A comprehensive edition and commentary of 77 ostraka

Ostraka in the Collection of New York University is a comprehensive edition and commentary of 77 ostraka, or potsherds with ancient texts written on them, from Greco-Roman and late antique Egypt. Seventy-two of these ostraca are housed in NYU Special Collections, originally purchased by Caspar Kraemer in 1932, then the chair of the NYU Classics Department. Although Kraemer advertised the imminent publication of the texts in 1934 and later collaborated with the famed papyrologist Herbert Youtie, neither completed the project. The ostraka in this small collection span the 2nd century BCE to the 8th century CE and include both Greek and Coptic texts. The majority, however, form a coherent dossier of tax receipts related to mortuary activities in Upper Egypt during the reign of Augustus (texts 7-70, dated from roughly the last quarter of the 1st century BCE to 12 CE). The five ostraka published in this volumenot held by NYU include one that had been part of Kraemers original purchase but was subsequently lost (thankfully preserved in a photograph in Youties archive at the University of Michigan), and four ostraka now held by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The latter four texts were purchased separately and published previously, but clearly belong to the same group of texts. They are included in this volume both for the sake of completeness and because the present authors were able to improve the readings in light of the context provided by the dossier as a whole. In addition to the scholarly edition of these texts, the volume contains a full discussion of their provenance, the taxes involved, the taxpayers and tax-collectors, and a ceramological analysis of the sherds as media for these texts.


The book will be of interest primarily to specialists in papyrology and scholars who study the economic history of the ancient Mediterranean, Hellenistic Egypt, the Roman empire, and papyrology.

Gert Baetens (Editor)
Gert Baetens holds a PhD from KU Leuven and specializes in Greek and Demotic papyrology and the history of Graeco-Roman Egypt. His recent publications include studies of the legal petition process and the organization of the funerary trade.

Roger S. Bagnall (Editor)
Roger S. Bagnallis Leon Levy Director and Professor of Ancient History Emeritus at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University. He is author, co-author, and editor of many books includingEgypt in Late AntiquityandEveryday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East.

Clementina Caputo (Editor)
Clementina Caputo holds a PhD from the University of Salento (Lecce, Italy). Between 2016 and 2019, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg in Germany. Her main research area is the ceramic material culture of Egypt between the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods. Currently, she is the ceramologist for the Archaeological Missions at Soknopaiou Nesos/Dime (Fayum), Trimithis/Amheida (Dakhla Oasis), Plinthine (North of Lake Mariout), Tuna el-Gebel (Middle Egypt), and Berenike (Eastern Desert).

Élodie Mazy (Editor)
Élodie Mazyis a PhD candidate at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), where she received her masters degrees in Classics and History. Her current researches focus on papyrology and the social, economic and cultural history in Byzantine and Early Islamic Egypt, with a focus on the organization of feasts and festivals.

David M. Ratzan (Editor)
David M. Ratzan is the Head of the Library of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU. He holds a PhD from Columbia University in Classical Studies and has published on various aspects of the social and economic history of the ancient Mediterranean world.