horemheb in the Valley of the Kings, a graphic indication

of their position in the hierarchy of Egyptian scripts.22

A somewhatdifferent attitude underlies the occasional appearance of cursive hiero-glyphs on Old Kingdom documentary papyri, but in this instancemoving, so to speak, in the opposite direction by supplying formsthat were larger, fuller, and more formal as the labels for moreabstract forms of the hieratic alongside, a usage which occurs asearly as the Abusir papyri in Dynasties VVI.23 In this case, it isclear by the relationship of cursive to hieratic script that this is a

conscious imitation of the format of a hieroglyphic royal decree ona stone stela. Comparing these two examples we can sense otheraspects of the relationship between the cursive hieroglyphs and hier-atic scriptin their essence the cursive hieroglyphs retained the dec-orative and monumental associations of hieroglyphs, whereas hieraticwas intended for documentation. Generally speaking, those forms ofwriting that were more detailed, more costly, and harder to executewere at the same time the more prestigious, adding a dimension of

expense to the question of register. Cost played a similar role in afew instances where inked cursive hieroglyphs were used because asection of a stone surface was considerably harder than elsewhereand therefore more expensive to carve as well. Finally, I would liketo note that at this stage in Egypts history, there was a strong ten-dency for texts to be written in vertical columns, a practice that wasslowly abandoned in favor of the linear, horizontal format preferredfrom the end of the Middle Kingdom onwards.

These factors all play a role in the development of the religioustexts which preceded and influenced the Book of the DeadtheCoffin Texts. As their very name implies, these texts appeared eitherincised or inked on the inside surfaces of Middle Kingdom coffins,separated from the more ornamental inscriptions such as the offer-ing formulae, the frise dobjets, or offering tables.24 The script form

22 E. Hornung, Das Grab des Haremhab im Tal der Knige (Bern: Francke Verlag,1971) Pl. 37 a, b.

23 P. Posener-Kriger and J.-L. de Cenival, The Abusir Papyri (Hieratic Papyri inthe British Museum, Fifth Series; London: British Museum Press, 1968) in manyof the larger accounts papyri, e.g., pls 13.

24 A great deal has been written on coffins and coffin decoration in the periodbetween the First Intermediate Period to the New Kingdom. For a survey of this


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overwhelmingly chosen for the Coffin Texts themselves was cursivehieroglyphs, partly because of the wooden surface on which they

were written and partly because during the Middle Kingdom thatscript had become increasingly associated with religious or, moregenerally speaking, arcane material, such as the medico-magic textsfrom the Ramesseum,25 a collection of short hymns to the god Sobekfrom the same archive,26 and a royal ritual papyrus. A large pro-portion of the papyri employing cursive hieroglyphs exhibit two otherfeatures which had been adopted by those inscribing the Coffin Texts:they were written in the increasingly antiquated columnar fashion

and their texts were written in a retrogradedirection. The last remarkrequires a bit of explanation. Although Egyptian hieroglyphs may bewritten from left-to-right or right-to-left depending, among other fac-tors, on the exigencies of decoration, the flow of the text normallyproceeded against the direction in which the characters faced.27 Theright-to-left direction so greatly predominated that we can considerthis the canonical direction of Egyptian writing. In a retrogradeinscription, however, the text ran in the same direction in which the

hieroglyphs faced, effectively backwards from the Egyptian point-of-view. Both hieratic and demotic characters, incidentally, not onlyalways face towards the right, but they also always read from rightto left when written in horizontal rows.

topic with many helpful illustrations showing the placement the Coffin Texts inrelation to other components of coffin decoration, see G. Lapp, Die Entwicklungder Srge von der 6. bis zur 13. Dynastie, The World of the Coffin Texts: Proceedingson the Occasion of the 100th Birthdays of Adriaan de Buck, Leiden, December 1719, 1992(ed. H. Willems; Egyptologische Uitgaven 9; Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor hetNabije Oosten, 1996) 7399.

25 A.H. Gardiner, The Ramesseum Payri: Plates (Oxford: Griffith Institute at theUniversity Press, 1955) pls 1517; 2226.

26 A.H. Gardiner, Hymns to Sobek in a Ramesseum Papyrus, Rd11 (1957)4356.

27 The significance and origins of the practice of using retrograde writing onpapyri is problematic. Retrograde writing was certainly not confined to the Bookof the Dead, nor was it a necessity in that corpus, since many early copies of the

work did not employ it, see A. Niwinski, The Problem of Retrograde Writing andthe Direction of Reading of the Book of the Dead in the New Kingdom, Studieson the Illustrated Theban Funerary Papyri of the 11th and 10th Centuries BC (OBO 86;Freiburg: Universittsverlag; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989) 1317 andM.A. Chegodaev, Some Remarks Regarding the So-called Retrograde Directionof Writing in the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, DE35 (1996) 1924.


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In any case, one might ask why one would deliberately strive forthe arcane and archaic? To answer that question, one must bear in

mind that often in the ancient world and especially in Egypt, thedistant, near-mythical past could confer much validity on the activ-ities of the here-and-now. Unlike our modern sensibility wherein thatwhich is most modern and cutting-edge is assumed to be, perforce,intrinsically superior, the Egyptians revered the days of yore andpast forms. A constantly recurring theme in Egyptian texts involvesthe king or a high official researching through ancient records inorder to reestablish the ideas and practices of the glorious past. A

wonderful example of this mentality is supplied by the Twenty-fifthDynasty monarch, Shabako, who told offinding an ancient papyrusin a temple and inscribing it on a stela even though it had beeneaten through by worms.28 The text on this stela, known as theMemphite Theology, was long thought to derive from a genuine OldKingdom source until F. Junges careful examination demonstratedenough peculiarities to reveal its real nature as a pious forgery com-missioned by Shabako.29 Thus, the rather dubious tradition of cre-

ating faked antiques can be added to the long list of ancient Egyptscontributions to human heritage. Returning now to the Coffin Texts,we can see that the script and its retrograde direction predominantlyemployed in these spells was intended to convey an aura of greatantiquity and authenticity even though they most likely had beencomposed fairly recently. In addition, the use of cursive hieroglyphsmade these texts more prestigious, an especially important consid-eration for most of the coffin owners who could not afford the great

expense of a rock-cut tomb or a stone mastaba any more than mywife and I would be able to afford the original antique on whichour dining room table is based.

The Book of the Dead and Its Production

In my sketch of the Book of the Dead which now follows, there are,

to be sure, numerous exceptions, but my remarks hold true for28 Parkinson and Quirke, Papyrus, 7475, with Fig. 52 which shows the portion

of the inscription mentioning the worms.29 F. Junge, Zur Frhdatierung des sog. Denkmal memphitischer Theologie,

MDAIK29 (1973) 195204.


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around eighty per cent of the corpus before the Third IntermediatePeriod. When discussing Book of the Dead manuscripts, it is impor-

tant to bear in mind first that these manuscripts were essentially bur-ial equipment produced in funerary workshops, then placed in thecoffin. In this respect, the Egyptians anticipated a scribal traditionlater prevalent throughout the Near East, ancient and modern, bydeveloping a system of copying and producing illustrated religiousmanuscripts for an elite clientele. In fact, the methods and somedetails of the division of labor adopted by the scribal workshopsseems to have roughly paralleled the techniques used in the manu-

facture of coffins and tombs.30

The scribes who worked on thesepapyri, much like their artisanal counterparts, developed specialties.Some men were particularly good at the artwork which comprisedthe vignettes; other scribes were essentially scriveners who copiedtexts with varying, often lamentable, degrees of accuracy. Just astombs were decorated, different sections of a Book of the Deadscroll might be illustrated by different teams who eventually met atsome point. Of course, the ability simply to paste parts of an entire

papyrus together was very much easier than teams working side-by-side in the cramped quarters of a tomb. Once again we can see thesubtle interaction of papyrus and monumental text in the Egyptianmind.

The lovely papyrus of Ani (BM 10470) is a particularly fine exam-ple of such workshop manuscripts, especially since it was originallymade as a template papyrus and shows distinct traces of a teameffort.31 At the last moment, the number of sheets that this mans

30 For example, H. Milde, The Vignettes in the Book of the Dead of Neferrenpet (Egypt-ologische Uitgaven 7; Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1991)23940, has noted certain stylistic and thematic similarities between the Book of theDead of a certain Neferrenpet and the contemporary tomb of Queen Nefertari,presumably because the scribes who composed the document were familiar with thetomb.

31 The composite nature of this papyrus has been overlooked in a recent study ofthe Ani Papyrus by T.G.H. James, Vignettes in the Papyrus of Ani, Colour and Paint-ing in Ancient Egypt (ed. W.V. Davies; London: British Museum Press, 2001) 14144. For a brief discussion of the physical composition of this papyrus, see O. Goelet,A Commentary on the Corpus of Literature and Traditions which Constitutes TheBook of Going Forth by Day, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth byDay (ed. E. von Dassow; San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1994) 142 and manyother remarks in the descriptions of the plates on pp. 15470. There were perhapsas many as five different scribes at work on this papyrus and at least two separatevignette artists. The non-uniformity of the papyrus colored borders provides another


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family could afford were pasted together, and his name and titlesinserted in the blank spaces. Even a cursory examination of photo-

graphic reproductions reveals the distinctively cruder and clumsierhand of one of those delegated to fill in the names. There are sev-eral instances where the space for the name was inadvertently leftblank. In another instance the scribe even misspelled Anis name ina critical episode of his afterlife.32 I have identified as many as fiveseparate hands at work on Anis scroll.

