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A Date for P.KRU 105? L.S.B Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth International Congress of Papyrology, Ann Arbor 2007 American Studies in Papyrology (Ann Arbor 2010) 449–454 A Date for P.KRU 105? L.S.B. MacCoull You [pl.] are owners of the whole topos of Apa Phoibammon, so as to dwell in it, build on it or pull it down, or receive men to yourselves there, anyone who will walk in the fear of God for the whole time of your life and of the one you shall assign to the topos after you to serve () it in the work of charity ( [sic]) to the poor. And no man is to be able to [transgress this] ... And we all together have established this document (). So proclaim lines 3–9 and 21–22 of P.KRU 105 (=P.RevilloutCopt. 4 ['Boulaq 5']), a document long regarded as the foundation charter (or confirmation of rights) for the famous monastery of St. Phoibammon, the one that was built into the Pharaonic temple of Deir el-Bahri in late antiquity.1 The "we" framing the document in the first person plural designate themselves as "the whole village" (l. 24) acting through ( = ) their most pious priests and Papnoute the most honorable ( μ o ) lashane or village headman (= μ ) (l. 25). This corporate entity, the entire village2 we know as Jeme, is confirming the St. Phoibammon community as collective owners (with specified ownership rights familiar from Roman law) of the complex of "footprint" and built structures, on the basis of that community's priority in time and investment of labor. "We find," they state, "that you [pl.] are the ones who took trouble for the topos from the first; you established [same verb] it from its being [having been] a desert ()" (ll. 15–16). Fixing a foundation date for this well-known and influential establishment is important.3 The broken papyrus, kept in the Coptic Museum in Cairo (no. 3795),4 is a long transversa charta strip- roll of nearly a meter's length, inscribed across the fibers parallel to the short edge. It was unearthed like so many of the P.KRU in the mid-nineteenth century – this is before purpose-driven papyrological excavations! – and found its way on to the antiquities market and eventually (thanks to Gaston Maspero) to what was then the Bulaq Museum, not being passed on to England or Germany.5 Its beginning, which might have contained an invocation and/or a Byzantine regnal year with an indiction number, has not been preserved. At the end 1 W. Godlewski, Le monastère de Phoibammon (Warsaw 1986) esp. 63–64, 81; S. Timm, Das christlich-koptische Ägypten (Wiesbaden 1985) III 1379–1392 ("Kloster des Apa Phoibammon [III]"); cf. A. Papaconstantinou, "Notes sur les actes de donation d'enfants au monastère thébain de Saint-Phoibammon," JJP 32 (2002) 83–105, at 92; and now A. ajtar, Deir el-Bahri in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods (Warsaw 2006) 94–104. 2 Cf. M. Kaplan, "Les villages aux premiers siècles byzantins (VIe-Xe siècles): une catégorie homogène?," Byzantinoslavica 43 (1982) 201–217, esp. 209; eund., "Le village byzantin: naissance d'une communauté chrétienne," in Villages et villageois au Moyen Âge (Paris 1992) 15–25, esp. 19–21; A. Laiou, "The Byzantine Village," in J. Lefort, C. Morrisson, and J.-P. Sodini (eds.), Les villages dans l'Empire byzantin (IVe-XVe siècle) (Paris 2005) 31–54, at 46–48, 53. 3 Godlewski, op.cit. (above, n. 1) 60 with n. 1. See now E. Wipszycka, "Monks and Monastic Dwellings: P.Dubl. 32–34, P.KRU 105 and BL Ms.Or. 6201–6206 Revisited," in A. Boud'hors et al. (eds.), P.Clackson (Cincinnati 2009) 236–244, at 237– 238. 4 I am grateful to Eugene Cruz-Uribe and Hisham el-Leithy for photographs – which reveal to one's horror that the mounting glass is smashed and has had a clumsy attempt at mending with scotch tape. 5 Godlewski, op.cit. (above, n. 1) 53–55. 450 L.S.B. MacCoull there are seventeen signatories, including the notary, Damianos6 the grammatikos, who stood in as hypogra- pheus signing for the aforementioned Papnoute. One signatory is an archpriest ( $ !#" !);7 six are priests (and one priest subscribes for another who made three signs of the cross),8 three are deacons, and six are laymen otherwise undesignated. Three of the priests are from known Jeme churches: the Apostles, St. Victor's, and St. Mary's.9 Crum, co-editor of P.KRU, originally and commonsensically placed this papyrus in the late sixth century,10 and in this he was followed by the Austrian jurist Artur Steinwenter in 1930.11 However, by 1935 Steinwenter changed his mind and placed it after the conquest, late in the seventh century,12 in which opinion he was followed by Till in his German-translation volume of 1964. However, there is in fact a strong obstacle to the post-conquest date, readable in the penalty clause in lines 10–13: "Anyone daring to do that [sc. trans- gress or dispute or contravene the validity of the monastic community's ownership] will [be liable to] the judgement ( )13 of God and will pay to account (!) of fine ( !"