In ancient Egypt, pottery shards were a popular writing material for notes and practice texts. Archaeologists have now discovered more than 43,000 of these ancient notes in Athribis, Upper Egypt – more than ever before at a site. On the shards, so-called ostraka, there are tax lists, delivery certificates, religious texts and exercise texts from students from the period 2,300 to 1,000 years ago. They provide deep insights into everyday life in ancient Egypt.
Athribis in Upper Egypt was once an important cult center. The site, located around ten kilometers west of the Nile and opposite the city of Achmim, included a large temple district, a necropolis as well as a settlement and quarries. In the temple of Athribis, built by Ptolemy Since 2003, archaeologists led by Christian Leitz from the University of Tübingen have been carrying out excavations there in cooperation with Egyptian researchers.
New excavation area turns out to be a treasure trove for Ostraka
Now the archaeologists of the Athribis project are reporting on the most extensive find of labeled pottery shards in the world to date. Such so-called ostraka were used as writing material in ancient times, mostly for short and everyday notes, accounts, lists or exercise texts. During their excavations since 2005, they have discovered a total of 43,000 such ostraca in Athribis – over 42,000 of them in the last eight years alone. This means that Athribis surpasses the previously most productive site for ostraca, the former workers’ village of Deir el-Medina in the Valley of the Kings.
The team discovered a particularly large number of these ostraca when they traveled west of the Temple of Ptolemy XII. another excavation area was started. The archaeologists uncovered a large dump of ceramic shards, followed by mud brick buildings, living quarters and storage structures – parts of a settlement. About three years ago, the excavation area was expanded again to the west, and the team found the lion’s share of the ostraca.
Deep insights into everyday life in ancient times
The majority of the ostraca from Athribis is written in Demotic script, the common administrative script of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The oldest of these inscriptions are tax receipts from the 3rd century BC. But the archaeologists also found a significant proportion of Greek notes as well as rarer texts in hieratic, hieroglyphic, Coptic and Arabic script. The most recent texts are Arabic vessel inscriptions from the 9th to 11th centuries of our time. A small but significant part is also made up of shards with figurative and geometric representations.
The finds from Athribis are important not only because of their enormous number, but also in terms of the diversity of the contents recorded on these pottery shards. “The ostraca show us an astonishing variety of everyday situations,” explains Leitz. “We find tax lists and deliveries, as well as short messages about everyday processes, exercises by students, religious texts and priestly certificates about the quality of sacrificial animals.” The finds also include more than 130 predominantly demotic-hieratic horoscopes. Such forecasts made at the birth of a child provide important information about ancient astronomy and astrology. Athribis is now considered the world’s most important site for this type of text.
“It’s the mix that makes these finds so valuable,” says Leitz. “Their everyday relevance gives us a direct look into the lives of the people of Athribis and makes the ostraka sources for a comprehensive social history of the region.”
More finds expected
Archaeologists expect to find more of these ancient note shards in Athribis. “The finds from Athribis impressively show the power that lies in joint, long-term research. Through expertise, patience and passion, a vivid picture of past life is created from inconspicuous pottery shards,” says Karla Pollmann, Rector of the University of Tübingen, commenting on the finds.
The sheer number of ostraca is already a challenge. In order to document these inscriptions and digitize them in three dimensions, specialized equipment, high computing capacity and trained personnel are required. “In principle, there is an opportunity to accelerate the digitization and cataloging of the ostraca through the use of AI systems,” says Leitz. “The effort required to train and maintain a system accordingly would be high, although not without appeal.”
Source: Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen