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{PDF} Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt GREEKS IN PTOLEMAIC EGYPT PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Naphtali Lewis | 182 pages | 01 Dec 2001 | American Society of Papyrologists | 9780970059123 | English | Canton, United States Ptolemaic Kingdom - Wikipedia With an international population, Egyptian resources, and Egyptian and Greek artistry, the city was reputed for its beauty and for the fine arts produced there. As Hellenistic kings, the Ptolemies were involved with the other Hellenistic kingdoms in diplomatic marriages and in significant military disputes over inheritance and territories. Much of the third century B. A massive battle at Raphia in Gaza in B. And not long after Raphia, a serious and long-lasting rebellion took place in Upper Egypt, while the growing power of Rome as a force in the eastern Mediterranean became increasingly problematic. Ptolemaic concerns thereafter turned largely inward, to the land of Egypt itself, or westward to Rome on the Mediterranean. To the south of Egypt, the Kushites had expanded into Lower Nubia between the first and second cataracts during the period of Persian rule. In — B. An already established and significant Greek population experienced a new influx, particularly in the northern areas of the country. And social hierarchies were certainly affected by the existence of Greek rulers and members of the ruling elite. Greek became a major language alongside Egyptian, which was now written in the Demotic script except on monuments. The Ptolemaic rulers supported Egyptian cults and priesthoods. During the first three reigns of the Ptolemaic dynasty, temple building projects of Dynasty 30 were continued by the new kings and official classes, closely following Egyptian styles As time progressed, the Ptolemies aggrandized or embellished age-old temples, especially in Upper Egypt; consequently, most of the temples still standing today are actually Ptolemaic constructions. The kings also installed celebrations of their own ruler cults in the Egyptian temples. The temples themselves flourished as centers of learning and coalescence of Egyptian beliefs and literature. Religious activity followed tendencies that had dominated the first millennium: for example, the growth of the cult of Osiris Individuals who were able to set up statues of themselves did so in a temple rather than a tomb. The towns themselves and the temple precincts were crowded by the multistory buildings that had been the common form of workshops and houses for centuries. And among their varied production, workshops produced the fine bichrome faience vessels and vivid opaque glass and mosaic glass inlays that were Egyptian specialties. Delta sites have been stressed so far, but Memphis remained prominent, as did numerous Middle and Upper Egyptian towns. Hermopolis, cult center of Thoth, had been favored by Dynasty 30 pharaohs, who built an innovative monumental temple pronaos. The Ptolemies continued this attention, building a Greek-style temple in honor of the royal cult. The Hermopolite necropolis at Tuna el-Gebel had temples and great underground galleries for mummified ibises and baboons and their shrines, and also featured elaborate tomb chapels for the priests of Thoth Thebes continued to be a venerable religious center with extensive priesthoods. Attention to areas of the Karnak complex devoted to the Osirian cult and to Khonsu the Child Temples and communities on the Theban west bank also flourished, along with Ptolemaic cemeteries of a distinctive type overlying the site of the Hatshepsut Valley Temple. Who said political spin doctors were a modern contrivance? A group of coins showing Ptolemaic kings and queens includes a splendid gold piece. On one side is a double portrait of Ptolemy I and his wife, Berenice I; on the other is the double portrait of their successors, their son Ptolemy II and his wife and sister, Arsinoe II. Roger S. Bagnall, a historian and a papyrologist who is director of the N. Writing on papyrus was common throughout the Mediterranean region. But it is identified mainly with Egypt, whose dry climate preserved many caches for archaeologists to collect. One papyrus document, dark with age, was a marriage contract from the archive of Ananiah and his wife, Tamel. Others included property deeds and letters that illuminated the social and cultural dynamics of the Jewish garrison at fortifications on Elephantine Island on the upper Nile, where Aramaic was spoken. Another set of documents and letters were written in Greek by an Egyptian named Zenon, a manager of a prosperous estate who seemingly never threw away a piece of papyrus. Bagnall said, admiringly. Afterward, he reflected on imperial behavior then and now, a certain wistfulness in his voice. Of course, he acknowledged that the Persians, Greeks, Romans, English, Spanish and Ottoman empires were out for themselves, and could be harsh. Science Multiculturalism: Nothing New. Slide 1 of 5. A marble head of a Ptolemaic queen. Of the three