The Materiality of Texts from

Ancient Egypt
New Approaches to the Study of Textual Material from the
Early Pharaonic to the Late Antique Period

Edited by

Francisca A.J. Hoogendijk

Steffie M.T. van Gompel

LEIDEN | BOSTON

For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV

Contents

Preface vii
Notes on Contributors x
Figures xi
Abbreviated Literature xiii
Editorial Notation xvi

1 The Material Authority of Written Texts in Pharaonic Egypt 1

Christopher Eyre

2 The Platypus Paradox: An Archaeological Approach to Ancient

Egyptian Writing Practices 12
Massimiliano S. Pinarello

3 Telling Them by Their Hands: What Palaeography Has to Offer

Prosopography 27
Rodney Ast

4 The Body of the King and of the Goddess: Materiality in and through
Manuals for Pharaoh from Tebtunis 35
Susanne Töpfer

5 Material Matters: Documentary Papyri and Ostraca in Late Ramesside

Thebes 43
Ben Haring

6 Writing on Ostraca: Considerations of Material Aspects 52

Julia Lougovaya

7 Ceramic Supports and Their Relation to Texts in Two Groups of

Ostraca from the Fayum 62
Clementina Caputo and James M.S. Cowey

8 Evolving Epigraphic Standards in the Field: Documenting Late Period

and Graeco-Roman Egyptian Graffiti through Photogrammetry at
Elkab 76
Luigi Prada and Paul D. Wordsworth

