Tomasz Derda

Soterichos of Oasis, “an epic poet, who fourished under Diocletian” (Suda [σ 877]), wrote “an Encomium on Diocletian, four books Bassarika or Dionysiaka, The Story of the Babylonian Panthea, The Story of Ariadne, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Python or Alexandriakos and other works”. Keywords: arts and architecture; chronicles and histories; Egyptian history; Greek history; Roman history

Marea/Northern Hawwariya is one of the largest and most important archaeological sites dating between the 3rd century BC and the 8th century AD located at Lake Mareotis in northern Egypt. Even though excavations have been carried out since the end of the 1970s, the settlement is still largely unexplored. To rectify this situation, non‐invasive research has been carried out on 21.5 ha of the site using a precise positioning system and magnetometer measurements. Exact topographic and magnetic maps were prepared based on the data that were obtained. Simultaneously, verification research were carried out, including archaeological excavations, registering surface findings and satellite image analysis. In the south‐eastern part of the site, electrical resistivity measurements were taken as well. This approach allowed for the identification of the densely built areas of the Byzantine and Early Islamic town. On the south‐western side, some magnetic anomalies were registered, following regular patterns with clear linear borders and surrounded by wetlands without clear signs of habitation. On the northern side, the settlement was limited by an artificial coastline, forming straight waterfronts made of stone blocks. As for the town itself, a 260‐m street with adjacent regular built‐up areas was discovered. This regularity points to an order of planning, at least for the Byzantine part of the settlement. Recording of large amplitude magnetic anomalies proves the presence of heavily burnt objects. They may be interpreted as remains of kilns, perhaps used to manufacture amphorae, glass vessels and lime. Electrical resistivity measurements in the south‐eastern part of the site localized cavities in the natural limestone rock uplift. These may have been rock‐cut tombs. Multidisciplinary, non‐invasive research in Marea/Northern Hawwariya allowed for the quick generation of new knowledge on the topography of the site, significantly enriching information on its form and the functions of its various parts.

This book situates discussions of Christian monasticism in Egypt and Palestine within the socio-economic world of the long Late Antiquity, from the golden age of monasticism into and well beyond the Arab conquest (fifth to tenth century). Its thirteen chapters present new research into the rich corpus of textual sources and archaeological remains and move beyond traditional studies that have treated monastic communities as religious entities in physical seclusion from society. The volume brings together scholars working across traditional boundaries of subject and geography and explores a diverse range of topics from the production of food and wine to networks of scribes, patronage, and monastic visitation. As such, it paints a vivid picture of busy monastic lives dependent on and led in tandem with the non-monastic world.

The paper presents three papyri discovered at the site of Qasr Ibrim in Lower Nubia and connected to a short-lived presence of Roman military post there in the late 20s BC. All three papyri are letters to soldiers of the Qasr Ibrim post sent by their col- leagues who remained in their permanent bases in Egypt. Their common element is that they mention shipment of pigs. The authors discuss the role of pigs in the diet of Roman soldiers as well as patterns of supplying soldiers of the Qasr Ibrim post with pork.

... on the basis of the proper names Moses and Samuel occuring in the first fragment, and Aaron in the other. ... Among hundreds of rabbis mentioned in the Talmud there is only one who bears the name Moses. "Moses ben Azri was guarantor for the kethubah of his daughter-in-law. ...

Excavations in ‘Marea’ in 2018 were conducted within a broader project, the aim of which was to recognize the ancient topography of this settlement. The work this season was mainly carried out at the promontory in the north-eastern part of the site with some partially visible buildings along an ancient street. The goal was threefold: to define when they had been built, for how long they had been in use and to verify results from the previous survey. Consequently, six trenches were made to gain material essential to date the aforementioned constructions. The oldest remains turned out to be from the Roman period, when this area became a rubbish dump for production wastes from adjacent pottery kilns. Above the heaps mainly made of amphorae AE 3 and AE 4 sherds, two occupation levels were recognised with the older one beginning in 3rd century or later. Unfortunately function of the structures uncovered at this level is still unclear. The consecutive phase can be dated to 5th–6th century...

Archaeological investigations in late antique Marea, modern northern Hawwariya, Egypt, have revealed that a significant part of the site was a well-planned urban undertaking on a large scale, founded in the second half of the sixth century AD. Such newly planned urban sites are extremely rare in late antiquity.

As a result of several years of research started during a one-year work at the Catholic University of Leuven (as a fellow of the Institute of Classical Studies from October 2000 to September 2001), my book presents the˜ functioning of Roman administration in the Arsinoite nome (today – Fayum Oasis) in the period from Augustus’s (Octavian) reign to the transformation of the Empire in the times of Diocletian and Constantine the Great. The choice of the topic for the monograph was not accidental – there is no other region of the Roman Empire so well represented by original documents. Approximately 40 percent of the whole papyrus documentation available to historians comes from the Fayum, with the vast majority dating to the times of Roman Empire, especially the second and third century AD. A great part of these thousands of documents relates, in one way or another, to administration as documents created by it, addressed to its representatives, issued by them to serve the inhabitants. Despite this abundance of sources, or maybe because of it, there were no previous attempts at comprehensive description of the administration system employed by the Roman government in the discussed region. In my book, I analysed the territorial structures and the administrative hierarchy of the nome. As the biggest and the most populated nome with the largest area of arable land, the Fayum created, and partially maintained, unique structures, which could not be observed in other Egyptian nomes, such as merides – the units named, until the times of Diocletian, after the names of their first administrators in the third century BC (merides of Herakleides, Themistos, and Polemon). In the second century AD, this led to the creation of two quasi-nomes (meris of Herakleides separately and merides of Themistos and Polemon combined) headed by two separate strategoi and their deputies known traditionally as royal scribes (basilikoi grammateis). However, my most important conclusions referred to the units of a lower hierarchy, toparchies, which in the Arsinoite nome in the Roman period were not considered as separate administrative units and are mentioned in documents only in the context of sitologia – a highly centralised system of grain collection (as taxes in kind and rent for the land owned by the state). Toparchies, a distinction of the Fayum, were numbered and from a certain moment paired off according to the key I succeeded to establish. Prosopographical studies on local lower-rank officials are a separate and an important part of my monograph. Fayum documents allowed for description of previously unknown phenomenon of officials’ selection (e.g. ’heads’ of villages, the so-called village scribes, komogrammateis) from outside the region they governed. Although it was never directly expressed, the aim of this procedure seems to be clear: a foreign person, from outside the local society was naturally more independent and less influenced by local elite, which had to contribute to mitigating the negative effect the elite could have on the functioning of state government, especially in the scope of appointing candidates for officials of lower rank as this position was not paid for and required devotion of time and, quite often, considerable finances.
My work is based on source material, which mainly consists of documents from the second and the third century AD. For various reasons, historians have access only to a limited number of documents from the first century BC and the first century AD, when Roman administration in Egypt was being introduced. A detailed analysis of these documents allowed for a recreation of how the Romans might have incorporated the most valuable and the most densely populated province into the Empire. Octavian, of course, changed the functioning of central administration in Alexandria replacing the old structures of the Ptolemaic monarchy with the new ones, created on the basis of equites and military officers. The head of the new government was the Prefect of Egypt who, at the same time, was the commander of a large military force – three legions stationing along the banks of the Nile. We learnt about these changes mainly from literary and epigraphic sources, also those from outside Egypt (with particular emphasis on Augustus’s self-presentation of his achievements inscribed in the so-called Monumentum Ancyranum). It seems that these fundamental changes in Alexandria must have also brought significant changes in the administration system of Egyptian provinces. Nevertheless, my research did not confirm that; during the first hundred years of the Roman rule (until c. AD 70), the changes were insignificant, if any at all. In the Fayum, the merides were transformed into three separate quasi-nomes only at the end of the firstt century AD; until the same time, there existed also the system of toparchies inherited from Ptolemaic times. What is more, it was not until the last quarter of the first century AD when new administration offices (e.g. related to the administration of lands owned by the princeps, members of his immediate family or friends) and units (large municipalities consisting of several villages, i.e. komogrammateis), characteristic for the Roman period, were created.

P. Bodmer I is known to the scholarly world mainly because of the verso containing books V and VI of Iliad. The text of Homer's epic poem was written on the verso of a long scroll; the internal numbering of the columns of the document indicates that originally the scroll had to be over eleven meters long. Thanks to the Iliad's text on the verso, even the smallest fragments of the document can be quite precisely located in their original position. The preserved fragments of the scroll come from its part of a length exceeding 570 cm. When the document on the recto lost its significance, the scroll was cut into smaller fragments in order to fit one book of Iliad on each of them (according to the rules of the so-called Kleinrollensystem).

P. Bodmer I recto contains a list of plots of land prepared on the basis of previous documents, to which it refers on numerous occasions. The list was written in chronological order, as indicated by several subsequent references to the years of the reign of a ruler not mentioned by name (from 11 to 25). Persons appearing in the first part of the document do not have nomen, while those listed in the further part are called Aurelii. There is no doubt that the last columns refer to documents written after the Constitutio Antoniniana, under which Roman citizenship was granted in AD 211, thereby adding to the names the imperial nomen Aurelius to all free inhabitants of the Empire. For the same reasons we may assume that the dates mentioned in several places are the regnal years of Caracalla, who counted them together with his father, Septimius Severus. The latest date mentioned is year 25, that is AD 216/7, constituting the terminus post quem of the document.

Because the initial part of the document did not survive, its purpose can only be determined hypothetically. The descriptions of the plots reported in the consecutive sections contain some topographic elements, but the government or its representatives never appear as a source of the document. However, each plot of land is characterised by details regarding, as I have determined, the terms of its lease. The document is therefore a list of land plots belonging to a large land estate, the owner of which gets profit from the rent. Plots are arranged in a chronological, and not topographical, order with giving an explanation how they became the property of the owner. The sources referred to are usually the sales contract, but in one case there appears the term apallage, which in formal language describes the part of the estate that becomes a property of a woman as a result of divorce (the part attributable to the man is in sources consistently referred to as apopompe). On this basis, we can believe that the owner of the estate was a divorced woman.

P. Bodmer I recto contains a list of plots, which were included in a land estate located in the Panopolitanian nome. In a few cases, the names of villages known from this nome appear (Psonis, Megis, Pachoumis Epoikion); one of the villages, Ibion, was previously unknown. The plots that were part of a land estate owned by a woman, whose name we do not know, were therefore located in various parts of the nome, often quite distant from each other. Such structure of land estate, however, is not surprising — in Egypt even the largest land estates often consisted of tens or even hundreds of small plots.