This would be a good juncture to make a few brief remarks onidentifying both hieroglyphic and hieratic hands. Especially when

one is dealing with workshop- and school-connected materials,identification of individual scribal hands should be done with thegreatest of caution.33 Under these circumstances, scribes closely trainedother apprentice scribes to closely imitate their own book hand.The situation is perhaps best understood by considering the unnat-ural and studied hands exemplified by the modern uncial or italiccalligraphy used today for wedding announcements, formal procla-mations, and the like.34 These modern calligraphic hands, significantly,

closely imitate Mediaeval or Renaissance models.35

The result is hand-writing that can be uncannily similar from document to document,largely because the texts are written in an artificial script far removedfrom ones daily life and work. Drawing from this analogy, one wish-ing to identify individual hands on ancient documents is thereforeadvised to seek out the most common signs and most frequent words,those which the scribe was apt to write unconsciously and with thegreatest fluidity.

tell-tale sign in this respect. I hope to publish a more extensive description of themanufacture of the Ani Papyrus at some point soon in the future.

32 See Goelet, Book of the Dead, pl. 4 over the figure of the standing Ani.33 A note of caution should be injected here concerning attempts to identify var-

ious scribal hands in light of the fact that scribes tend to develop a style of hand-writing based on the person who taught them, see J.J. Janssen, On Style in EgyptianHandwriting, JEA 73 (1987) 16167. A careful, model approach towards the useof identifiable hieratic hands can be found in H. Van den Berg and K. Donkervan Heel, A Scribes Cache from the Valley of Queens? The Palaeography ofDocuments from Deir el-Medina: Some Remarks,Deir el-Medina in the Third MillenniumAD: A Tribute to Jac.J. Janssen (eds R.J. Demare and E. Egberts; Leiden: NederlandsInstituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2000) 949.

34 J. Smith, Creative Calligraphy (New York: Lorenz Books, 1998) 59 and manyother places in this work.

35 Smith, Creative Calligraphy, 43.


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The fact that many ancient manuscripts were to a certain degreemass-produced does not mean that they could not also be of the

highest aesthetic quality. Textual accuracy, unfortunately, was seem-ingly of much lesser importance. By combining the methods of tex-tual criticism, art history, and paleography, it is possible to createwhole family trees of related manuscripts, perhaps representingworkshops.36 This is not to say, however, that many Book of theDead papyri were not made to order, but these too would havebeen produced by specialiststhis was the reproductive modeparexcellance.

Whether they were template manuscripts or specifically commis-sioned works, almost every Book of the Dead was an exercise inartificiality and produced by men who specialized in such works.These scribes were basically copyists who were often working withimperfect master editions. The artificiality began with the very scrollsthemselves. By the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty, a typical Bookof the Dead scroll, unlike a business, or even a literary papyrus,unrolled towards the right, with the columns of text moving in the

same directionfrom left to right. It was, thus, a completely back-wards, or even an upside-down, roll of papyrus. Metaphorically, how-ever, the Book of the Dead and its writing was imitating the backwardsworld of the underworld, theDuat, through which the sun was mov-ing from West to East towards rebirth at sunrise, counter to its direc-tion in the visible world of the living. The Book of the Dead tendedpredominantly to be written with cursive hieroglyphs in columnarformat, had retrograde text for the most part, and used the archaic,

classical Middle Egyptian. This assemblage of peculiarities should notsurprise us since the Book of the Dead spells were in many ways aderivation of the Coffin Texts and imitated the manner in whichthe latter had been inscribed. In almost every aspect, Book of theDead papyri represented the mirror image of the standard scribalenvironment. Normally, a scribe would write predominantly in thebusiness-official register, i.e., essentially contemporary Late Egyptian,would employ hieratic written horizontally, his script would flow

from right to left, and his scroll would unroll leftwards.

36 See, for example, the studies of U. Rssler-Khler on Chapter 17, Kapitel 17des gyptischen Totenbuches: Untersuchungen zur Textgeschichte und Funktion eines Textes deraltgyptischen Totenliteratur(GOF 10; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1979) and idem,Sargtextspruch 335 und seine Tradierung, GM163 (1998) 7193.