9 Revealing the Material World of Ancient Writing: Digital Techniques

and Theoretical Considerations 94
Kathryn E. Piquette

Bibliography 119

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vi Contents

Indexes

Index of Egyptian Words 135

Index of Greek Words 137
Index of Sources 139
Index of Subjects 142

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 Chapter 3
Telling Them by Their Hands: What Palaeography Has to Offer Prosopography
Rodney Ast
Greek papyri furnish prosopographical information in dif-
ferent ways.* Census documents and onomastic indicators
such as patronymics, matronymics, etc. can tell us about
genealogies. We learn of familial and non-familial relation-
ships through related texts in archives. Analysis of social
networks, be it computer-aided or not, can supplement
what we know about individuals and their acquaintances,
giving us an idea of a common milieu even when people
are not seen to be in immediate contact. For example,
knowing that persons A, B, and C were contemporary mu-
nicipal officials, we are not surprised to learn that A knew
C, when our previous evidence showed connections only
between A and B and B and C. Charting complex connec-
tions of this type has been made easier for papyrologists
by computer-aided Social Network Analysis (sna). Among
other things, sna has allowed us to visualize relationships
more clearly, thereby creating more nuanced understand-
ing of interpersonal connections, although its biggest con-
tribution thus far has probably been to onomastics.1
*  This article results in part from research that I have conduct-
ed in the context of my subproject, TP A02 ‘Antike Briefe als
Kommunikationsmedium,’ within the University of Heidelberg’s
Sonderforschungsbereich 933, which is funded by the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft. I am indebted to Graham Claytor for mak-
ing photos kept in Michigan’s archive available to me and to Julia
Lougovaya for her comments on an earlier draft.
1  See the important, early application of Social Network Analysis
in G. Ruffini, Social Networks in Byzantine Egypt (Cambridge
etc., 2008); Y. Broux has been very active in sna research, as evi-
denced by her list of publications at https://kuleuven.academia.edu/
YanneBroux – see, for example, Y. Broux, ‘Graeco-Egyptian Naming
Practices’, grbs 55 (2015), pp. 706–720. A more traditional form of
prosopography-oriented network description can be observed in
the chapter on the ‘Circle of Serenos’ in O. Trim. II (pp. 95–97) and
‘Circle of Philokles’ in H. Cuvigny, ‘La société civile des praesidia’,
in: H. Cuvigny (ed.), La route de Myos Hormos, 2 (Cairo, 2003),
pp. 376–382. M. Depauw and Y. Broux explore the potential for
Named Entity Recognition and SNA to aid the creation of prosopog-
raphies in ‘Developing Onomastic Gazetteers and Prosopographies
for the Ancient World through Named Entity Recognition and
Graph Visualization: Some Examples from Trismegistos People’ in:
L.M. Aiello – D. McFarland (eds), Social Informatics. SocInfo
2014 Workshops, Barcelona, Spain, November 11, 2014, Revised Selected
Papers (Heidelberg, 2015), pp. 304–313.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:��.��63/9789004375277_004
For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV
In addition to these methods of prosopographical research
there exists a further tool, namely the study of hands. At
the moment this is more difficult to automate than sna,
partly because prosopographical guides typically do not
track things such as an individual’s ability to write. Literacy
is not a category found in Trismegistos or any of the print
prosopographies related to Roman Egypt.2 There are his-
torical reasons for this: papyrologists traditionally privi-
leged the content of the text itself over external features
such as hands. As a result, sections of documents that
often provide important palaeographical information,
such as signatures, were accorded less attention.3 One
need only observe early P. Oxy. volumes, where the names
of signers and witnesses were regularly omitted from
translations. P. Oxy. III 490, a will and testament dated
December 1, ad 124, is a case in point. The body of the
Greek document ends with the statement ‘this will is valid,’
ἡ διαθήκη κυρία, followed by the signatures of the parties to
the will and the six witnesses. In the translation, Grenfell
and Hunt summarize the signature section thus: ‘There
follow the signatures (1) of the testatrix and her guard-
ian, written for them by a third party, (2) of the usual six
witnesses with details of their ages, distinguishing marks,
and seals’. This information did not bear directly on the
will itself, but rather on formal procedures, and the editors
2  
Of print onomastica and prosopographies, the most relevant
for the period covered by this paper are A.H.M. Jones (ed.), The
Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (= plra). Vol. I, ad 260–
395 (Cambridge, 1971); J.R. Martindale (ed.), PLRA ii, ad 395–527
(Cambridge, 1980); J.M. Diethart, Prosopographia arsinoitica, I
(mper ns 12, Wien, 1980); F. Preisigke, Namenbuch enthaltend
alle griechischen, lateinischen, ägyptischen, hebräischen, arabischen
und sonstigen semitischen und nichtsemitischen Menschennamen,
soweit sie in griechischen Urkunden (Papyri, Ostraka, Inschriften,
Mumienschildern usw) Ägyptens sich vorfinden (Heidelberg,
1922), which is still very useful despite its age; D. Foraboschi,
Onomasticon Alterum Papyrologicum: Supplemento al Namenbuch
di F. Preisigke (tdsa 16, Milano – Varese, 1971). plra unfortunately
confines itself to the upper echelon of late antique society.
3  There are notable exceptions to this, such as J.M. Diethart –
K.A. Worp, Notarsunterschriften im byzantinischen Ägypten (mper
ns 16, Wien, 1986).
28
therefore suppressed it in the translation. Moreover, be-
cause it was financially unfeasible and thus uncustomary
