EGYPT IN THE BYZANTINE
WORLD, 300–700

Egypt in the period from the reign of the emperor Constantine to the Arab conquest was both a vital part of the late Roman and Byzantine world, participating fully in the culture of its wider Mediterranean society, and a distinctive milieu, launched on a path to developing the Coptic Christian culture that we see fully only after the end of Byzantine rule. This book is the first comprehensive survey of Egypt to treat this entire period including the first half-century of Arab rule. Twenty-one renowned specialists present the history, society, economy, culture, religious institutions, art, and architecture of the period. Topics covered range from elite literature to mummification and from monks to Alexandrian scholars. A full range of Egypt’s uniquely rich source materials – literature, papyrus documents, letters, and archaeological remains – gives exceptional depth and vividness to this portrait of a society, and recent archaeological discoveries are described and illustrated.

ROGER BAGNALL is Professor of Classics and History at Columbia University. He is an internationally acknowledged leader in the field of papyrology and his publications include Egypt in Late Antiquity (1993), The Demography of Roman Egypt (1994, with Bruce Frier), and Reading Papyri, Writing Ancient History (1995).

EGYPT IN THE BYZANTINE
WORLD, 300–700

EDITED BY
Roger S. Bagnall

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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First published 2007

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Contents

Illustrations

Preface

This book began life as the papers given at the annual Byzantine Studies Symposium of Dumbarton Oaks in spring 2004. In planning the symposium, which was the first at Dumbarton Oaks devoted specifically to Egypt, I aimed to bring together speakers who could give the audience a survey of current research and views on as wide a variety of topics as possible. Inevitably, considerations of the symposium’s schedule, balance, and budget prevented the inclusion of some topics or speakers. Some – but not all – of the resulting gaps have been remedied in this volume, and I am particularly grateful to those who agreed on relatively short notice to write these chapters. But it was the symposium that furnished the occasion and brought together most of the contents, and I must thank particularly the Director (Edward Keenan) and Senior Fellows of Dumbarton Oaks for entrusting me with the symposiarch’s office for the year and subsequently allowing me free rein in shaping the resulting publication; Alice-Mary Talbot for her unfailing help and guidance in my discharge of that task; and Caitlin McGurk for her efficient and unobtrusive work in making a complicated event a pleasure for the participants. The learned audience asked many incisive questions and pointed us in directions we had not thought of, and they too deserve some of the credit for the result.

Much of the reading and reflection that went into writing the introduction took place during the fall semester 2004, during which I taught a course on Egypt from 300 to 700 while serving as visiting professor of Coptic Studies at the American University in Cairo. I thank my colleagues there, particularly Salima Ikram, for this stimulating opportunity. Most of the editing of the volume and the actual writing of the introduction were done during early 2005, when I was in the Dakhla Oasis directing Columbia University’s fieldwork there as part of the Dakhleh Oasis Project. The suggestions of the Press’s referees have been helpful at many points in shaping the book. The editorial work, then and subsequently, especially on regularizing the bibliographies, owes much to my graduate assistants, Jason Governale and Giovanni Ruffini.

Abbreviations

Papyri and papyrological series and journals are cited according to Checklist of Editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca and Tablets, ed. J. Oates et al., 5th edn. (BASP Supplement 9, 2001) (also available online at: http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/clist.html); abbreviations for journals otherwise follow the usage of L’Année Philologique.

AE	L’Année Épigraphique (Paris 1888–).
CAG	Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (Berlin 1882–1909).
CAH	Cambridge Ancient History. 2nd edn. (Cambridge 1961–).
CGL	Corpus glossariorum Latinorum, ed. G. Goetz. 7 vols. (Leipzig 1893–1901).
CIA	Matériaux pour un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum. Première partie: Égypte, ed. M. van Berchem (Mémoires publiés par les membres de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire 52, 1894–1930).
CIL	Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin 1862–).
Coptic Encyclopedia	Coptic Encyclopedia, ed. A. S. Atiya. 8 vols. (New York 1991).
CSBE	Bagnall, R. S. and K. A. Worp, Chronological Systems of Byzantine Egypt. 2nd edn. (Leiden 2004).
CSCO	Corpus scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium.
FHN	Fontes historiae Nubiorum. 4 vols. (Bergen 1994–2000).
I.Philae	Les inscriptions grecques de Philae, ed. A. Bernand and E. Bernand. 2 vols. (Paris 1969).
OCA	Orientalia Christiana analecta (Rome 1923–).
P.Berl.Arab. II	Arabische Briefe des 7. bis 13. Jahrhunderts aus den Staatlichen Museen Berlin, ed. W. Diem (Documenta Arabica Antiqua 4, Wiesbaden 1997).
P.Cair.Arab. I-VI	Arabic Papyri in the Egyptian Library, ed. A. Grohmann (Cairo 1934–62).
PG	Patrologiae cursus completus, series Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris 1844–91).
P.Heid.Arab. I	Papyri Schott–Reinhardt I, ed. C. H. Becker (Heidelberg 1906).
P.Khalili I	Arabic Papyri: Selected Material from the Khalili Collection, ed. G. Khan (Oxford 1992).
PL	Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris 1844–79).
PLRE	Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, ed. A. H. M. Jones, J. R. Martindale, and J. Morris. 3 vols. in 4 (Cambridge 1971–92).
PO	Patrologia Orientalis (Paris 1907–).
P.Prag.Arab.	‘Arabische Papyri aus der Sammlung Carl Wessely im orientalischen Institute (Orientální 'Ustav) zu Prag’, ed. A. Grohmann, Archiv Orientální 10 (1938): 149–62; 11 (1939): 242–89; 12 (1941): 1–112; 14 (1943): 161–260.
RCEA	Répertoire chronologique d’épigraphie arabe I, ed. Ét. Combe, J. Sauvaget, and G. Wiet (Cairo 1931).
SEG	Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (Leiden 1923–).