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Even if one comes close to making an argument from silence bysaying so, it may well be that a Book of the Dead was often pur-

chased as a substitute for a tomb and elaborate burial equipmentfor those who could not afford one of those elaborate cliff-tombs weso much associate with New Kingdom Thebes.37 Virtually none ofthe lengthy and elaborate manuscripts preserved from the NewKingdom can be traced back to those famous tombs. The layoutand content of an average manuscript, furthermore, recalled severalaspects of an elaborate burial in a tomb. Many papyri began witha depiction of an elaborate funeral procession and the final cere-

monies at the tomb entrance.38

Additionally, near the beginning ofthese papyri are hymns to the rising and setting sun, and to Osiris,closely paralleling those which appear near the entrance of a typi-cal New Kingdom tomb, and the Opening of the Mouth Ceremony,so important to the effectuation of the tomb and its contents. Inaddition, papyri normally contain chapters not only concerned withnumerous funerary amulets, but the entire set-up of a well-appointedburial chamber as well. Finally, at the end of the scroll there was

often a depiction of the very purpose of the Book of the Dead, whosetitle in Egyptian was the far cheerier The Chapters of Emergingby Day, the deceaseds spirit coming forth from the tomb into thedaylight. All this for individuals who probably were not tomb own-ers. I might add that papyri sometimes incorporate elements of con-temporary tomb design such as the two-colored bands which likewiseappear at the top and bottom of the walls. A Book of the Deadcould supply, then, many features of a tomb and an elaborate bur-

ial and was certainly vastly cheaper.The connection between tomb and papyrus can be seen in themost elaborate funerary monuments of allthe royal tombs of theNew Kingdom. There, too, the texts, stated explicitly to be bookswritten by the gods themselves, frequently employed both columnartexts and cursive hieroglyphs, and with the retrograde directionpredominating, all certainly in a deliberate imitation of the papyrus

37 For two views of this problem, see H. Beinlich, Das Totenbuch bei Tutan-chamun, GM102 (1988) 718 and H. Guksch, Totenbuchpapyrus vs. Grabeigaben,GM104 (1988) 8990.

38 A complete study of this chapter of the Book of the Dead has been made byB. Lscher, Totenbuch Spruch 1 nach Quellen des Neuen Reiches(KT; Wiesbaden: Harras-sowitz Verlag, 1986).


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originals.39 Also, like the Middle Kingdom ritual papyrus mentionedearlier, these scenes were accompanied by stick figures. This mode

of illustration may all seem quite peculiar, given that the pharaohcould unquestionably afford the most elaborate and expensive formsof decoration, until one considers that, to the Egyptian mind, divinelyauthored books would most likely follow such archaic practices. Also,note the predominantly yellow tone of the background of these royalafterlife scenes, quite unlike the standard white of the walls of a con-temporary private tomb in the Theban necropolis. These ancientbooks on the walls have been painted to imitate deliberately the yel-

low of an old papyrus, just the same tone as Anis Book of the Deadhas naturally turned over the millennia since its manufacture.40 Anispapyrus is to some degree a book imitating a tomb, but in the royaltombs we have the reversethe tomb as ancient book. Once more,we encounter the Egyptian love of the false antique.

Some Closing Notes on Scribal Training

The studied and anachronistic nature of both royal tomb decora-tion and the Book of the Dead lead me to some closing observa-tions on scribal training and the significance of an important genreof inscribed objects in the New Kingdom. The royal necropolis work-ers at Thebes lived in the special village of Deir el-Medina, a sitewhich has yielded a great number of hieratic school ostraca, writ-ing tablets, and didactic papyri that offer insights into the way young

scribes learnt their trade. Although this material dates primarily tothe Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties, a high proportion of thehieratic ostraca in particulara cheap and disposable mediumcontain passages from the great literary texts of the Middle Kingdom,composed several hundred years before. Considering that they weresupposedly written primarily for instructional purposes, the scripthands on the vast preponderance of these ostraca show little evi-dence of the awkward characters which one might expect under

39 E. Hornung, Tal der Knige: Die Ruhesttte der Pharaonen (Zurich and Munich:Artemis Verlag, 19832) pls 95108, among many others illustrated in this work. Theyellow color is distinct.

40 Quirke and Parkinson, Papyrus, Color Plate V; also the Book of the Deadpapyrus of Amenemhat, illustrated on the same page, Color Plate VI.