for editors to publish photographs, readers could not easily
study the hands for themselves. They were at the mercy of
the editors. This is not to say that papyrologists were not
interested in palaeography or did not draw connections
between ancient persons on the basis of their handwrit-
ing. They did. It is very common to find statements buried
in the commentaries and introductions of papyrus edi-
tions concerning the similarity of specific hands or the
likely identity of homonymous individuals as revealed by
their handwriting. What has been lacking is an attempt to
surface this information and present it in any formal way,
so that (il)literacy might even become an attribute of the
individuals that we study.
Now that photographs of manuscripts are more readily
available than they once were, palaeographical work is eas-
ier to do. By looking closely at individual hands and gen-
eral writing practice, we learn more about people in the
documents than the texts reveal. Recognizing a hand in
one papyrus can help us identify a homonymous individ-
ual in another. We might find, for example, that the liter-
ate Horion who penned a contract in year X was the same
Horion who authored other documents in previous or sub-
sequent years. If this Horion bore professional titles in any
of these documents, then we can start to piece together a
sort of curriculum vitae for him. By looking at his hand-
writing, we also get a sense of his ability to write. After all,
not all writers were very experienced. This, in turn, might
say something about writing proficiency in particular plac-
es at particular times.
As a methodological approach, the study of hands in
papyrological texts is not entirely new. It has been used to
elucidate aspects of archival material, for example.4 Yet, it
4  Examples can be found in R. Cribiore’s treatment of writers in
the Apollonios archive, ‘The Women in the Apollonios Archive and
Their Use of Literacy’, in: H. Melaerts – L. Mooren (eds), Le rôle
et le statut de la femme en Egypte hellénistique, romaine et byzantine:
actes du colloque international, Bruxelles-Leuven, 27–29 novembre
1997 (StudHell 37, Leuven etc., 2002), pp. 149–166; in J.-L. Fournet’s
detailed analysis of the hand of Dioskoros, Hellénisme dans l’Égypte
du VIe siècle. La bibliothèque et l’œuvre de Dioscore d’Aphrodité, 1
(Cairo, 1999), pp. 245–258; in studies of the Gemellos’ archive and its
principal literate agents, G. Azzarello, ‘Alla ricerca della ‘mano’
di Epagathos’, AfP 54 (2008), pp. 179–202, R. Ast – G. Azzarello,
‘A Roman Veteran and His Skillful Administrator: Gemellus and
Epagathus in Light of Unpublished Papyri’, in: P. Schubert
(ed.), Proceedings of the 26th Congress of Papyrology (Geneva,
2012), pp. 70–71, R. Ast – G. Azzarello, ‘New Perspectives
on the Gemellus Archive: Sabinus and His Correspondence’, in:
For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV
Ast
has not been employed as extensively as one might expect,
perhaps because of the tedious and subjective nature of
the work, which can discourage people from this type of
approach. An additional hurdle is the fact that there is an
implicit bias in our discipline that works against prosopo-
graphical identifications based on script. Even when all
else related to an individual in separate documents is equal
(that is, the texts are similarly dated, come from the same
place, involve homonymous literate individuals), the state-
ment, ‘these two hands are different’ typically holds greater
authority than the opposite assertion, ‘these two hands are
the same’, although, in many cases, they spring from the
same place: the observer’s gut, supported by more-or-less
experience staring at hands. In other words, critical assess-
ment based on the observation of differences is generally
more persuasive than that deriving from observed simi-
larities. One reason for this is that individual letterforms
produced by a single hand can show a deceptive range of
variation, and it is sometimes difficult to know when varia-
tions are indicative of different writers and when they exist
along the spectrum of a single individual’s writing style.5
Given the biases and overall subjective nature of our work,
we should, I contend, pursue a broader strategy when
using handwriting as a basis for prosopographical stud-
ies. What I mean is that we should still look at traditional
elements, such as individual letterforms (these are doubt-
lessly important), but also pay attention to other features,
such as ligatures, diacritical signs, section markers (e.g.,
C. Arlt – M.A. Stadler (eds), Das Fayyûm in Hellenismus und
Kaiserzeit (Wiesbaden, 2013), pp. 19–28; and in W. Clarysse’s re-
examination of the Zenon archive, ‘The Zenon Papyri Thirty Years
on’, in: G. Bastianini – A. Casanova (eds), 100 anni di istituzioni
fiorentine per la papirologia. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi,
Firenze 12–13 giugno 2008 (Studi e testi di papirologia, nuova serie 11,
Firenze, 2009), pp. 37–43; cf. too R. Daniel’s interesting discussion
of the possible effects of aging on the handwriting of a single indi-
vidual, as observed in a group of four papyri that span just over forty
years, ‘Palaeography and Gerontology. The Subscriptions of Hermas
Son of Ptolemaios’, zpe 167 (2008), pp. 151–152.
5  A. Sarri has shown how narrow focus on individual letter shapes
can mislead people into assuming the presence of multiple hands,
when in fact the same hand employed different styles, in Material
Aspects of Letter Writing in the Graeco-Roman World (500 BC–AD
300) (Berlin, 2017), pp. 146–190. See too J.-L. Fournet’s comments
on the need for a more holistic approach to culturally significant
features in documentary papyri in ‘Culture grecque et document
dans l’Égypte de l’Antiquité tardive’, jjp 43 (2013 [2015]), pp. 148–160;
while Fournet is not concerned specifically with palaeographical
