DOI: 10.1515/zaes-2025-0023 ISSN: 2196-713X
A Demotic Letter on an Ostracon from Athribis in Upper Egypt (The EAO/SCA Excavation Season 1993–1994)
Hasnaa Abdellatif, Marwa Ahmed Ewais Summary
This study examines an unpublished Demotic ostracon from Athribis
Lippert 2024a, 1. The designation Athribis, has long caused confusion with the well-known Athribis
in the Nile Delta. This usage is already attested in the works of Lepsius, 1904, 159–161. see Lippert 2024, 1.
in Upper Egypt, presently kept in the storeroom of the Museum at Sheikh Hamad
Sheikh Hamad, a village located at the desert’s edge, lies immediately adjacent to the site of Athribis. see Boud’Hors et al. 2021, 131.
(Sohag). The ostracon was unearthed during the 1993–1994 excavation season conducted by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization (now the Supreme Council of Antiquities) at the site of Athribis in Upper Egypt. It forms part of a larger corpus of inscribed ostraca found at the site, which includes texts in Demotic, Hieratic, Coptic, and Greek. The text on the ostracon comprises a brief letter documenting an exchange between two individuals, likely colleagues, concerning a papyrus, offering valuable insight into modes of communication during the Late Ptolemaic and the Early Roman Period. Although it remains uncertain whether the ostracon constitutes a dispatched letter or a draft, the reference to a papyrus already delivered to Ptolemais indicates that the recipient was based there. The ostracon, however, was found in Athribis rather than at the recipient’s presumed residence, suggesting that the ostracon represents a draft retained by the sender at Athribis. A third individual, Peteminis son of Pelilis, was likely the scribe responsible for producing the referenced papyrus.