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these circumstances.41 In fact, some ostraca with Middle Kingdomtexts were rather elegantly and carefully executed in contemporary

Ramesside hieratic, exhibiting no traces the expected awkwardnessof a beginners hand.42 On the other hand, the majority of literaryostraca are fraught with errors in grammar and orthography, indi-cating that the classical Middle Egyptian of these texts was as anti-quated and unfamiliar as Chaucers English might be for a classroomof American high school students. On one remarkable school papyrus,in fact, the student was apparently given an exercise in which hewas to write some standard lines first in colloquial Late Egyptian,

then to follow each of these with their equivalents in Middle Egyp-tian.43 A striking confirmation of the influence of register on scribalhandwriting emerges from the corpus of Deir el-Medina ostraca asa whole, for it is possible for experts to separate literary and docu-mentary ostraca from one another with surprising accuracy on the

41 The writing skill displayed on many so-called school ostraca has been notedby several scholars who have worked with these objects, see A.G. McDowell,Teachers and Students at Deir el-Medina, Deir el-Medina in the Third MillenniumAD, 21733. A somewhat different approach to these texts has been taken by J.J.Janssen, Literacy and Letters at Deir el-Medna, Village Voices: Proceedings of theSymposium Texts from Deir el-Medna and their Interpretation: Leiden, May 31June 1,1991 (eds R.J. Demare and A. Egberts; CNWS Publications 13; Leiden: Centreof Non-Western Studies, Leiden University, 1992) 8687, who proposes that oneuse of such material may have been to produce cheap editions of the text foruse in the village, thus reminiscent of our modern paperbacks. He also notes(Literacy and Letters, 87 n. 87) that there is no reference to a school amongthese so-called schoolboy-exercises. Recently, A. Gasse has once more raised thequestion of the existence of a school in the village, see Le K2, un cas dcole?Deir el-Medina in the Third Millennium AD, 10920.

42 For example, BM EA 5629, illustrated in Parkinson, Cracking Codes, Color Plate28; or the more famous Ashmolean Ostracon containing a Ramesside copy of theStory of Sinuhe, see J.W.B. Barns, The Ashmolean Ostracon of Sinuhe (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1952) Frontispiece and the more detailed photographs that accom-pany the transcription. Barns, however, disagreed with erny on whether a studentor a competent teacher-scribe executed the copy; see p. 35.

43 R.A. Caminos, A Fragmentary Hieratic School-book in the British Museum,JEA 54 (1968) 11422. A similar papyrus exercise written in a form of early demotichas recently been identified, see J.F. Quack, A New Bilingual Fragment from theBritish Museum (Papyrus BM EA 69574), JEA 85 (1999) 15464, with pls XXIand XXII. In this latter case, strangely enough, both the late Middle Egyptian andthe demotic text were written in a fossilized hieratic handwriting which was describedas uncial by the commentator. Textual material such as this in which there seemsto be a sharp disparity between written and spoken language, or the language offormal texts and that of daily usage raises the fascinating problem of diglossia. Asurvey of this wide-ranging problem is presented by P. Vernus, Langue littraireet diglossie,Ancient Egyptian Literature, 55564.


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basis of the appearance of their script alone, employing such objec-tive criteria as the writing surface used, the size of handwriting, and

line spacing.44

Of course, in a society which idealized the past as much as Egypt,a grounding in the classics of their culture might well have beenthe mark of an educated person, just as it is today.45 But this sugges-tion would leave unexplained why such a small percentage of Rames-side literary and instructional ostraca are based on Late Egyptian,the language of their everyday life. Oddly enough, there is an abun-dance of lengthy Late Egyptian school texts, the so-called Late Egyptian

Miscellanies, but these are preserved predominantly on the more expen-sive medium of papyri.46 Although knowledge of the ancient Egyptianequivalent of the classics and past forms of the language may wellhave lent an individual the aura of an educated man, I believe thatthe more likely and more practical reason for the emphasis on theostensibly impractical Middle Egyptian form of the language lies inits use in the mortuary register, i.e., the Book of the Dead and tombinscriptions, both royal and private. I think that this usage is confirmed

by the type of texts generally found on a much rarer genre of ostracaand writing boards, namely those written in hieroglyphs or cursivehieroglyphs. The text on these ostraca almost always involve the typeof late Middle Egyptian-based material that appear in tombs, and,furthermore, such exemplars will occasionally be accompanied bysketched figural representations of the sort normally found in funer-ary contexts. The texts on these hieroglyphic ostraca, moreover, arefrequently written in a vertical format with the column lines care-

fully indicated.47

Not incidentally, such ostraca would also afford the

44 A. Gasse, Les ostraca hiratiques littraires de Deir el-Medina: Nouvelles ori-entations de la publication, Village Voices, 5170.

45 The question of what might have constituted the mark of an educated manand a classical education has long fascinated Egyptologists, for example, seeJanssen, Literacy and Letters at Deir el-Medina, 8591.

46 A.H. Gardiner, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies(Bibliotheca Aegyptiaca 7; Brussels: di-tion de la Fondation gyptologique Reine lisabeth, 1937) and R.A. Caminos, LateEgyptian Miscellanies(Brown Egyptological Studies 1; Oxford: Oxford University Press,1954).

