43,000 ostraca found at one site shed light on social history of Egypt

The latest excavation of the ancient site of Athribis in Lower Egypt has uncovered 13,000 ostraca. This brings the total number of inscribed pottery fragments found at the site up to 43,000 (40,000 in the last three years alone), making it the largest collection of ostraca discovered at a single archaeological site in Egypt.

The excavation of Athribis is a joint mission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and archaeologists from the University of Tübingen. The site was the temple complex of the lion goddess (Ta-)Repit, and contained a mud brick settlement, necropolis and limestone quarries as well as the temple itself. It was occupied for more than a thousand years, generating an immense variety of texts dating to between the 3rd century B.C. and the 9th-11th century.

The earliest texts are tax receipts from the 3rd century BCE written in Demotic script, the common administrative script of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The most recent texts are Arabic inscriptions on vessels from the 9th to 11th centuries AD.

“The ostraca show us an astonishing variety of everyday situations,” says Leitz. “We find tax lists and deliveries, along with short notes about everyday activities, exercises by schoolchildren, religious texts, and priestly certificates attesting the quality of sacrificial animals. This mixture is what makes the find so valuable,” Leitz adds. “This everyday content gives us a direct insight into the lives of the people of Athribis and makes the ostraca an important source for a comprehensive social history of the region.”

The majority of the ostraca are written in Demotic script, followed by a considerable number of Greek inscriptions. A smaller but significant proportion of the sherds shows figurative and geometric designs. In addition, there are rare texts in Hieratic, hieroglyphic, Coptic or Arabic script. Athribis is also considered the world’s most important site for demotic-hieratic horoscopes, featuring more than 130 such texts. These birth predictions are important sources for the history of ancient astronomy and astrology.

Excavations began in 2005, but only about 1,000 ostraca emerged in the first 13 years. In 2018, a large group of ostraca was discovered in a 20-by-40-meter area (about 8,600 square feet) west of the Temple of Ptolemy XII. Archaeologists hit the motherlode three years ago, when 40,000 ostraca were unearthed in a 40-by-40-meter area (about 17,200 square feet), along with thousands more pot sherds that had no writing on them.

More ostraca are expected to be discovered as excavation continue. Meanwhile, the ones that have been found already are being digitized, transcribed and translated, work that will take years.

“This impressive project demonstrates the power of joint, long-term research. Through expertise, patience, and passion, inconspicuous pot sherds are transformed into a vivid picture of past worlds,” says Professor Karla Pollmann, President of the University of Tübingen.

* This article was originally published here