Localizing 4000 Years of Cultural History. Texts and Scripts from Elephantine Island in Egypt

Project Information

ELEPHANTINE

Grant agreement ID: 637692

DOI

10.3030/637692

Project closed

EC signature date 16 June 2015

Start date 1 July 2015

End date 30 June 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 500 000,00

EU contribution

€ 1 500 000,00

Coordinated by

STIFTUNG PREUSSISCHER KULTURBESITZ
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 5 - ELEPHANTINE (Localizing 4000 Years of Cultural History. Texts and Scripts from Elephantine Island in Egypt)

Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2022-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Elephantine was a militarily and strategically very important island in the river Nile on the southern border of Egypt. No other settlement in Egypt is so well attested through texts over such a long period of time of 4000 years. Its inhabitants form a multi-ethnic, multicultural and multi-religious community that left us vast amounts of written sources detailing their everyday lives from the Old Kingdom to beyond the Arab Conquest. Today, several thousand papyri and other manuscripts from Elephantine are scattered in more than 60 institutions across Europe and beyond. Their texts are written in ten different languages and scripts, including Hieroglyphs, Hieratic, Demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Coptic and Arabic. 80% of these manuscripts were unpublished or unstudied before.
Thus, access was gained to these texts, making them publicly available in an open access online database. Links could be identified between papyrus fragments from different collections and an international ‘papyrus puzzle’ undertaken, incorporating cutting-edge methods from digital humanities, physics and mathematics (e.g. for the virtual unfolding of papyri). For the first time in the history of papyrology papyrus packages can now be read virtually, without physically opening them. Using this database with medical, religious, legal, administrative, even literary texts, the micro-history of the everyday life of the local and global (i.e. ‘glocal’) community of Elephantine can be studied within its socio-cultural setting in Egypt and beyond. It can be linked back to macro-historical questions - including multiculturalism, the role of females and the development of religions (Polytheism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam) - and benefit from newly-introduced methodologies of global history: Elephantine can thus be used as a case study and a model for the past, present and future.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

After a thorough collection and bibliography research, more than 60 museums and institutions in more than 20 different countries were contacted by the PI. The turnout of reactions and support was impressive. Most collections even provided images free of charge and supported the idea of an open access database publication. This way, more than 10.000 objects (papyri, ostraca, parchment, paper etc.) could be studied and included into the newly created database in accordance with the XML-Standard of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). This is an enormous number. This database with metadata, transcriptions and translations of the texts (where possible) is online now (see outputs/publications). The project conservator (Angos) could isolate, restore and catalogue some 4000 new papyrus fragments from the Elephantine excavation boxes in Berlin, Paris and New York. We implemented a special grid system how best to handle and document the many papyrus fragments in the collections. This system was also transfered for usage to our colleagues in Paris and New York. Also the challenge how to handle smaller fragments for a database was solved.

The languages and scripts include: Hieroglyphs, Hieratic, Demotic, Coptic, Carian, Meroitic, Phoenician, Aramaic, Syriac, Greek, Latin and Arabic.

A long lasting open access database filled with 10.700 objects has been published on the server of the HI. In total, more than 20 publications, 5 expeditions were conducted, 20 awards and recognitions received, and more than 240 outputs were given (see dissemination).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Within the Project we collected for the first time papyri from Elephantine island in ten different languages and scripts from all over the world. Joins between papyrus fragments could be identified. Methods for the virtual unfolding of the papyri have been developed. We were able to virtually unfold and unroll a papyrus package and read its text. We are the first Egyptological project using the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) for the encoding of texts. The whole ERC-database is online.
When reconstructing the cultural history of Elephantine we focus on some key questions (females in society, religions, multiculturalism). As a lot of foreigners lived on Elephantine island, the aspect of migration in Ancient Egypt was tackled. The project is based in Germany, where migration is currently a central issue, and thus interesting dimensions opened for the project: The impact was reflected by the national and international media.
The PI and the team members gave more than 130 papers and lectures about the ERC-project. In Egypt, the work was presented at the International Congress of Egyptologists in Cairo where the project had its own panel and the PI and three team members presented their work. Lectures were given in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Argonne, Athens, Bari, Basel, Berlin, Bonn, Boston, Bruxelles, Cairo, Cambridge, Castelldefels, Chicago, Cologne, Florence, Frauenwörth, Frejus, Granada; Grenoble, Göttingen, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Harvard, Khartoum, Kuala Lumpur, Lecce, Leipzig, London, Magdeburg, Maine, Mainz, Munich, Namibia, New York, New Hampshire, Paris, Piaski, Pisa, Portsmouth, Princeton, Rom, Sacley, San Antonio, Sommerset West, Strasbourg, UNESCO, Utrecht, Venice, Vienna, Warsaw, Washington D.C. etc.
Media Reaction about the PI and the ERC-Project:
More than 25 media reports were made by: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Die Zeit, Tagesspiegel, TAZ, Die Welt, Aachener Nachrichten, Spektrum der Wissenschaften, Archaeologie-Online, SMB Blog, SPK-Magazin, Berliner Antike Kolleg, Europäische Union, European Research Council Magazin, Newsweek, Prada TV, rbb, ARD etc.

ERC Team, Visit of the ERC Scientific Coordinator Julie Baleriaux