Hundred-gated Thebes : acts of a colloquium on Thebes and the Theban area in the Graeco-Roman period (P.L. Bat. 27)

Abstract

This text presents the survey papers of a colloqium held in the Netherlands in 1992 on documentation in Graeco-Roman Thebes. The choachytes (or morticians) of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes provided a rich documentation linking the city of the living on one side of the Nile and the city of the dead on the other. The family archives of these choachytes deal to a large part with their professional role in serving the dead entrusted to their care, but they are also one of the only sources of information about the city of Thebes, whose physical remains were obliterated in the 19th century. This material constitutes one end of a chain which links the temple statues of Amun's servants and descriptions of their houses on the one hand with their tombs and their tomb inventories on the other, making it possible to identify individual choachytes from their papers. The papyrological finds can thus provide an exact dating for objects that might otherwise only be dated to within several centuries, while the objects themselves and the tomb architecture provide a factual dimension to historical and legal documents.

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