Graeco-Roman Archives from the Fayum

By (author) K. Vandorpe By (author) W. Clarysse By (author) H. Verreth

Book cover: Graeco-Roman Archives from the Fayum

Extent: 496 pages

Publisher: Peeters Publishers

Subjects: Ancient Egypt

Series: Collectanea Hellenistica

Series volume number: 6

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(June 2015)

ISBN: 9789042931626

Price: $132.00

Out of stock

The Fayum is a large depression in the western desert of Egypt, receiving its water directly from the Nile. In the early Ptolemaic period the agricultural area expanded a great deal, new villages were founded and many Greeks settled here. When villages on the outskirts were abandoned about AD 300-400, houses and cemeteries remained intact for centuries. Here were found thousands of papyri, ostraca (potsherds) and hundreds of mummy portraits, which have made the area famous among classicists and art historians alike. Most papyri and ostraca are now scattered over collections all over the world. The sixth volume of Collectanea Hellenistica presents 145 reconstructed archives originating from this region, including private, professional, official and temple archives both in Greek and in native Demotic.


The Fayum is a large depression in the western desert of Egypt, receiving its water directly from the Nile. In the early Ptolemaic period the agricultural area expanded a great deal, new villages were founded and many Greeks settled here. When villages on the outskirts were abandoned about AD 300-400, houses and cemeteries remained intact for centuries. Here were found thousands of papyri, ostraca (potsherds) and hundreds of mummy portraits, which have made the area famous among classicists and art historians alike. Most papyri and ostraca are now scattered over collections all over the world. The sixth volume of Collectanea Hellenistica presents 145 reconstructed archives originating from this region, including private, professional, official and temple archives both in Greek and in native Demotic.

  • By (author) K. Vandorpe
  • By (author) W. Clarysse
  • By (author) H. Verreth

"This publication will prove of great value to the papyrological an Egyptological research fields, not only for philological and archival research, but also for scholars working on the social history of Graeco-Roman Fayum and Egypt..." -Christine Hue-Arce, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2016.09.06
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