47 I am speaking here particularly of the ostraca exemplars of the didactic textknown as the Kemyt. This was a composition composed during the Middle Kingdomin the current dialect of Egyptian. It was revived again during the Ramesside Period,when it enjoyed a particular popularity among the village of royal necropolis work-ers at Deir el-Medina despite the fact that it employed not only an obsolete dialect


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student practice writing on the exact same type of limestone surfacehe would be apt to encounter on a tomb wall. The division of both

script and content among ostraca suggests a process which wouldaccord with Clement of Alexandrias description of scribal trainingfirst, familiarization with the text genre using the script of everydaylife, then training in the hieroglyphs themselves. I would like to closewith this thought: even if fakery might come naturally to some indi-viduals, fortunately, most people must to be trained to produce it.

and columnar format, but it also was written in an equally antiquated script whoseforms were close to that of cursive hieroglyphs. These characteristics made the Kemytan ideal text for training men whose occupation was production of texts and othermaterial for the Theban mortuary industry; see H. Brunner, Altgyptische Erziehung(Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1957) 8388.


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THE SAMARIA PAPYRI AND THEBABYLONIO-ARAMEAN SYMBIOSIS

Douglas M. Gropp

The Samaria papyri are a group of fragmentary remains of legaldocuments once belonging to wealthy patricians of Samaria. Theycome from the cave Abu Shinjeh in the Wdi ed-Dliyeh, about 14km north of Jericho on the western rim of the Jordan rift. Most ofthese were discovered in the early spring of 1962 by the Ta'mirehBedouin. Subsequent archaeological explorations in January 1963and February 1964 contributed modestly to the initial find and putthe papyri in a more definite context.1

Despite the find spot, the papyri are all legal documents originallydrafted in Samaria in the fourth century . The place in whichthe documents were executed is given either in the first or last lineof the document. In the eleven documents in which the place is pre-served, it is named as the city or province of Samaria. The docu-ments were also dated by the reign of the current Persian king.Where the name of the king is preserved, it is usually Artaxerxes (atleast five times). One document is dated to sometime between thethirtieth and thirty-ninth year, and therefore must come from the reignof Artaxerxes II (Mnemon), between 375 and 365 . The dateof WDSP 1 is fully preserved as 19 March 335 , the secondyear of Darius III (Codomannus).2 Most of the papyri were prob-ably written during the reign of Artaxerxes III (Ochus; 358337 ).The late pre-Alexandrine coins found in the cave strongly corrobo-rate the internal indications of dating,3 the latest being of Tyrian issueof 334 . The script of the papyri is somewhat more advanced

1 P.W. and N.L. Lapp (eds),Discoveries in the Wdi ed-Dliyeh(AASOR 46; Cambridge,MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1974) 116, 3032.2 F.M. Cross, Samaria Papyrus 1: An Aramaic Slave Conveyance of 335 B.C.E.

found in the Wdi ed-Dliyeh,Nahman Avigad Volume(eds Y. Yadin and B. Mazar;ErIsr 18; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society in cooperation with the Institute ofArchaeology, Hebrew University, 1985) 7*17*.

3 F.M. Cross, Coins, Discoveries in the Wdi ed-Dliyeh, 5759.


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typologically than the script of the Aramaic corpora from the latefifth century and so fits well within this horizon.

The papyri are quite fragmentary. Eighteen of the fragments arelong enough, that is complete enough in their vertical dimension, tobe called papyri. The largest papyrus, WDSP 1, is no more than48% extant. A few of these fragments are no more than a thin stripof papyrus; a couple of others are in tatters. Nine or ten furtherpieces are sizable enough to allow some assessment of their legalimport. Nine other museum plates contain nearly 150 additionalfragments of various shapes and sizes. All of the plates are housed

in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.The language of the Samaria papyri is Official Aramaic, theideal standard language in which scribes of the Persian period (prob-ably from Darius I to Darius III [522330 ]) would draft docu-ments of an official nature.4 The language of the Samaria papyri isvirtually identical to the language of the fifth-century Elephantinelegal papyri and the Arsames correspondence. In fact, in spite ofbeing chronologically later, the language of the Samaria papyri is

even more consistently conservative in its conformity to the norm ofOfficial Aramaic than the language of the other two corpora. Inspite of its later provenience, it also reflects little or no Persianinfluence in contrast to the Elephantine papyri, but especially to theArsames correspondence where Persian influence is more extensive.The Samaria papyri do show a greater proportion of specifically lateNeo-Babylonian loans. But this is clearly related to the origins of itslegal formularies.5

