BGU IX 1900 (P. 11642)

If you have ever been annoyed by the high rent of your apartment, house or land, then you are basically no different from the people of ancient Egypt. Already at that time pieces of land were leased to citizens. However, the rent for such a piece of land was often way too high to be paid by a single person. Since many of the poorer citizens were dependent on such an area to be able to feed themselves and their families, they joined together to form so-called lease cooperatives. In these leasehold cooperatives, the land was then divided between the individual leaseholders. The tenant used his land to earn agricultural profit from it, for example, as a farmer. This profit, however, had to be ceded mostly to the ruler. Nevertheless, for many of the poorer citizens it was the best way to ensure their survival. Even today there are still some lists of such lease cooperatives. The following text deals with exactly such a list.

The papyrus is not an ordinary sheet, but a roll which is 160×23 cm in size and apparently also completely written. The text came to the Berlin Papyrus Collection in 1912/13 by an exchange from the London British Museum. However, the text was written around 196–198 AD in Theadelphia, a Greek village in the Arsinoites, the modern Fayum. The age and place of manufacture of the scroll could be determined because the strategos Bolanos is mentioned in the text. It is already known from other documented sources that he lived around 196 AD. Moreover, there is a relationship with another text, which is housed in Belgian Ghent nowadays. The production of this text is also dated to 196–198 AD in Theadelphia. The other piece is also a list of tenant cooperatives, partly mentioning the same people as in the Berlin piece. Therefore, a relationship between the texts is also suspected, where one also assumes that the Berlin piece is the older of the two texts.

The list includes 50 leasing cooperatives with their members, and the size of the leased land is also added for each cooperative. However, the members are not listed in alphabetical order, which indicates a topographical arrangement. This means that the members were probably sorted according to their place of residence. The number of members, in the individual leasehold cooperatives, varies from case to case. The most common is seven members, which is the case in 28 of the 50 listed leasing cooperatives. The remaining 22 cooperatives all have between five and nine members. On the other hand, there are not so many differences in the size of the leased land. In 41 cases, exactly an area of 80 arouras is leased, one arouras being equivalent to 100×100 royal ells at that time. In the remaining nine cases, the area is always slightly smaller or larger than 80 aruras. However, this balances out in the end so that the total area is about 4000 aruras. But it cannot be concluded exactly from the text whether it is a single large area or several smaller ones. This results from the fact that the text gives a location only in the 154th line and this line is apparently only loosely connected with the rest of the text.

The purpose of the piece is not entirely clear, as there is no indication in the text of how much land each tenant was entitled to. A possible explanation for this is that the list was created only as a directory of leasehold cooperatives and their members. From today’s point of view, the text is nevertheless very informative. Since in the list not only includes farmers, but also other occupations such as fishermen, miller or shepherd, it offers a good insight into the economic and social conditions of ancient Egypt.

GEMF 30/PGM II (P. 5026)

Dreams played an important role in ancient Egypt and the ancient world in general. Only in a dream could a dead person appear to a living one. Furthermore, people believed that dreams could predict the future. For this purpose, priests would perform rituals, which contained various anthems to the gods, in order to receive an oracle. However, for these rituals to be successful, the priests had to follow certain instructions, which were written down in magical texts. Such a text is in the exhibition at the “Neues Museum” in Berlin.

The Greek papyrus dates to the late second or the early third century AD and was most likely written in the city of Thebes, located by the Nile River. In 1857, Richard Lepsius bought the papyrus from the collection of Giovanni Anastasi, a Greek salesperson in Paris, for the collection in Berlin. The papyrus is a fragment of what was originally an entire scroll, and includes the end of a magical guide. Another fragment of this magical guide, which has been directly linked to the papyrus in Berlin, is in the British Library in London at the moment. It appears that the once coherent text was cut apart at an unknown date before the sale.

Four columns of text remain on the papyrus in Berlin. The first three of these span the entire height of the papyrus, while the fourth is notably shorter. However, the papyrus mainly includes a drawing of a headless spirit of the dead (akephalos). There are more little drawings scattered throughout the rest of the text, either directly in the text, along the edge or, in the case of the scarab in the third column, under the text. These drawings are not merely illustrations but served as a template for magical drawings, which had to be adapted to different mediums. Additionally, the fourth column was written in a different ink than the previous columns. The reason behind this is still being investigated. Apart from a crack spreading the length of the papyrus and obscuring a few letters in the first column, the text on the papyrus in Berlin is complete.

The text at hand includes a collection of instructions, anthems and prayers. They seem to be an attachment to a description of a ceremony, which intends to summon a dream oracle from the god of the sun Apollo-Helios-Harpocrates and the ghost of a person, who died a violent death, in one´s sleep. The ghost of a dead person may seem confusing at first. However, dead people and gods, who appear in the dreams, were given almost the same level of meaning and importance. The power of a human grew significantly after his death and even his knowledge became nearly unlimited. Humans, who had died very early, unmarried or violent deaths, were assumed to be more vengeful and vicious. However, if one managed to convince a violently murdered dead soul to provide help in the shape of an oracle, this oracle was considered to be of greater value.