Greek cities, Naucratis , although its commercial importance was reduced with the founding of Alexandria, continued in a quiet way its life as a Greek city-state. During the interval between the death of Alexander and Ptolemy's assumption of the style of king, it even issued an autonomous coinage. And the number of Greek men of letters during the Ptolemaic and Roman period, who were citizens of Naucratis, proves that in the sphere of Hellenic culture Naucratis held to its traditions. Ptolemy II bestowed his care upon Naucratis. At the time when Sir Flinders Petrie wrote the words just quoted [ citation needed ] the great Temenos was identified with the Hellenion. But Mr. Edgar has recently pointed out that the building connected with it was an Egyptian temple, not a Greek building. That the city flourished in Ptolemaic times "we may see by the quantity of imported amphorae, of which the handles stamped at Rhodes and elsewhere are found so abundantly. According to Plutarch, the Alexandrians believed that Alexander the Great's motivation to build the city was his wish to "found a large and populous Greek city that should bear his name. Under the wealthy Ptolemaic Dynasty, the city soon surpassed Athens as the cultural center of the Hellenic world. Laid out on a grid pattern, Alexandria occupied a stretch of land between the sea to the north and Lake Mareotis to the south; a man-made causeway, over three-quarters of a mile long, extended north to the sheltering island of Pharos , thus forming a double harbor, east and west. On the east was the main harbor, called the Great Harbor; it faced the city's chief buildings, including the royal palace and the famous Library and Museum. At the Great Harbor's mouth, on an outcropping of Pharos, stood the lighthouse , built c. The Library , at that time the largest in the world, contained several hundred thousand volumes and housed and employed scholars and poets. A similar scholarly complex was the Museum Mouseion, "hall of the Muses". During Alexandria's brief literary golden period, c. Among other thinkers associated with the Library or other Alexandrian patronage were the mathematician Euclid c. Cosmopolitan and flourishing, Alexandria possessed a varied population of Greeks, Egyptians and other Oriental peoples, including a sizable minority of Jews, who had their own city quarter. Periodic conflicts occurred between Jews and ethnic Greeks. According to Strabo, Alexandria had been inhabited during Polybius' lifetime by local Egyptians, foreign mercenaries and the tribe of the Alexandrians, whose origin and customs Polybius identified as Greek. The city enjoyed a calm political history under the Ptolemies. If Alexandria perpetuated the name and cult of the great Alexander, Ptolemais was to perpetuate the name and cult of the founder of the Ptolemaic time. Framed in by the barren hills of the Nile Valley and the Egyptian sky, here a Greek city arose, with its public buildings and temples and theatre, no doubt exhibiting the regular architectural forms associated with Greek culture , with a citizen- body Greek in blood, and the institutions of a Greek city. If there is some doubt whether Alexandria possessed a council and assembly, there is none in regard to Ptolemais. It was more possible for the kings to allow a measure of self-government to a people removed at that distance from the ordinary residence of the court. We have still, inscribed on stone, decrees passed in the assembly of the people of Ptolemais, couched in the regular forms of Greek political tradition: It seemed good to the boule and to the demos: Hermas son of Doreon, of the deme Megisteus, was the proposer: Whereas the prytaneis who were colleagues with Dionysius the son of Musaeus in the 8th year, etc. The Ptolemaic Kingdom was diverse and cosmopolitan. Beginning under Ptolemy I Soter , Macedonians and other Greeks were given land grants and allowed to settle with their families, encouraging tens of thousands of Greek mercenaries and soldiers to immigrate where they became a landed class of royal soldiers. Over time, the Greeks in Egypt became somewhat homogenized and the cultural distinctions between immigrants from different regions of Greece became blurred. Many Jews were imported from neighboring Judea by the thousands for being renowned fighters, also establishing an important community. Other foreign groups settled from across the ancient world, usually as cleruchs who had been granted land in exchange for military service. Of the many foreign groups who had come to settle in Egypt, the Greeks, were the most privileged. They were partly spread as allotment-holders over the country, forming social groups, in the country towns and villages, side by side with the native population, partly gathered in the three Greek cities, the old Naucratis , founded before BC in the interval of Egyptian independence after the expulsion of the Assyrians and before the coming of the Persians , and the two new cities, Alexandria by the sea, and Ptolemais in Upper Egypt.
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