Les oases d'Égypte à l'époque grecque, romaine et byzantine d'après les documents grecs(recherches de papyrologie et d'épigraphie grecques) by G. WagnerReview by: Diana DeliaJournal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 26 (1989), pp. 249-250Published by: American Research Center in EgyptStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40000719 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 249

l'interet de sa recherche, riche d'enseignements origin- aux sur la Nubie. Ce territoire, touche par les eaux du barrage d'Assouan, est sans doute un des mieux connus sur le plan archeologique. Bien des lacunes subsistent encore, notamment en ce qui concerne les premieres cultures de la vallee du Nil, que la publica- tion des travaux engages il y a quelques annees, contribue a combler, tout en constituant pour les chantiers actuellement en cours au Soudan une aide precieuse.

Ch. Bonnet Universite de Geneve

Les oases d'Egypte a I'epoque grecque, romaine et byzantine d'apres les documents grecs (recherches de papyrologie et d'epigraphie grecques). By G. Wagner. Bibliotheque d'Etude, Tome C, Insti- tut Frangais d'Archeologie Orientale. Cairo, 1987. Pp. xxvi, 434, with 44 plates and 5 maps.

More than a decade has passed since Ahmed Fakhry exhorted scholars to seek out the desert oases as sources that would repay patient exploration and enhance our understanding of Egypt's past. It is indeed a tribute to the pioneering spirit of Dr. Fakhry that, in 1987, two volumes on the Egyptian oases appeared: L. L. Giddy 's study of the Egyptian oases during the pharaonic period (Aris & Phillips) and one by G. Wagner of the Egyptian oases from Ptolemaic through Byzantines times, which is the subject of this review.

Wagner's volume comprises three parts. The first is a list of papyrological, epigraphical, and literary "Sources" referred to but not reproduced in this volume.

The second part is a corpus of some 210 documents, mostly new, edited with photographs. Unfortunately, this corpus makes no claim to completeness. Excluded are documents from Siwa because Egyptian authori- ties prohibited access there; also omitted are a handful of inscriptions from el-Dakla and Bahriya previously edited by the author in BIFAO 1973 and 1974 and more than 350 ostraca from Qasr Dush (Kysis). Oases documents published by other scholars, although fewer than one hundred in number, are also excluded. Wagner does, however, incorporate new editions of inscriptions from the "Grande Oasis" previously published by him in BIFAO 1976.

The document section of the volume has been poorly edited. Standard abbreviations for papyri have been ignored (see J. Oates et al., Checklist of Editions of Greek Papyri and Ostraca), volume numbers are not regularly indicated, and documents cited in the

notes lack provenance and dates. SB references have been provided for only a few of the documents published in serials. Wagner's new texts, many dating from the fourth century a.d. on, are arranged by provenance; but it is not until page 131 that the reader is apprised that the rubric "Grande Oasis" refers to el-Kharga and el-Dakhla and on page 390 that the author finally defines "Petite Oasis" as Bahriya and el-Haiz. Confusion would have been averted had each oasis simply been called by its proper name. Under "Grande Oasis" and "Petite Oasis" headings, documents are subcategorized by village, but these villages do not appear on the Automobile Club and survey maps appended at the end of the volume and it is necessary to consult maps in Porter and Moss, Topographical Bibliography, vol. VII, if one wishes to locate them at all. Cursory commentaries accompany the texts; this is perhaps understandable in the case of graffiti but unsatisfactory for more substantial documents. Numerous cross- references to a "Prosopographie," eliminated from the volume for reasons of expense, have not been deleted.

It is the third part, entitled "Histoire," which makes the most significant contribution to classical scholarship. Although the author begins with tire- some compilations of anecdotes and references to oases, he goes on to survey the cities, towns, ancient caravan routes, and desert tracks that linked Egyptian oasis sites to one another and to distant regions; this will be of great interest to economic and social historians. The ethnics 'Oaaercec;, 'A|ifid)vioi, Libyes Aegyptii, and status designations &A,A,6<puA,oi, 6|x6(pi)- tan and the like are next explored, as also the occurrence of Greek, Egyptian, and foreign names. There follows a brief sketch of the administration of the oases during Roman and Byzantine periods (scant Ptolemaic evidence survives).

In the subsection on economic life, the author neglects to explain the geological nature of oases; for this, however, Fakhry, The Oases of Egypt, and Giddy 's study may be consulted. Agriculture and animal husbandry are surveyed; pursuant to P. land. VII 142 ii. 8 (165/5P?), Wagner argues that cotton was cultivated at Qasr Dush in the el-Kharga oasis. We learn that camels and also donkeys were employed as beasts of burden by Oasites and that quarrying alum and associated textile and tanning industries flour- ished there. Wagner examines the evidence on slavery and slave occupations in the oases as well.

