Language, Script, and Acculturation in Graeco-Roman Egypt
A collaborative Research Programme within the Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Australian Centre for Egyptology, and Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University.
Research Team
Team Leaders
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Dr Malcolm Choat |
 |
Dr Trevor Evans |
Teaching / Research Staff
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Dr Heike Behlmer |
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Dr John Lee |
PhD Students / Research Assistants
Mathew Almond
Helena Bolle
Vanessa Crown
Annalissa Roy
Genevieve Young
Rachel Yuen-Collingridge
International Advisory Panel
Roger Bagnall, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University
Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, University of Oxford
Willy Clarysse, KU Leuven
Mark Depauw, KU Leuven
Peter Kruschwitz, University of Reading
Annalisa Marzano, Brasenose College, University of Oxford
Dorothy Thompson, Girton College, University of Cambridge
John Whitehorne, University of Queensland
The Research Programme
This research programme addresses an interconnecting set of major topics, including ancient literacy and education, language contact, the adaptation, development, and use of script, and the process of acculturation in Graeco-Roman Egypt, from the invasion of Alexander the Great in 332 BCE to the coming of Islam in 642 CE. Within the research programme, a series of projects address the major themes from various perspectives.
The research programme takes as its primary source-base documents on papyrus and related textual artifacts found in Egypt in this period. These new texts from Egypt in Greek, Latin, forms of Egyptian (Demotic, Coptic), and other languages, have been appearing in quantities since the golden age of papyrus discovery in the late 19th and early 20th century. This massive corpus of material is a remarkable resource, and has much to contribute to the exploration of our stated themes. New finds continue to be made and new text editions to appear. Meanwhile, recent technological advances greatly enhance our ability to address the special challenges of working with these texts and to assess the evidence. Furthermore, the revolution in papyrological studies brought about within the last decade by digital imaging now allows the development of 'virtual' archives. The programme aims to locate the evidence of this body of material firmly within its cultural context and incorporates relevant literary, inscriptional, and archaelogical material.
Language, Script and Acculturation is positioned to take advantage of the forecast amalgamation of the Ancient History Documentary Research Centre and the Australian Centre for Egyptology, and be a central research programme of the new Macquarie University Ancient Cultures Research Centre (MQACRC). This will allow the development of new projects within the programme which apply the major themes to evidence from the late Pharaonic period.
The research programme is also linked to the Macquarie Papyri Research and Development Committee, on which the staff members on the programme sit. This has been instituted to coordinate and facilitate the publication of the papyri collection in Macquarie University's Museum of Ancient Cultures, and future work on the papyri may form part of the programme (For further information see the homepage of the Macquarie Papyrus Collection).
Within the research programme, graduate students are trained in the use of papyrological evidence and in the interpretation of language as found in these texts. Rachel Yuen-Collingridge acts as Research Assistant for the project Personal Style and Social Dialect in the Greek of the Zenon Archive and Mathew Almond as Research Assistant on the project Religious authority and linguistic change in late antique Egypt. Almond and Roy's PhD projects are also part of the research programme. The future holds forth the possibility of extending the research programme into the Islamic era, and examination of both linguistic contact with Arabic and the acculturation of Egypt within the Islamic world.
Research Projects
The programme serves as an overarching research focus for a number of projects:
Idiolect and Social Dialect in the Zenon Archive
ARC Funded 2004-2006. CI Dr Trevor Evans
Religious authority and linguistic change in late antique Egypt: non-elite perspectives on the rise of monasticism in contemporary documents
ARC Funded 2006-2008. CI Dr Malcolm Choat.
Communication networks in Upper Egyptian monastic communities
ARC Funded 2008-2010. CIs: Drs Heike Behlmer and Malcolm Choat
The Edition of the Ostraca from Dra Abu el-Naga (joint project with ACE)
MQNS Funded 2007-2008. CIs Dr Heike Behlmer, Matthew Underwood, Malcolm Choat.
Bilingualism and the Greek Language in Hellenistic Egypt: Evidence from the Zenon Archive
MQNS Funded 2008-2009: CI Dr Trevor Evans. Research Assistants: Helena Bolle, Genevieve Young, Rachel Yuen-Collingridge.
Greek Religious Terms in Coptic Gnostic Texts
PhD. CI Mathew Almond.
The Language of the Mons Claudianus Ostraca
PhD. CI Annalissa Roy.
Architecture, Religion, Priesthood, Ideology: Healing Cults and Divine Regeneration in the reign of Ptolemy VIII
PhD. CI Vanessa Crown.
Contacts
Please send comments or questions to Dr Malcolm Choat or Dr Trevor Evans.