The remaining section of text enumerates many instructions for the process of the oracle-ritual. It includes, for example, a description of a recipe for remembering the words said in the dream. First, the mouth had to be cleaned with frankincense. The next step was to make a balm out of honey, the forb Artemisia and a loadstone from the heart of a Eurasian hoopoe, and apply this on the lips of the oracle´s intended recipient. Another recipe to help memorize the dream used a mixture of water with laurel, caraway and solanum. This mixture had to be drizzled in the right ear of the oracle´s intended recipient on the evening of the dream oracle. In addition to this, there are a few directives detailing how to sketch magical drawings. The ink used to write down the magical words had to be made out of the herbs myrrh, potentilla reptans and Artemisia vulgaris. Even the location of the ritual needed to be appropriately prepared. The mattress had to lay on the floor under the open sky and the place would be cleansed with the milk of a donkey. Furthermore, the sacrificial offerings had to be brought to the altar prior to sleeping. The person seeking the oracle was to lay on their right side, holding a laurel crown in their right hand. The laurel crown also needed to be produced in accordance with specific instructions.

When looking at the papyrus, the large drawing of the headless spirit of the dead, in Greek akephalos, catches the eye. According to ancient understanding, he was a figure representing neither good nor bad. This differs from the more ominous interpretations prevalent in many other cultures. Surrounding the spirit of the dead human are magical words, so-called voces magicae, which were believed to strengthen the spell. Written on his body are Greek vowels with further magical significance. This drawing was placed next to the head of the sleeper.

During the dream-ritual, anthems were sung to a specific god, in order to compel him to send the soul of the respective dead person, of which the sleeper would have a body-part or some clothes, and let his soul appear in the dream of the sleeper. This particular magical text includes two anthems, dedicated to Apollo, the god of light and wisdom, and Helios, the god of the sun. In regards to a meeting with the gods, specific directives and even means of coercive action are provided. Initially, the god was asked to permit the sleeper an oracle. Should the ritual fail, it would be repeated the following day with additional sacrificial offerings. For every following failure of the ritual, another sacrifice would be placed upon the altar until the god brings the dead soul from the underworld and into the dream of the sleeper. When meeting the god, the sleeper would have to offer him the sacrifices. Now he was able to talk to the dead soul. After hearing everything he needed to know, the god was released and the last magical words spoken. Upon waking, the sleeper would share his dream and be counselled by special priests.

Many oracles were received in this manner and frequently influenced the course of ancient history. Therefore, this text provides us with a valuable insight on ancient dream-literature.

P. 11766 + P. 14046

What happens when one defies the will of God, the Pharaoh of that time was soon to find out in a not too pleasant way. „With the staff in my hand I will strike the water in the Nile, and it will turn to blood“. (Ex 7:17). These are the last words on the fragmentary leaves of this parchment codex, which contains excerpts from the 2nd Book of Moses (Exodus) of the Old Testament in Greek.

This section of the Old Testament describes the events leading up to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. It deals with conflicts between the Israelites and Pharaoh as well as the first of the ten plagues: the turning of the waters of the Nile into blood. When the Pharaoh of Egypt enslaved the Israelites and drowned them in the Nile, God (Yahweh) chose Moses to lead his people to the promised land of Canaan in the area of present-day Israel, „the land flowing with milk and honey“. After Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go, God sent Moses to deliver the first of the plagues to Pharaoh.

All this can be read on the remains of this small parchment codex, which probably originated around the 4th century AD. In its form, this codex resembled modern books. It consisted of several layers of double leaves which were laid on top of each other and bound. They were written on both sides, the hair side and the flesh side. But codices were not only made of parchment. A few copies made of papyrus have also survived from antiquity.

The pages preserved from the codex were each inscribed with 12 lines, of which only a few have been preserved in their entirety. The text on the individual leaves is not continuous. Some leaves are missing between them and have not survived. The miniature codex can at most have contained the Book of Exodus, which alone would fill about 400 leaves of this format.

The story told in the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament goes even further. As the last of the ten plagues sent by Yahweh, Moses announced the death of all the firstborn in Egypt. When Pharaoh lost his son to this last plague, he finally gave in and let the Israelites go. Later, however, he persecuted them, which ended tragically for him and his soldiers. Moses had been given the ability by God to lead his people safely to the other side of the Red Sea. He stretched out his hand and immediately a wind arose that parted the water so that the Israelites could pass by on dry ground. But when Pharaoh wanted to follow them, the sea closed again and destroyed Pharaoh and his army.