[]) and the damages (") that our lords the Christ-loving kings have defined ( ), six ounces of gold"14 – mai-pe- Ch(risto)s here being a direct calque of (as an imperial epithet). It is hard to understand why the later Steinwenter thought that "Christ-loving" – an epithet of the city of Alexandria too15 – could have been just a fossilized carryover from Byzantine times, repeated out of frozen, rote notarial16 habit under Umayyad rule.17 It seems clear from the text as it stands that we are in a world where pious Byzantine rulers define legal norms and practices – and this was even admitted by Krause in 1998.18 Those are, notice, rulers in plural: "lords," !# (plural of !); "kings," %# (plural of ). 6 Corrected from (the deletable hapax ghost-name) "Dakianos" initially on the basis of Revillout's facsimile which indeed shows a mu; on the actual photograph the mu is even clearer. The same correction can be made in P.Berl.Zill. 7.30 (5.viii.574, Oxy.), for which I thank Dr. Fabian Reiter for a digital image. 7 See G. Schmelz, Kirchliche Amtsträger im spätantiken Ägypten (Munich 2002) 37. 8 Possibly indicating that he (Joseph son of Abraham, of St Victor's), described as "not knowing how" [sc. to write] (l. 31), knew Greek but not Coptic. However, when Damianos signs for Papnoute he describes the latter in Greek (in a stereotyped phrase) as "not knowing letters" (grammata mê eidotos) (l.46). 9 A. Papaconstantinou, Le culte des saints en Egypte (Paris 2001) 56–57 and 62–68 (esp. 64) for the first two; and for the third, ead., "Sanctuaires de la Vierge dans l'Egypte byzantine et omeyyade," JJP 30 (2000) 81–94, at 88–89 (no. 17); T. Wilfong, Women of Jeme (Ann Arbor 2002) 32–33. 10 Cf. Godlewski, op.cit. (above, n. 1) 63–64 with n. 41. 11 A. Steinwenter, "Die Rechtsstellung der Kirchen und Klöster nach den Papyri," ZRG 50 (1930) 1–50, at 14. He had al- ready studied it in 1920 in SPP XIX. 12 A. Steinwenter, "Zur Edition der koptischen Rechtsurkunden aus Djême," Orientalia 4 (1935) 377–385, esp. 380–385. 13 Oddly enough not in Förster, WB 445–446. Steinwenter, op.cit. (above, n. 12) 385 gets involved in making a point about the absence of an oath clause here as opposed to the use of in the context of punishment for oath-breaking (as per examples in Förster, WB 445), but I fail to see the importance. 14 27 solidi at standard rate; Steinwenter, op.cit. (above, n. 12) 385 computes 36 sol. 15 J. Irmscher, "Alexandria, die christusliebende Stadt," BSAC 19 (1967–68) 115–122. 16 On fixed clauses like that about legal challenges in ll. 19–20 with v see T.S. Richter, Rechtssemantik und forensische Rhetorik (Leipzig 2002) 52–53, 61, 123. 17 Steinwenter, op.cit. (above, n. 12) 380–381 (381 n. 1 citing MSS of the Syro-Roman Lawbook is not helpful). See Richter, op.cit. (above, n. 16) 147. I disagree with the view of J. Henner, Fragmenta Liturgica Coptica (Tübingen 2000) 175–178. 18 M. Krause, "Zur Verfassung koptischer Klöster: Die Abtswahl/Abtsernennung in koptischen Klöstern," in S. Schaten (ed.), I: Festschrift Peter Grossmann (Wiesbaden 1998) 225–231. A Date for P.KRU 105? 451 We should be looking at a time when plural authority on the Constantinopolitan throne was being recognized in the phraseology of legal documents written in Egypt. We are also time-constrained by the sequence and chronology of the known superiors of the St. Phoibammon monastery as inferred from their wills,19 in that the confirmation of the early foundation must precede the terms in office of subsequent abbots (those who "came after" [l. 1] in the succession to pious works): i.e., we are before the floruit of Abraham of Hermonthis ca. 600 (pace Krause who sees him as involved with our document). The mention of plural Byzantine rulers can be seen especially in documentary oath clauses,20 which from Justin II (565–) regularly register oaths by plural rulers, often the emperor and empress, then sometimes including co-emperors such as Tiberius II and Heraclius the New Constantine.21 Which Byzantine imperial pair – not just a sole emperor – is given the epithet /- ? Close to home, IGLSyr VI22 2984 proclaims the right of asylum of the euktêrion of our Lady, the most glorious Mother of God Mary ever-virgin, in Beqa (Syria), conferred μ (ll.
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