Recent excavations at the ancient site of Athribes in Lower Egypt have uncovered 13,000 ostraca. This brings the total number of pottery sherds found at the site to 43,000 (40,000 in the last three years alone), making it the largest collection of ostraca ever discovered at a single archaeological site in Egypt.
The excavation of Athribes is a joint mission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and archaeologists from the University of Tübingen. The site was the temple complex of Sher Devi (Ta-) Repit, and contained a mud brick settlement, kidney and limestone quarries as well as a temple. It was occupied for more than a millennium, producing an enormous variety of texts between the 3rd century BC and the 9th-11th centuries.
The earliest texts are tax receipts from the 3rd century BC written in the Demotic script, a common administrative script of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The latest inscriptions are Arabic inscriptions on ships from the 9th to 11th centuries AD.
“Ostraca shows us an astonishing variety of everyday situations,” says Leitz. This combination makes the find very valuable,” Leitz adds. “This everyday material gives us direct insight into the lives of the people of Athribes and makes the ostraca an important tool for a comprehensive social history of the region.”
The majority of ostraca are written in Demotic script, followed by a considerable number of Greek inscriptions. A small but significant proportion of the sherds display symbolic and geometric designs. Also there are rare inscriptions in Hieratic, hieroglyphic, Coptic or Arabic script. Athribes is also considered the world’s most important site for Demotic-Hieratic horoscopes, containing more than 130 such texts. These birth predictions are important sources in the history of ancient astronomy and astrology.
Excavations began in 2005, but only about 1,000 ostraca were found in the first 13 years. In 2018, a large group of ostraca was discovered in an area 20 by 40 meters (about 8,600 square feet) west of the temple of Ptolemy XII. Archaeologists targeted the motherlode three years ago, when 40,000 ostraca were discovered in an area 40 by 40 meters (about 17,200 square feet), along with thousands more uninscribed pottery sherds.
More ostraca are expected to be discovered as excavations continue. Meanwhile, those already found are being digitized, transcribed and translated, a task that will take years.
“This impressive project demonstrates the power of collaborative, long-term research. Through skill, patience and passion, obscure pottery sherds are transformed into a clear picture of the world of the past,” says Professor Karla Pohlmann, President of the University of Tübingen.