matters, he also encourages a more nuanced and less text-centric
appreciation of papyrological witnesses.
Telling Them By Their Hands
paragraphi), the inclination of script, spacing between
letters and lines, the general character of the script, etc.6
Such features, which do not always get transmitted along
with a printed text, can be exceedingly valuable indicators
of personal practice, bureaucratic procedures, even the
educational background of the writer. Add to that a bit of
common sense (for example, chances are not bad that two
people from the same place with the same name perform-
ing related functions and writing in a visually similar hand
are the same person, even if we do not know their fathers’
names), and we begin to develop some criteria for a form of
prosopographical research that complement other meth-
ods. Yet, before proceeding to discussion of specific people
and their scripts, I will offer an important caveat. The use
of professional writers was common in antiquity. We can
never discount the possibility that the ‘author’ of a partic-
ular document was an unnamed surrogate. Furthermore,
with some texts (and indeed with some types of texts), we
have to reckon with possible copies prepared by someone
other than the original writer.7 Nevertheless, I believe that,
particularly in the later Roman period, when a person says
he signed a document or wrote the whole thing himself, he
usually did so. There is no need to postulate the existence
of an unknown assistant who signed or composed the text,
unless there is compelling reason to do this, as when the
document in question is a copy or the handwriting is nota-
bly different from other known specimens of the person’s
handwriting.8
6  I recently analyzed individual usage of diacritical signs in ‘Signs
of Learning in Greek Documents: The Case of spiritus asper’, in:
G.N. Macedo – M.C. Scappaticcio (eds), Actes du colloque in-
ternational ‘Signes dans les textes, textes sur les signes’, Université de
Liège, 6 et 7 septembre 2013 (Liège, 2017), pp. 143–157. More extensive
work on the subject can be found in Sarri, Material Aspects of Letter
Writing. In what follows, I take note of some of these features, even
if I do not always explicitly draw attention to them.
7  Distinguishing between copies and originals is tricky, but we should
always bear in mind that some kinds of documents, such as registers
recording multiple receipts, could be copies of originals, especially
if they are composed in a single hand. One way to investigate this
question is to survey groups of papyri and ostraca purportedly writ-
ten by the same person, to see if they are all in the same hand. My
first attempt at this type of study will appear in a forthcoming article
that looks at tax receipts preserved in papyri and ostraca under the
name of a single official.
8  A good example of a document written in a different hand from
that normally associated with the text’s author, see P. Fay. 110, with
image at http://www.papyri.info/ddbdp/p.fay;;110. The nice script
could not be more unlike Gemellos’ crabbed handwriting, of which
many examples exist; cf. Azzarello, ‘Alla ricerca della ‘mano’ di
Epagathos’, p. 181, fn. 14, and Ast – Azzarello, ‘New Perspectives
on the Gemellus Archive’, p. 25.
For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV
29
1 P. Sakaon and P. Cairo Isidoros
In an attempt to illustrate what I mean about the value of
palaeography for prosopography, I here present three case
studies, all from the Arsinoite nome. My purpose is to show
what systematic study of hands can tell us about literate
agents operating, in this case, in a specific nome of Roman
Egypt during the late third and early fourth century.
1.1 Aurelius Kastorion
I begin with the name Kastorion. Unlike the proper name
Kastor, from which it derives, Kastorion is not very com-
mon. It occurs 24 times in 9 documents, all from the
Arsinoite.
Four of the nine individuals bear the nomen Aurelius
(nos 1, 5, 7, and 9). tm People assigns a different Person-
id to each, but one must be cautious with these numbers.
As tm itself warns on its ‘Prosopography’ information
page, it is not yet a prosopography, so we should not ex-
pect these id’s to be a reliable marker of persons.9 Since
no distinguishing filiation is given for any of the indi-
viduals, we have to look elsewhere to get an idea of the
approximate number of distinct persons who bear this
name. The provenance and dates are two things that could
potentially help us sort out the individuals. While all the
documents come from the Arsinoite, some are said, more
precisely, to be from Theadelphia, and one each from
Karanis and Philadelphia. Yet, the different places are
not actually that significant. A single official, especially a
municipal one, might have conducted business in multiple
villages on behalf of the nome capital, the city of Arsinoe.
What can the dates of the texts tell us? The seven dated
documents cover a twenty-year span, from 305 (P. Wisc. I
32) to 325 (P. Sakaon 24). The two undated papyri are as-
signed to the late third (P. Mich. VIII 515) and the fourth/
fifth century (CPR XIV 34), respectively. So there is noth-
ing in the dates that would per se clearly distinguish any
of the Kastorions; moreover, the documents are all close
enough in date that none can easily be discounted be-
cause of its being chronologically out of range. We could
be dealing with the same person, or we could be in the
presence of multiple homonymous people. The evidence
is inconclusive.
9  http://www.trismegistos.org/ref/about_prosopography.php. See too
Depauw – Broux, ‘Developing Onomastic Gazetteers and Proso-
pographies …’, pp. 304–313; the authors assert that ‘[i]n its current
state, tm People can thus not be called a prosopography, since the
identification of namesake individuals is a crucial aspect of this type
of scholarly tool’ (p. 307).
30 Ast

