Archives from Elephantine: The Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. First edition. Hardcover. near fine/very good +. Octavo (9-1/2" x 6-1/2"). xxi, (1), 421, (1)pp. Bibliography and indices. Light brown cloth with green lettering on spine in original illustrated dust jacket. Frontispiece map of the Nile region. Important economic, religious, and social study of the ancient Jewish settlement on the island of Elephantine. During the 5th century B.C., the southern frontier of ancient Egypt was guarded by an Aramean garrison at Syene (modern Aswan) and a Jewish garrison on the adjacent island of Elephantine. This study is an interpretation of the well-known group of Aramaic papyrus texts found on the site at the beginning of the 20th century. Profusely illustrated with 16 b/w photographic plates and 15 text figures (14 archaeological ground plans and a genealogical diagram). Spine of dj lightly sunned.

Contents: List of Tabs, Figures, and Plates - Abbreviations - Part I. Political and Economic Life: 1. Settlement of Jews and Arameans in Egypt. Early Contacts; Saitic Mercenaries; Arameans of Syene; From Cambyses to Artaxerxes - 2. Elephantine-Syene Garrisons: Organization, Officials and Duties. Degel--A Socio-Military Unit; Military Tasks; Tshetres; Provincial Officials; Satrapal Supervision; Treasury - 3. Standard of Living. Weights and Measures; Value and Price; Food; Clothing; Shelter - Part II. Religious Life: 4. Worship of YHW. Temple of YHW; Sabbath and Passover; Names - 5. Pagan Contacts. Oaths; Letters; The Collection List; Aramean Deities; Jewish Syncretism?; The Marzeaḥ Association - Part III. Family and Communal Life: Introduction: The Legal Document - 6. Ananiah b. Azariah: Temple Official Married to Egyptian Handmaiden. Various Obscurities; Slavery; Marriage to an Egyptian Handmaiden; Purchase of a House; Gift to Wife; Condition Emancipation; Marriage to Jehoishma; Gift to Jehoishma by Her Father; Sale of Property to Son-in-Law; Family Archive - 7. Mibtahiah Daughter of Mahseiah: Prominent Property Holder Thrice Married. Papponymy; A House of Mahseiah; Jezaniah--Mibtahiah's First Husband; Pia the Builder--Mibtahiah's Second Husband; Intermarriage; Asḥor the Builder--Mibtahiah's Third Husband; Jedaniah and Mahseiah--Mibtahiah's Children; The Egyptian Woman; The Israelite Woman; The Cousins Jedaniah - 8. Private Letters. The Family of Psami b. Nabunathan; Osea and Hosea; The Family of Ahutab - 9. Conflict and Resolution. Communal Archive; Hananiah and the Passover; Bribery; Destruction of the Temple of YHW; Negotiations for Reconstruction; Restoration; Aftermath - Epilogue - Appendixes: I. The Notations "2r to the 10" and "1 š to the 10" -- II. The Meaning of "Above" and "Below" -- III. Restored Texts - IV. The Collection List - V. Personal Names Compounded with Bethel, Eshem, and Ḥerem -- VI. A Comparison of the Schema of Aramaic and Demotic Legal Documents - Bibliography - Genereal Index - Index of Personal Names - Index of Foreign Words - Index of Primary Sources. (OCLC). About the Elephantine papyri: The Elephantine Papyri are a collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts dating from the fifth century BCE. They come from a Jewish community at Elephantine, then called Yeb, the island in the Nile at the border of Nubia, which was probably founded as a military installation in about 650 BCE during Manasseh's reign to assist Pharaoh Psammetichus I in his Nubian campaign. The dry soil of Upper Egypt preserved documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Syene (Aswan). Hundreds of these Elephantine papyri, written in hieratic and Demotic Egyptian, Aramaic, Greek, Latin and Coptic, span a period of 1000 years. Legal documents and a cache of letters survived, turned up on the local 'gray market' of antiquities starting in the late 19th century, and were scattered into several Western collections. Though some fragments on papyrus are much older, the largest number of papyri are written in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Persian Empire, and document the Jewish community among soldiers stationed at Elephantine under Persian rule, 495-399 BCE. The Elephantine documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives: divorce documents, the manumission of slaves, and other business, and are a valuable source of knowledge about law, society, religion, language and onomastics, the sometimes surprisingly revealing study of names. The 'Passover letter' of 419 BCE (discovered in 1907), which gives detailed instructions for properly keeping Passover is in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin.