This volume deals with the spectacular discovery of archaeological relics and epigraphic sources at the military colony located on the island of Elephantine in the Nile, on the border between Egypt and present-day Sudan. The contributors examine three main subject areas: society and administration, religion, and literature.
The Persian period has long been considered a »dark era« in Israel's history. For this reason, research has mainly focused on how it is depicted in the Hebrew Bible. A spectacular discovery of archaeological relics and epigraphic sources was hence hardly noticed: the military colony located on the island of Elephantine in the Nile, on the border between Egypt and present-day Sudan. The basic approach of this volume, which documents a three-year Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft project, is to break with a research tradition focusing on the Judeans (Jews) mentioned in the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine and instead investigate the military colony in a broader historical context also documented by Demotic and Egyptian-hieratic evidence found at Elephantine. The studies presented focus on three main subject areas: society and administration, religion, and literature. They show that historically the island of Elephantine hosted a multicultural society with several interactions between the Egyptians and the other inhabitants, and that it was also an important administrative centre for the Persian authorities.
Table of contents:
Reinhard G. Kratz/Bernd U. Schipper: Introduction
1. Society and Administration
Gulia Francesca Grassi: »Do We Know the Arameans?« (SAA 17,176). The Use of Ethnonyms in the Aramaic Documents from Egypt -
Holger Gzella: The Scribal Habit of Achaemenid Administrators, Its Educational Underpinnings, and Its Reception in the Hebrew Bible -
Alexander Schütze: The Legal Context of the Aramaic Legal Tradition on Elephantine Reconsidered -
Sylvie Honigman: Serving the Kings, Building Temples, and Paying the »Jewish Tax«. Aramaic-Speaking Judeans and Their Descendants in Upper Egypt from Persian to Early Imperial Times
2. Religion
Alexandra von Lieven: Spätägyptische Religion in und um Elephantine -
Collin Cornell/Brent A. Strawn: Is Judean Religion at Elephantine a Pidgin? Reassessing Its Relationship to Its Antecedents and Congeners -
Bob Becking: »That Evil Act«. A Thick Description of the Crisis around the Demolition of the Temple of
Yahô at Elephantine -
Bernd U. Schipper: The Judeans/Arameans of Elephantine and Their Religion. An Egyptological Perspective
3. Literature
James D. Moore: »Ahikariana« at Elephantine. New Readings of Berlin P. 13446 and Developments in Ahiqar Research -
Joachim Friedrich Quack: Die demotischen Fragmente der Erzählung und der Sprüche des Achiqar -
Reinhard G. Kratz: Aḥiqar and Bisitun. The Literature of the Judeans at Elephantine -
Tawny L. Holm: Papyrus Amherst 63 and the Arameans of Egypt. A Landscape of Cultural Nostalgia -
Karel van der Toorn: The Background of the Elephantine Jews in Light of Papyrus Amherst 63
