Rodney Ast

This modest collection of essays showcases examples of Latin writing in Graeco-Roman antiquity and the early Middle Ages. It looks at the degree to which uniform practice and regional expression manifest themselves in materials, scripts, layout and even language under varied and often
changing political, administrative, social and cultural conditions.

BOEP 1.1-9.1 are available at
https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeumdok/view/collections/c-19.type.html. Each installment records emendations to documentary, literary, and subliterary papyri that have been entered online at www.papyri.info/editor/
via the Papyrological Editor (PE).  All proposed corrections have been vetted by members of the PEʼs editorial board. With version 5.1, texts that have been edited for the first time using the PE have also been announced; these are in effect texts born digital. With 8.1, emendations to literary and subliterary papyri in the Digital Corpus of Literary Papyri (DCLP) started being incorporated.

Edition of a Greek dedication from the reign of Probus found in the temple of Isis in Berenike (Red Sea, Egypt). It includes preliminary reflections on the situation in Berenike in the third century. The article also features RTI imaging that can be viewed in an embedded RTI program.

In winter 2023 the Berenike project excavated, in whole or in part, seven trenches. Four of them were at and adjacent to the entrance of the Isis temple; two were in the “Northern Complex”; an additional one was in the
western-most part of the site at the Hellenistic/Ptolemaic hydraulic facilities.
Results furthered our knowledge of the appearance and dates of construction and repair of the Isis temple entrance, portico and adjacent areas in the 1st through 5th-6th centuries AD and documented further the religious activities that took place in the Northern Complex from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD. Excavation of a trench in the western part of the site expanded our knowledge of the water supply system in Hellenistic
times and transformation of that area into a cemetery in the early Roman period.

Excavations at Berenike (Red Sea coast of Egypt) in winter 2022 concentrated in the Hellenistic hydraulic-bath area (one trench and extensions) and in and around the Roman-era Isis temple (six trenches/areas and extensions). In addition to approximately 14 inscriptions in Greek, Latin and Hieroglyphs dating from the first to the fourth century AD, there were numerous large and small stone and metal sculptural remains. Excavations recorded marble fragments of a head of a statue of Buddha, which joined with portions of a statue torso excavated in 2018. The marble statue dates c. 90-140 AD. Next to the marble Buddha statue excavations also documented an inscription in Brahmi script/Sanskrit language and Greek of the mid third-century AD. Full publication of these and other finds related to India is in preparation.

This article contains twenty-seven ostraka (all Greek except for one Latin and one Coptic) found in Berenike (Red Sea Coast, Egypt) since the publication of O.Berenike 3. The PDF has been generated automatically from the HTML. For optimal display, see https://doi.org/10.48631/pylon.2022.1.89358.

The article examines the role of Italian merchants and their local representatives in maritime trade between the Mediterranean and South Arabia, East Africa, and India in the early to mid 1st century AD. The analysis is based on previously unpublished epigraphic evidence from the Temple of Isis at the Red Sea port of Berenike. These finds show that a Roman merchant probably from Puteoli named Marcus Laelius Cosmus was a prominent trader with operations in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean regions. Not only was he financing trade, he also did much to adorn the port of Berenike. Not least, he was responsible for (re)building the port’s central Isis Temple during the reign of the emperor Tiberius (AD 14-37). He, or someone within his social or familial network, might also have been the origin for the association of a man called Cosmus with the perfumer by that name who appears as a stock figure in the epigrams of the Roman poet Martial (ca. AD 38-104). The central role of Berenike in the importation of aromatics used in perfumes makes this association plausible, although it remains unproven.

This article contains editions of 1 Greek and 16 Latin ostraca from Vandal North Africa, all of which, except no. 17, are kept in the Département des Antiquités grecques, étrusques et romaines at the Musée du Louvre. Everyday texts of this type are rather rare, which makes them all the more valuable for the light they shed on day-to-day activities in communities of North Africa during the Vandal period. They are of particular interest for their onomastics, dating formulas, and evidence for estate management practices.

As part of a larger project on the practical application of literate education in antiquity, this paper (http://www.chs-fellows.org/2016/03/29/writing-and-the-city-in-later-roman-egypt/) highlights one segment of Roman society that dealt in reams of the written word: literate liturgists and members of the curial class. Municipal and state business was conducted by a body of individuals whose ability to write Greek varied. For some, written communication was a routine, albeit secondary, part of the liturgical duties they performed for their cities. They might sign agreements, pen correspondence, issue receipts, etc., sometimes aided by assistants, but their offices did not depend on a high level of proficiency in writing. Others were professionals chosen to serve local councils and even the prefectural court because of their substantial ability to write effectively. They prepared petitions and memoranda, took shorthand notes, and performed tasks of a more technical nature. The urban administrative structure was thus multi-faceted, and to function, cities required fairly stable access to local educators. Because the documentary record tells us little about higher education and the critical relationship between educators and the municipal elite in Roman Egypt, we have to look at what I call “literacy in action,” the question of who wrote a given text and with what proficiency and purpose.

This is a review of two works related to the epigraphy of Ptolemaic Egypt: A. Bowman and C. Crowther (eds) The Epigraphy of Ptolemaic Egypt (Oxford 2020) and A. Bowman, C. Crowther, S. Hornblower, R. Mairs, and K. Savvopoulos (eds) Corpus of Ptolemaic Inscriptions (Oxford 2021).