Overview

Double names have a long history in Egypt. They are already attested on Old Kingdom funerary monuments, where concern about eternal life required a correct identification of the deceased. When Greek and Egyptian cultures came into contact under the Ptolemies, bilingual polyonymy (i.e. the combination of an Egyptian and a Greek name) became more popular. During this period, Greek ethnicity was valued as a symbol of power and social status, and was used to create borders between the rulers and the ruled. At the same time, however, it was a flexible concept and this made it a useful tool for crossing the very same boundaries it constructed. As ethnicity became a crucial aspect of one's identity, it is not surprising that bilingual polyonymy was well attested among those that formed a bridge between the ruling class and the Egyptian population: particularly military, administrative and priestly officials. Since they moved between largely separated ethnic contexts, combining names of different linguistic origins was a way to negotiate their ethnic identities. Rather than serving as a reliable source for ethnic origin, names can therefore be interpreted as an expression of the ethnic identity of an individual in a certain space or context.

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Coussement's book is produced in the good tradition of prosopographical studies on Greco-Roman Egypt for which Leuven University has been known for many years. Her excellent contribution is a study of individuals, albeit a selected group of them. It gives us some valuable insights into the phenomenon of double naming and the everyday life of Ptolemaic society. It also serves as a reference work for all future studies on Ptolemaic prosopography. --Peter Nadig, Mekelle University, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.04.21

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