Of the fragments sizable enough to allow some assessment of theirlegal genre, at least half are slave sales. Some of these represent thesale of a single slave (WDSP 1, 3, 4, 11 recto, 18, 19, 26?), othersof multiple slaves (WDSP 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 20). But a variety of otherlegal genres are represented. There is a clear instance of a housesale (WDSP 15) and a conveyance of chambers in a public build-ing (WDSP 14), in addition to several deeds of sale whose objectscannot be ascertained (WDSP 21, 22, 24, 25). Two or more docu-

ments look like a pledge of a slave in exchange for a loan (WDSP

4 See D.M. Gropp, Imperial Aramaic, OEANE3.14446.5 D.M. Gropp, The Language of the Samaria Papyri: A Preliminary Study,

Maarav 56 (1990) 16987.


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10, 12, 13 recto?, 27?). It is impossible to be confident about theterms of these fragmentary contracts apart from some hermeneuti-

cal key provided by closer legal parallels. One document conveys avineyard (possibly as a pledge rather than as a sale) (WDSP 16).Several documents may resolve some contingency, but in most casesthe papyri are too fragmentary for confident interpretation. Thereis a receipt for the repayment of a loan involving a pledge (WDSP17: a double document), the release of a pledged slave (WDSP 13verso), the settlement (?) of a dispute over a slave (WDSP 11 verso),and possibly a judicial settlement by an oath (WDSP 23).

If it were not for some auspicious circumstances that provide extra-ordinary possibilities for reconstructing the text of the papyri, theirsignificance would have been greatly reduced. The possibilities ofreconstruction correlate directly with the legal genres represented.The best represented type of deed is the slave sale. Despite theirfragmentary condition, it has proved possible to propose full recon-structions for nine or ten of these. The slave sale deeds seem toshare a common formulary to such an extent that they provide us

with partially overlapping bits and pieces of the same formulary.There is remarkably little variation in the verbal realization of eachformula, and even less variation in the sequence of formulas withinthe sale formulary. The date, the names of the principals, the namesof the slaves, the sale price, and the amount of the penalty for con-travention of the sale are basically the only elements that vary fromdeed to deed. Each papyrus contributes a little to our knowledge ofthat formulary. By constant comparison and rearranging of all the

bits of writing serially, F.M. Cross and I have been able to recon-struct the entire formulary. Proposed reconstructions have been testedagainst estimated line lengths for each papyrus. In addition to theconstraints of space, we have been aided by legal parallels fromMesopotamia to Egypt. Circular reasoning, while not wholly escaped,can be reduced to a minimum. Now that this formulary for thedeeds of slave sale is established, it can be applied as a kind of tem-plate for interpreting other deeds of conveyance. Such a procedure

has been successful in reconstructing a deed of house sale (WDSP15), but only modestly helpful in interpreting the texts of othergenres.

The Samaria papyri are significant for the history of Aramaic lan-guage and paleography. A modicum of information about the polit-ical organization and historical situation of fourth-century Samaria


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can be eked out of these fragments. But the Samaria papyri will ulti-mately prove most interesting for the light they cast on the history

of law. They provide an especially promising occasion for the study ofthe contact between Aramaic and cuneiform traditions. Comparisonof legal formularies provides one of the most controllable instancesfor the study of cultures in contact. I have tried to explore theseparallels in the hope that they will provide an initial heuristic forthe legal historians and cuneiformists who will doubtlessly find theSamaria papyri well worth their attention.

Although I do not pretend to be a jurist, I have found the task

of philological interpretation to be inseparable from a comparativelegal evaluation of the deeds. It was, in fact, only through a com-parison with cuneiform law, particularly through a comparison withMiddle Assyrian deeds of sale, that Cross was able to divine thebasic structure of the sale formulary of the Samaria papyri. The legalformulary of the slave sales is obviously dependent proximately orultimately on cuneiform antecedents. I have come to the conclusionthat the late Neo-Babylonian sale formulary for movables (from the

time of Darius I on) formed the basis of the Aramaic formulary.6

Aside from a few important parallels, it is remarkable the extentto which the formularies of the Samaria papyri differ from the for-mularies of the Elephantine legal papyri. On the other hand, theSamaria papyri share a larger number of features with the laterMurabba'at and Naal ever deeds. The Samaria papyri thus pro-vide some counterbalance to the understandably heavy reliance onthe Elephantine legal papyri for reconstructing the early develop-

ment of Jewish law.My concern in this paper is less with the structure of the formu-lary for selling slaves in the Samaria papyri as such, or with thelegal import of individual legal formulas within that structure. I amprimarily concerned here with the genetic question: What is the ori-gin of the formulary for selling slaves in the Samaria papyri andwhat may that tell us about the cultures in contact in the Persianperiod?

