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The Papyrology of the Roman Near East: A Survey*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2012

H. M. Cotton ,
W. E. H. Cockle  and
F. G. B. Millar
H. M. Cotton
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
W. E. H. Cockle
Affiliation:
University College, London
F. G. B. Millar
Affiliation:
Brasenose College, Oxford
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Extract

Not all students of the Roman world may have realized that, following extensive discoveries in the last few years, Egypt has ceased to be the only part of the Empire from which there are now substantial numbers of documentary texts written on perishable materials. This article is intended as a survey and hand-list of the rapidly-growing ‘papyrological’ material from the Roman Near East. As is normal, ‘papyrology’ is taken to include also any writing in ink on portable, and normally perishable, materials: parchment, wood, and leather, as well as on fragments of pottery (ostraka). The area concerned is that covered by the Roman provinces of Syria (divided in the 190s into ‘Syria Coele’ and ‘Syria Phoenice’); Mesopotamia (also created, by conquest, in the 190s); Arabia; and Judaea, which in the 130s became ‘Syria Palaestina’. These administrative divisions are valid for the majority of the material, which belongs to the first, second and third centuries. For the earlier part of the period we include also papyri from Dura under the Parthian kings (Nos 34, 36–43, and 166), since they belong to the century before the Roman conquest and illustrate the continuity of legal and administrative forms; and five papyri from the kingdom of Nabataea, which after its ‘acquisition’ in 106 was to form the bulk of the new province of Arabia, on the grounds that in some sense dependent kingdoms were part of the Empire (Nos 180–184). Both groups are listed in brackets. We also include the extensive material from the first Jewish revolt (Nos 230–256) and from the Bar Kochba war of 132–5 (Nos 293–331), even though it derives from regimes in revolt against Rome. The private-law procedures visible in the Bar Kochba documents are continuous with those from the immediately preceding ‘provincial’ period (that of the later items in the ‘archive of Babatha’ and other documents). What changes dramatically after the outbreak of the revolt is language use: Hebrew now appears alongside Aramaic and Greek. But even as late as the third year of the revolt we find contracts in Aramaic. Our list at this point will supplement and correct that given by Millar in The Roman Near East, App. B.

Type
Survey Articles
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 85 , November 1995 , pp. 214 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © H. M. Cotton, W. E. H. Cockle and F. G. B. Millar 1995. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 A simple method of illustrating the vast accretion of new material would be to compare our list with that of Taubenschlag, R., ‘Papyri and parchments from the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire outside Egypt’, Journ. Jur. Pap. 3 (1949), 49Google Scholar = idem, Opera Minora II (1959), 29. Note that the interesting review by van Minnen, P., ‘The century of papyrology (1892–1992)’, BASP 30 (1993), 5Google Scholar, contains no reference to texts from outside Egypt.

2 Minns, E. H., ‘Parchments of the Parthian period from Avroman in Kurdistan’, JHS 35 (1915), 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Pl. in New Palaeographical Society 2nd ser., 1.3 (1915), nos 51–2.

3 Rea, J., Senior, R. C. and Hollis, A. S., ‘A tax receipt from Hellenistic Bactria’, ZPE 104 (1994), 261Google Scholar.

4 Eshel, E. and Kloner, H., ‘An Aramaic ostracon of an Edomite marriage document from Maresha, dated 176 B.C.E.’, Tarbiz 63 (1994), 485Google Scholar.

5 We make no claim to provide a complete list here, but note as examples (1) P.Turner, no. 22 = P.Colon. inv. no. 6211, slave sale from Side, Pamphylia, 142; (2) BGU III, no. 887 = Mitteis, Chrestomathie, no. 272 = FIRA 2 III, no. 133, also slave sale from Side, 151; (3) BGU III, no. 913, slave sale from Myra, Lycia, 206; (4) P.Mich. IX, no. 546 = SB III, no. 7563, application for examination of slave, and copy of contract of sale, Pompeiopolis, Paphlagonia, 207; (5) P.Oxy. L, no. 3593, instructions to bank on slave sale, Rhodes, 238–44; (6) P.Oxy. L, no. 3594, diploma written in Rhodes, probably same date.

6 Phoenician is attested on inscriptions until the very early Imperial period, and on coin-legends until the second century A.D. See Briquel-Chatonnet, F., ‘Les derniers témoignages sur la langue phénicienne en Orient’, Rivista di studifenici 19 (1991), 3Google Scholar.