Occurrences tm People Date (ad) Provenance

1. CPR XIV 34 id 284986 4th/5th c. Arsinoite

2. P. Mich. VIII 515 id 280577 late 3rd c. Karanis (apis); unknown (hgv)
3. PSI VII 820 id 341448 13.12.313(?)a Arsinoite (apis); unknown (ed. pr.)
4. P. Sakaon 9 id 390474 314/315 Theadelphia
5. P. Sakaon 17 id 390225 June 308 Theadelphia
6. P. Sakaon 22 id 390256 5–8.09.324 Theadelphia
7. P. Sakaon 24 id 390266 28.06.325 Theadelphia
8. P. Sakaon 38 id 390298 17.08.312 Theadelphia
9. P. Wisc. I 32 = Pap. Choix 27 id 339860 26.04.305 Philadelphia

a This is the likely date of the receipt signed by Kastorion; for references to discussions of the dates recorded in the papyrus,
see the hgv entry at www.papyri.info/ddbdp/psi;7;820.

Still, let us look more closely at some of the dated docu-
ments, paying attention first to Kastorion’s official titles,
because of their possible prosopographical importance.
The Kastorions found in these texts bear numerous titles.
In a petition submitted to the strategos of the Arsinoite
nome and dated 26 April 305 (P. Wisc. I 32), the earliest
dated text witnessing a man with this name, an Aurelius
Kastorion is referred to as the prytanis of the city council
in Arsinoe. He does not write any part of the document,
so there is no sample of his handwriting, unfortunately.
A papyrus roll from three years later (21 June 308), which
contains receipts of gold and silver, gives us the first
‘graphic’ evidence, so to speak, for any of these Kastorions
(P. Sakaon 17). Here the Aurelius Kastorion in question is
called a former gymnasiarch, former prytanis, city coun-
cillor (βουλευτής), and the overseer of gold (ἐπιμελητὴς
χρυσοῦ). He is observed on seven occasions in this docu-
ment signing the receipts with the expected phrase ‘I,
Aurelius Kastorion, have signed’ (Αὐρήλιος Καστορίων
σεσημείωμαι). Here are thumbnail images of his signature:

(Line 9)

(Line 15)

(Line 23)

(Line 28)

(Line 32)

(Line 38)

(Line 44)