6 See especially H. Petschow,Die neubabylonischen Kaufformulare(Leipziger rechtswis-senschaftliche Studien 118; Leipzig: Theodor Weicher, 1939) 4368. This mono-graph has been invaluable to me in reconstructing the formulary of the SamariaPapyri. The late Neo-Babylonian sale formulary for movables, itself, is evidently theheir of Middle Assyrian and other peripheral cuneiform legal traditions.


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7 But there is a certain amount of inconsistency on this point. WDSP 1 main-tains the subjective style throughout the Schlussklauseln. So do apparently WDSP 4,5 (beginning already in 5:6), 6, 7, 8, 9. WDSP 2, on the other hand, is apparentlyobjectively styled as far as 2:7, where it shifts to subjective style continuing as faras the phrase: [hynyb wmyqh yz hnz] arsa lbql in 2:10. WDSP 3 maintains its objec-tive style through the defension clause and until the quoted speech in 3:7. It, too,then maintains this subjective orientation as far as the phrase: yz hnz arsa lbql[hynyb] wmyqh in 3:910.

8 Cross, Samaria Papyrus 1, 13*.9 Cf. P. Koschaker,Neue keilschriftliche Rechtsurkunden aus der El-Amarna-Zeit(ASAW

The origin of the sale formulary of the Samaria papyri is three-fold. (1) Aramaic scribes in Babylonia adopted the late Neo-Babylonian

formulary for the sale of movables (from the time of Darius I on)as their basic model. (2) Aramaic scribes (still in Babylonia) creativelymodified this model by drawing on formulas from other types of lateNeo-Babylonian documents. (3) Aramaic scribes (probably in Palestine)further modified the adopted formulary by partially assimilating itto their own native legal traditions.

First I would like to mention a puzzling phenomenon that oughtto provide clues to the origin of the formulary, but which I do notfi

nd precisely paralleled anywhere. The formulary as a whole is objec-tively stylized. But there is usually a shift from an objective formu-lation in the operative section to subjective formulation in the Schluss-klauseln.7 While the obligations undertaken by the seller in theSchlussklauseln are subjectively formulated, the framework of theSchlussklauseln, consisting of the pivotal clause hynyb arsa dj m dj wy[rwat its beginning and often . . . hynyb wmyqh yz hnz arsa lbql at theend, is objectively formulated. Cross notes that the mention ofarsa

in the introduction and conclusion of the Schlussklauseln forms aninclusio.8 Both elements of the inclusio are in objective third persondiscourse, while the final clauses themselves tend to be formulatedin the first person. There is no evidence to counter the presump-tion that the deed always returns to an objective formulation beforethe witnesses are listed in the text.

This situation in the Samaria papyriwith objective style in theoperative section shifting to subjective style in the Schlussklauseln

contrasts with the Elephantine legal documents, on the one hand,which are subjectively styled throughout, and with the late Neo-Babylonian deeds of sale, on the other, which are objectively styledthroughout. Neither the peripheral Sprech(linu-)urkunden9 nor the


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somewhat later Zwiegesprchsurkunden10 are really comparable. Still, itmakes legal sense for the seller or alienor to assume the obligations

of the final clauses in the first person.

(1)Aramaic scribes in Babylonia adopted the late Neo-Babylonian formularyfor the sale of movables ( from the time of Darius I on) as their basic model

This primary source of the formulary for selling slaves in the Samariapapyri is evidenced in the overall structure of the document con-sisting of a declaration of sale, a receipt-quittance clause, a defen-sion clause, and list of witnesses, as well as in the objective formulationof the deed as a whole. The late Neo-Babylonian formulary for thesale of movables has also left a clear imprint in the word order, loanwords, and calques within the major clauses of the formulary. Letus look at each of these three main constituents of the formulary inturnthe declaration of sale, the receipt-quittance clause, and thedefension clauseto illustrate this proposition.

(a) The Declaration of Sale

The declaration of sale like the rest of the document is formulatedex latere venditoris. Seller orientation versus buyer orientation is theprimary distinction between the sale of movables and the sale ofimmovables in late Neo-Babylonian documents. Movables (includingslaves) are sold; immovables are bought.11 The late Neo-Babylonian

39/5; Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1928) 2123 [hereafter NRUA]; M. San Nicol, Beitrgezur Rechtsgeschichte im Bereiche der keilschriftlichen Rechtsquellen (Oslo: H. Aschenhoug &Co. [W. Nygaard], 1931) 15052; Y. Muffs, Studies in the Aramaic Legal Papyri fromElephantine(Studia et documenta ad jura Orientis antiqui pertin