The Camel-driver in Late Antique Egypt based on unpublished Coptic ostraca from Shutb Storage Museum

Sawy, Mona

doi:10.21608/iwnw.2025.456320

The Camel-driver in Late Antique Egypt based on unpublished Coptic ostraca from Shutb Storage Museum

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Mona Sawy

Archaeology department, Faculty of Arts, Assiut University

10.21608/iwnw.2025.456320

Abstract

The Camel-driver was one of the most common titles and professions in Coptic documentary texts, especially those originating in monasteries. This profession was primarily associated with economic and social life, especially during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Although camels were not as common as donkeys for daily transportation, they were valuable for trade and long-distance travel, especially in desert regions, as well as for transporting people, goods and letters. They were also symbolically significant, appearing in religious contexts/ narratives, such as with Saint Mina and on Coptic icons. This research paper aims to publish three Coptic ostraca related to the camel-driver profession for the first time, which are kept in the Storage museum of Shutb in Assiut. The present ostraca are part of six artifacts from the excavation work at Deir el-Gandala by the Egyptian archaeological mission season 1985 with the same number.[1] This study suggested that these ostraca can be dated back to the 6^th–8^th century CE, based on the provenance, paleography, and formulae.

[1] The researcher got the acceptance of publication from The Permanent Committee for Islamic and Coptic Antiquities on 05.03.2024.

Keywords

References

سهير أحمد، "المراسلات القبطيه - دراسه تحليليه مقارنة لشكل ومحتوى بعض الرسائل غير المنشورة" رسالة ماجستير غير منشورة، كلية الآداب، جامعة عين شمس، 2008.

Ahmed, S. " al-Murāsalāt alqbṭyh-dirāsah taḥlīlīyah muqāranah lshkl wmḥtwá baʻḍ al-rasāʼil ghayr al-manshūrah" unpublished Master thesis, Ain Shams University, 2008.

Ahmed, S.S. “Professions, Trades, Occupations, And Titles in Coptic (Alphabetically)”, Journal of Coptic studies 13 (2010): 115-148.

Ahmed, S.S. “Unpublished Coptic Ostraca from Cairo Museum”, After Constantine 2024 (1), DOI 10.5281/ZENODO.8158705.

Ahmed, S. S., “Study of Four Coptic Texts Relating to Date Fruits,” al-Majalla al-ʿIlmiyya li-Kulliyyat al-Ādāb, Jāmiʿat Asyūṭ 31, no. 92 (2024), 2: 1903–18, 1906. https://journals.ekb.eg/article_380972_c65ef13fbfefc220133f8628ab81b41,

Bagnall, Roger S. “The Camel, the Wagon, and the Donkey in Later Roman Egypt.” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 22 (1985): 1–6.

Bulliet, Richard W. The Camel and the Wheel. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.

Cromwell, Jennifer. “Camel, O Camel, Come and Fetch and Carry: on two camels,” The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (2015): 98-99.

Crum, W. E., H. I. Bell, and R. C. Thompson. Wadi Sarga: Coptic and Greek Texts from the Excavations Undertaken by the Byzantine Research Account. Coptica 3. Copenhagen, 1922.

Crum, W. E., and H. G. Evelyn White. The Monastery of Epiphanius at Thebes, II: Coptic Ostraca and Papyri, Greek Ostraca and Papyri. New York, 1926.

Crum, W. E. A Coptic Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939.

Förster, Hans. Wörterbuch der griechischen Wörter in den koptischen dokumentarischen Texten. Texte und Untersuchungen 148. Berlin and New York, 2002.

Lopizzo, Sandro. Les ostraca grecs et coptes du monastère de Baouît conservés à la Fondation Bible + Orient de l’université de Fribourg (Suisse) [= O. Bawit Fribourg]. Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 2016.

MacCoull, Leslie S. B. Coptic Legal Documents: Law as Vernacular Text and Experience in Late Antique Egypt. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2009.

O’Connell, Elizabeth R. “R. Campbell Thompson’s 1913/14 Excavation of Wadi Sarga and Other Sites.” British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 21 (2014): 121–92.

Pusch, Edgar B. “Ein Dromedar aus der Ramses-Stadt.” Ägypten und Levante 6 (1996): 107–18.

Richter, Tonio Sebastian. “Zwei Komposita jüngerer Bildungsweise im koptischen Ostrakon Ägyptisches Museum der Universität Leipzig Inv.-Nr. 1611.” Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 125 (1998): 56–62.

Sawy, M. Treatment by Medicine and Magic in Coptic Texts. PhD diss., University of Göttingen, 2022. eDiss Göttingen. http://dx.doi.org/10.53846/goediss-9304

Till, Walter C. “Die koptischen Arbeitsverträge.” Eos 48, no. 1 (1956): 272–329.

———. Die koptischen Rechtsurkunden aus Theben. Vienna, 1964.