Amon was the most popular deity throughout the oases during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods; the evidence for his cult, those of other Egyptian and Greek gods, and the advent of Christianity is pre- sented. The final chapter in the historical section is

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250 JARCE XXVI (1989)

devoted to the Ptolemaic and Roman military pres- ence, especially in view of the need to guard against attacks of desert nomads from the third century a.d. on.

As a study of the Egyptian oases during the Greek, Roman and Byzantine periods, Wagner's volume is, at best, an introduction. It presents some (but not all) new documents; based on these, it discusses the most famous oasis sites: el-Kharga, el-Dakhla, and Bahriya. Regrettably, Siwa and el-cAreq are mentioned only in passing. The author is indeed enamored of his subject and one wonders what sort of study he might have produced had not the considerations of time, space, and expense been pressing.

Diana Delia Texas A&M University

Le Temple d'Edfou I/I. By Didier Devauchelle. Institut Frangais dArcheologie Orientale, Cairo, 1984. Pp. xx + 155 double pages (paper).

Le Temple d'Edfou 1/2. By Didier Devauchelle. Institut Frangais dAcheologie Orientale, Cairo, 1984. Pp. 156-318 double pages (paper). Origin- ally by Marquis de Rochemonteix and Emile Chassinat. Revised with additions and corrections by Sylvie Cauville and Didier Devauchelle.

The original publication of Edou volumes I and II by Messrs. Rochemonteix and Chassinat were so riddled with errors, caused by certain unavoidable difficulties peculiar to the recording and publishing techniques of the nineteenth century, that the French Institute in Cairo entrusted Mesdames Cauville and Devauchelle, as editors, with a republication of those texts. The method adopted was to reprint the original volumes, in fascicles of smaller format, with the text as published in 1897 faithfully reproduced on pages falling on the right hand side. That text is then flagged with a series of sequential letters of the alphabet in bold face as superscripts above the faulty portions of the text. The corrected signs, keyed to these superscripts, are found on the corresponding pages on the left hand side of the newly issued fascicules. The system is quickly grasped and easy to use. For practical reasons, orthographical differences among similar signs, deemed by the editors to be inconsequential, were not more accurately depicted. Despite this shortcoming, which can be remedied on occasion by referring to a corresponding plate, the

volumes are a welcome addition to the ever-increasing corpus of inscriptions from the temples of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt.

Robert Steven Bianchi The Brooklyn Museum and New York University

Les noms royaux dans I'Egypte de la Troisieme Periode Intermediate. By Marie-Ange Bonheme. Institut Francais dArcheologie Orientale, Biblio- theque d'Etude, XCVIII. Cairo, 1987. Pp. xix + 299.

Le livre des rois de la Troisieme Periode Inter- mediaire, I, XXIe Dynastie. By Marie-Ange Bonheme. Institut Frangais dArcheologie Orien- tale, Bibliotheque d'Etude, XCIX. Cairo, 1987. Pp. xxix + 138.

These two works are mutually complementary, by intention. The volume on Noms royaux (hereinafter Noms) is complete in itself; it presents the essentials of the royal titularies of the so-called Third Inter- mediate Period (here defined as the 21st to 24th Dynasties), and evaluates these from several view- points. The other book, Le livre des rois . . . (hence- forth, Rois) is only the first fascicle of the first of three planned volumes; it ought, in fact, to bear the sub- title, "Fascicule I: Herihor." It is the first part of a new "book of kings" (i.e., of their official titularies) for the period in question, aiming to present ex- haustively all the titularies (seemingly, in all their occurrences!) of the kings of this epoch. Thus, in a sense, Noms is an introduction to, and overview of, the significance of the data to be presented in full in Rois, I-III.

Noms has three main parts: a general introduction to the Egyptian royal titulary; a review of the titularies of the period in question; and a concluding analysis of the form and content of these titularies.

In part I, the author considers the criteria for classifying someone as a pharaoh, suggesting (i) use of a regular prenomen (normally compounded with -Re), (ii) linked to dated inscriptions [stricter, use of regnal years], and (iii) inclusion in Manetho's canon. Pharaoh was in function ancient Egypt's executive head-of-state, or (in the case of multiple lines of kings) served thus for at least a part of the land; so, this reviewer would regard attribution of regnal years in documents of everyday administration as the acid test, with titulary as second. Notice, for example, that

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