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 Telling Them By Their Hands
P. Sakaon 22, 34–46 P. Sakaon 24
A quick glance at the signatures, which were recognized
also by G. Parássaglou, the editor of P. Sakaon, to be in the
same hand, already reveals something of the character of
Kastorion’s handwriting. The hand is not entirely unprac-
ticed, but it lacks discipline and fluidity, and this lack of
uniformity is, in a way, its most distinctive trait, along with
the consistent ligaturing of -αστο-. The hand’s irregularity
is important to bear in mind when we look at some of the
other examples. As for his titles, Kastorion is from the bou-
leutic class, clearly someone of rank and standing, being a
former gymnasiarch and prytanis and current city coun-
cillor and epimeletes. Given his unusual name, I am fairly
confident that he is the same as the prytanis in the previ-
ous text, P. Wisc. I 32.
P. Sakaon 17 is not the only instance where an Aurelius
Kastorion writes. In two receipts, P. Sakaon 22 and 24, which
are dated up to 17 years later (P. Sakaon 22 = 5–8 Sept. 324;
24 = 28 June 325) than P. Sakaon 17, an Aurelius Kastorion,
also a city councillor and an overseer of the workmen
(ἐπιμελητὴς ἐργατῶν) at the quarries near Alabastrine,
acknowledges services rendered by several workmen.
Both receipts are in this Kastorion’s own hand, which is,
as one immediately recognizes, a competent but not very
fluid script. As with P. Sakaon 17, the hand seems less
controlled.
I am not the first to identify the Kastorions in these
two documents. Parássoglou grouped the homonymous
individuals of 22 and 24, but not 17, together in the index
(the volume contains no commentary). P. Jouguet, the
editor of P. Thead., thought that 22 and 24 referred to the
same person and suggested that he was also the Kastorion
For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV
31
of 17.10 On what grounds the two scholars suggested these
identifications is unclear, but I think that the script con-
firms them. The fact that the Aurelius Kastorion in the
first document we looked at, from the year 305 (P. Wisc. I
32), is called prytanis just three years before the Kastorion
of P. Sakaon 17 is identified as a former prytanis strongly
suggests that the Kastorion in the Wisconsin papyrus is
the same person, too. This means that we have identified
and learned some career details of one of the Kastorions
attested in four of the nine. Here is what his cv might have
looked like.
305 Prytanis
308 Ex-prytanis, ex-gymnasiarch, bouleutes, epimeletes
of gold
324  Bouleutes and epimeletes of the quarries at
Alabastrine
325  Bouleutes and epimeletes of the quarries at
Alabastrine
The remaining five documents are difficult, and I will not
address each of them. Only two, PSI VII 820 and CPR XIV
34, reveal the hand of their respective Kastorion. The for-
mer, PSI VII 820, is a roll containing various receipts span-
ning the years 309 to 314. The one issued by Kastorion is
probably from 13.12.313.11 In the edition the provenance
is said to be unknown, but Hunt apparently noted that it
10  Jouguet of course had different numbers for these texts:
P. Sakaon 22 = P. Thead. 34, P. Sakaon 24 = P. Thead. 35, P. Sakaon
17 = P. Thead. 33. In the commentary to P. Thead. 34, 1, he states,
‘Καστορίων doit être identifié avec Αὐρήλιος Καστορίων de 35 et
peut-être avec l’épimélète de l’or de 33’.
11  See p. 30 fn. a above.
32
PSI VII 820
was from the Arsinoite.12 This Kastorion is given the title
‘receiver,’ ἀποδέκτης, which could refer to a village, munici-
pal, or pagus official.13 Receiver of what, we do not know
exactly, although the receipt has to do with grain. Should
we be surprised to see a former prytanis acting as a receiv-
er of taxes on grain? I am not sure we should, yet, regard-
less of this, the hand responsible for Kastorion’s signature
looks less like the others.
In fact, it appears to be more proficient, which to me
suggests we are dealing with someone else. But if it turned
out otherwise, I would not be surprised. This ambiguity il-
lustrates the lack of precision and certainty that can ac-
company a palaeographic study of this sort.
Also problematic is CPR XIV 34, assigned by the edi-
tor to the 4th or 5th century. This Kastorion is an Aurelius
and police official (εἰρήναρχος). The editor thought that he
was likely a village eirenarch, because the content of the
document, a receipt for wages, was below the authority of
a municipal or pagus eirenarch. Be that as it may, the hand
shares the informality of other examples we have seen, but
to a still larger extent. My intuition therefore suspects it is
yet another person.
In the end, common sense and inferences drawn from
official titles have identified a single Kastorion in at least
three texts, while close attention to handwriting confirms
this and adds a fourth document. On the basis of the cor-
roborating evidence we therefore get a partial snapshot of
the 20-plus year career of a municipal figure in the Fayum.
1.2 Aurelius Sempronios
For my second example, which involves fewer textual wit-
nesses, I will turn to a man named Aurelius Sempronios.
In third/fourth century papyri from the Arsinoite nome,
we encounter a literate individual with this name in two
documents. As far as I know, the two people have never
been identified.
12  See information provided in apis at www.papyri.info/ddbdp/
psi;7;820, which is also found on the csad website, http://ipap.
csad.ox.ac.uk/4DLink4/4DACTION/IPAPwebquery?vPub=PSI&v
Vol=7&vNum=820.
13  N. Lewis, The Compulsory Public Services of Roman Egypt
(Second Edition, PapFlor 28, Firenze, 1997), p. 15.
For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV
Ast
Occurrences tm People Date (ad) Provenance
1. P. Mich. IX 547 id 251278 15.06.298 Karanis
2. P. Mert. I 30 id 250658 3.09.302 Arsinoite
They bear different tm-id’s, but, as we have seen, this is
not surprising: all of the Kastorions discussed above have
different id’s, even though some of the identifications have
long been accepted. On the whole, the name Sempronios
is not that uncommon in the Roman period, but it crops up
in only 8 documents from Egypt dated after ad 250.
Let us look more closely at the two documents in ques-
tion. The first, P. Mich. IX 547, is a receipt from the Isidoros
archive for cloaks requisitioned on behalf of the army.14
Here, Sempronios bears the nomen Aurelius, and he and
two other individuals, Aurelius Agathinos and Aurelius
Siloeis, all function as overseers of cloaks (ἐπιμεληταὶ
παλλίων), another name probably for the curatores vestis
militaris. A striking feature of this otherwise mundane
receipt is Sempronios’ statement in line 8 that he wrote
the whole thing himself, ἔγραψα τὰ ὅλα, ‘I wrote it all’.
P. Mich IX 547, 8
This phrase is confined strictly to the Arsinoite nome and
found in texts mainly from the late third or fourth centu-
ries. Out of 26 attestations, only two are earlier, both the
second half of the second century.15
14  See K. Geens, ‘Aurelius Isidoros Son of Ptolemaios’, at: Leuven
Homepage of Papyrus Collections (Leuven, 2013, http://www.tris-
megistos.org/arch/archives/pdf/34.pdf) for more information
about this archive.
15  The two 2nd-century texts BGU II 520, 15f. (3 January 172; Theon)
and P. Kar.Goodsp. 78, 5f. (158–159; Sokrates); the remaining
twenty-four, which are the products of twenty distinct writers,
are from the late 3rd and 4th centuries. I report them here, ar-
ranged by writer’s name: Aurelius Anoubion = P. Cair.Isid. 44,
18ff. (305–306); Aurelius Atammon = P. NYU I 4a, 11f. (4 November
312); SB V 7621, 248 (29 June 324); Atio = P. Cair.Isid. 56, 6 (28 July
315); Aurelius Dioskorammon = P. Sakaon 61, 30 (11 June 299);
Aurelius Eudaimon = P. Col. VII 138, 16 (30 April 308); Aurelius
Hol = P. Col. VII 158, 15f. (12 July 344); Isidoros = P. Cair.Isid. 119,
12 (23 February 311); Ision = P. Cair.Isid. 60, 20 (2 December 319);
Aurelius Johannes = P. Cair.Isid. 114, 15f. (13 November 304), 115,
8f. (17 November 306); Aurelius Kasios = P. Cair.Isid. 111, 18 (27
November 298), 113, 15f. (April–August 303), 116, 11 (25 December
306); Aurelius Kollouthos = P. Cair.Isid. 57, 33 (12 September 315);
Telling Them By Their Hands 33