7 cf. M. G. Angeli Bertinelli, Nomenclatura pubblica e sacra di Roma nelle epigrafi semitiche (1970), and ‘I Semiti e Roma: appunti di una lettura di fonti semitiche’, Serta Historica Antiqua I (1986), 145Google Scholar; cf. also Millar, ‘Roman Coloniae’, and Wasserstein, A., ‘Non-Hellenised Jews in the Semi-Hellenised East’, SCI 14 (1995), 111Google Scholar.

8 For a letter written in Syriac (or ‘Christian Aramaic’), see Milik, J. T., ‘Une inscription et une lettre en araméen christo-palestinien’, RB 60 (1953), 526Google Scholar, on pp. S33f.; Beyer, AT, pp. 403–4.

For 100 of the c. 200 Arabic papyri see A. Grohmann, Arabic Papyri from Hirbet el Mird, Bibl. du Muséon LII (1963). For some Greek texts, see van Haelst, J., ‘Cinq textes provenant de Khirbet Mird’, Ancient Society 22 (1991), 297CrossRefGoogle Scholar (Greek documents and liturgical texts). Those papyri from Khirbet Mird which belong to the Palestine Archaeological Museum are included in the microfiche edition by E. Tov (n. 10 below).

9 Published by Hesseling, D. C., ‘On waxen tablets with fables of Babrius (Tabulae Ceratae Assendelftianae)’, JHS 13 (1892/1893), 293CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Later bibliography in Luzzatto, M. J. and Penna, A. La, Babrii Mythtambi Aesopei (Teubner, 1986), XXXGoogle Scholar. New readings in Hoogendijk, F. A. J. and van Minnen, P., Papyri, Ostraca, Parchments and Waxed Tablets in the Leiden Papyrological Institute (P.L. Bat. 25) (1991. 92Google Scholar, n. 10.

10 See E. Tov with the collaboration of Pfann, S. J., The Dead Sea Scrolls on Microfiche: a Comprehensive Edition of Texts from the Judaean Desert, Companion Volume 2 (1995)Google Scholar.

Note also, for accessible surveys,Vermes, G., Qumran in Perspective 2 (1994)Google Scholar, and The Dead Sea Scrolls in English 4 (1995).

11 For these texts see , Jahrbuch der oesterreichischen Byzantinistik 32.4 (1982), 105; Digbassanis, D., ‘The Sinai Papyri’, Proc. XVIIIth Int. Cong. Papyrology, Athens, 1986 I (1988)Google Scholar, 71.

12 For the palaeography of texts in Greek from this region note Crisci, E., ‘Scritture greche palestinesi e mesopotamiche (III secolo a.C.-III d.C.)’, Scritturae Civiltà 15 (1991), 125Google Scholar. Note also E. Crisci, Scrivere greco fuori d'Egitto. Ricerche suipapiri non egiziani dal IV secolo a.C. all' VIII d.C. (forthcoming). For the palaeography of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Nabataean documents see Yardeni, Textbook.

13 For an earlier survey, see Vaggi, G., ‘Siria e Siri nei documenti dell'Egitto greco-romano’, Aegyptus 17 (1933), 29Google Scholar.

14 The term ‘Jewish script' is used to describe the scripts used by Jews in order to write both Aramaic and Hebrew; See Cross, F. M., Jr., ‘The oldest manuscripts from Qumran’, JBL 74 (1955), 147Google Scholar; ‘The development of the Jewish scripts’, in G. E. Wright (ed.), The Bible and the Ancient Near East (essays in Honor of W. F. Albright) (1965), 170.

15 For Nos 288–9 see Freeman, Ph., ‘The era of the province of Arabia: Problems and solution’, in MacAdam, H. I., Studies in the History of the Roman Province of Arabia, BAR 295 (1986), 43f.Google Scholar, for the use of the era of Arabia in adjacent territories.

16 We are particularly grateful to Professor L. Koenen for allowing us to summarize here his preliminary reports on these papyri, which have been distributed by e-mail. Note also the report in ACOR Newsletter 6.1 (1994), 12 and that circulated with JRA 7 (1994).

17 See Justinian, Nov. XLI.2, and N. Lewis, Papyrus in Classical Antiquity (1974), 125–9.