Joseph Morgan (Yale University)
I here propose a comprehensive reedition of the Hibeh papyri that accounts for the connection between the early Ptolemaic texts from Middle Egypt published in P. Hibeh I and II with smaller groups published in BGU VI, X, and XIV, P. Bad. IV, P. Fuad Crawford, P. Grad., P. Hamb. I-IV, P. Ross. Georg. II, and P. Strasb. II and VI-VIII, which have not previously been studied as a single group (despite identification in Falivene 1998, 14-15). In 1902, an Egyptian papyrus dealer approached Grenfell and Hunt during their excavation of Greco-Roman sites in the Fayyum and sold to them a hoard of early Ptolemaic mummy cartonnage. Discerning the provenance of the hoard at the looted tell of Hibeh, the pair investigated the site’s necropolis, where they uncovered extensive Ptolemaic funerary deposits and identified the rock-cut tomb from which Hassan had obtained the original cartonnage hoard. Among the looted tombs were pristine caches of mummies covered by Roman-period rubbish heaps, which the team excavated with the explicit purpose of extracting further early Ptolemaic texts. The body of material recovered was published in conjunction with the hoard purchased from Hassan as P. Hibeh. In the century following its publication, P. Hibeh has served as a vital source for the history of early Ptolemaic legal institutions, administrative apparatus, and agrarian economy: it constitutes a rare corpus of comparanda to the otherwise exceptional body of texts originating in the nearby Fayyum. However, the decision to publish the texts stemming from the Hassan cartonnage in conjunction with the new discoveries proved problematic: in failing to consider the two cartonnage hoards as separate archaeological contexts, the editors erased the connection of texts in the Hassan hoard to comparable hoards purchased by the Deutsches Papyruskartell. Prosopographical and toponymic comparison of these now-disparate hoards reveals that before approaching Grenfell and Hunt, Hassan had already prepared one or more large hoards of Hibeh cartonnage for sale. Following clues in G. and H’s brief archaeological notes on the Hibeh necropolis supplied in the introduction to P. Hibeh I, I here present a reconstruction of Hassan’s original cartonnage hoard, its relationship to Grenfell and Hunt’s discoveries in different tombs of the same necropolis, as well as its relationship to the dossiers of texts sold to German collections. My analysis supports the hypothesis that the papyri used in antiquity to construct the Hassan cartonnage were at one time stored in discrete archival contexts at Phebichis in the Koites Toparchy of the Herakleopolite nome and at Tholthis in the Lower Toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite Nome. Having established this fact, I proceed to discuss individual administrative dossiers identified among the Hibeh papyri (specifically those of Dorion, Kleitarchos, Laodamas, Nikanor, Ptolemaios, and Zenodoros) and explain the implications of the larger hoards’ archaeological contexts for the textual composition of each putative dossier. This reevaluation of the dossiers provides new insights into early Ptolemaic archival practices in Middle, the function of texts in the performance of administrative operations, and the composition of provincial administrative offices.