Four years later, in P. Mert. I 30, we get another instance
of an Aurelius Sempronios issuing receipts. The docu-
ment contains receipts written by two individuals who
are described as receivers of chaff (ἀποδέκται ἀχύρου).
One is Aurelius Kopres, whom we will look more closely
at below, the other, our Aurelius Sempronios. The men
are highly proficient writers. They are literate liturgists as-
signed by the council of the metropolis, Arsinoe, to regis-
ter tax payments in the village. I have no doubt that this
Aurelius Sempronios is the same as the epimeletes pallium
who penned P. Mich. IX 547 in its entirety: the compact
script and gamma-rho and upsilon-rho ligatures sup-
port this identification, and the signatures seem to con-
firm it, even though they were written over four years
apart.16
P. Mert. I 30, 13
P. Mich. IX 547, 8
Neither Sempronios’ title nor any family details (of the
latter, we in fact have none) help us draw this conclusion.
That is to say that nothing in the text itself would point to
the same person. Rather, we establish the identification by
the hand, which is also supported by the close date and the
common Arsinoite provenance.
1.3 Kopres
My final example is a man called Kopres. The name occurs
in documents from different places in the Arsinoite nome.17
I am interested here in instances found in seven texts, five
of which are land declarations from the years 299/300.
P. Cair.Isid. 41, a register of receipts for various taxes com-
posed twelve years later, may involve the same Kopres,
but I have not been able to study the photos produced by
the Photographic Archive; only a single column is repro-
duced at the website of the Center for the Study of Ancient
Documents.18 I therefore omit it from my survey.
The declarations (nos 1–5) resulted from a census con-
ducted in villages across the nome. Our Kopres, whose
family details are uncertain, served as a municipal oath
administrator, or iurator, during this census. This was his
liturgical appointment in 299/300. The documents that he
signed are associated with two different Arsinoite villages,
Theadelphia and Karanis. Given his status as a municipal,
not village, official, it is little surprising to see him carrying
out his liturgical duties in different villages. Furthermore,
the fact that we are dealing with a single individual is
immediately clear from examination of the man’s signa-
ture, which is written in a consistent fashion, even if he
sometimes writes Aurelius in full, and other times abbrevi-
ates it.
Now, Boak and Youtie already knew that this iurator was
the same man in the five census documents. The common

Occurrences tm People Date (ad) Provenance Title

1. P. Sakaon 2, 22 id 357139 14.01.300 Theadelphia βου(λευτὴς) ἰουράτωρ

2. P. Sakaon 3, 21 id 390291 300.01.1–26 Theadelphia βου(λευτὴς) ἰουράτωρ
3. P. Cair.Isid. 3, 36 id 127514 12.09.299 Karanis βου(λευτὴς) ἰουράτωρ
4. P. Cair.Isid. 4, 19 id 127514 12.09.299 (?) Karanis βου(λευτὴς) ἰουράτωρ
5. P. Cair.Isid. 5, 43 id ? 299.09.12 Karanis βου(λευτὴς) ἰουράτωρ
6. P. Mert. I 30 id 250656 302 Arsinoite ἀποδέκτης
7. O. Mich. I 185 id 382501 302 Karanis ἀποδέκτης

Aurelius Kopres = P. Cair.Isid. 41, 108; Aurelius Makarios = P. Col.

VII 187, 9f. (ca. 375?); Momas = P. Col. VII 161, 32 (30 July 351);
Aurelius Neilammon = P. Cair.Isid. 58, 18f. (17 September 315);
Aurelius Sempronios = P. Mich. IX 547, 8 (15 June 298); Aurelius
Zoilos = P. Cair.Isid. 117, 7 (15 October 309), 118, 8 (April–December
310), 120, 8f. (26 August 311), SB XXII 15837, 11 (31 May 308).
16  Gamma-rho in P. Mich. IX 547, 8 looks very much like upsilon-rho
in P. Mert. I 30, 10. In the signatures, the epsilons appear some-
what different, but the difference is insignificant. More impor-
tant is the common, controlled ligaturing of the letters.
17  This is not the place for discussion of copronyms; for more on
that topic, see the article of M. Malouta, ‘The Terminology of
Fatherlessness in Roman Egypt: ἀπάτωρ and χρηματίζων μητρός’,
in: J. Frösén – T. Purola – E. Salmenkivi (eds), Proceedings
of the 24th International Congress of Papyrology, 1st–7th of August
2004, 2 (Helsinki, 2007), pp. 615–624.
18  See http://ipap.csad.ox.ac.uk/4DLink4/4DACTION/IPAPweb
query?vPub=P.Cair.Isid.&vVol=&vNum=41.

For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV

 34
P. Sakaon 2 (Theadelphia) P. Sakaon 3 (Theadelphia)
P. Cair.Isid. 3 (Karanis) P. Cair.Isid. 4 (Karanis)
P. Cair.Isid. 5 (Karanis)
text type and Kopres’ title made it obvious. What has not
been recognized is that this same Kopres was probably be-
hind two texts written two years later, in 302. In this year,
he was serving as receiver of chaff (ἀποδέκτης ἀχύρου) on
behalf of the municipal government. What is interesting
in these two cases is that we have examples of a hand at-
tested across material substrates. One of the texts is the
Merton papyrus (I 30) discussed above, which contains the
signature of Sempronios. In it, Kopres acknowledges two
separate payments of chaff (for 300 and 150 pounds, re-
spectively) made by individuals on behalf of the village of
Karanis. The other document is an ostracon, O. Mich. I 185,
that was composed three days before the Merton papyrus.
It acknowledges receipt of 150 pounds of chaff on behalf of
the town of Karanis. Here are the signatures up close:
P. Mert. I 30, 7 O. Mich. I 185, 7
Viewed side by side, the texts are not obviously in the same
hand. In fact, letters on the ostracon are thicker and less
fluid than those of the papyrus. Kopres’ title (apodektes),
however, and the very similar signatures leave no doubt in
my mind. The differences in script must have partly to do
with the different material substrates, and the substrates
themselves might tell us something about bureaucratic
procedure, a point that I intend to develop elsewhere.
While the receipt on the ostracon is not specifically re-
lated to those on the papyrus, we can assume from these
texts that ostraca receipts were copied on papyrus registers
similar to P. Mert. I 30, presumably for archiving purposes.
For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV
Ast
2 Conclusions
So what can we take away from all of this? First of all,
knowledge of hands can help identify literate individuals
bearing the same name in other texts, who would other-
wise be unidentifiable. Handwriting can also tell us about
a person’s level of education and career path, and, given
sufficient data, might say something ultimately about lit-
eracy in a given place. Not all city councillors, for example,
could write. Good writers were likely in demand, and their
ability to write might explain why they performed some of
the liturgical duties they were tasked with.19
What are the limitations of this method? First of all, I
will repeat, this is subjective business, and we often face
questionable identifications, simply because analysis of
handwriting is no less an art than a science. Nevertheless,
as with any art, experience will greatly refine and improve
one’s results. Whether we can train machines to do this
type of work still remains to be seen. A second limitation is
the fact that the process of carefully comparing hands can
be quite tedious. It would therefore be helpful if people
who deal in the prosopography of Greco-Roman Egypt in-
clude information about individuals’ ability (or lack there-
of) to write, alongside family details and official titles. This
might serve as an initial filter that could potentially help
surface previously unseen identifications among people,
both literate and illiterate.
19  I discuss some of these points in ‘Writing and the City in Later
Roman Egypt. Towards a Social History of the Ancient ‘Scribe”,
CHS Research Bulletin 4.1 (2015, http://www.chs-fellows.org/
2016/03/29/writing-and-the-city-in-later-roman-egypt/).