Overview

This book edits and analyses sixty-six 6th-9th century Coptic and Greek texts concerning the 'Monastery of Apa Apollo on the mount of Titkooh' in the Hermopolite nome of Egypt. None of the texts is securely provenanced, but most were written by, or to, monks of this monastery south of el-Ashmunein, the archaeological site of which is known as 'Bawit'. The texts, which belong to more than a dozen manuscript collections, comprise: agreements, guarantees, and other legal documents; tax demands and other taxation-related material; orders; accounts; receipts; and letters. The most important group concerns the organization of the collection of tithes (aparche), for which evidence from Egyptian monasteries is rare. Many texts exhibit formulae or formats peculiar to this monastery. The first part of the book summarizes existing sources for the monastery and the cult of Apa Apollo and surveys in detail the new textual sources. The author examines the range of the monastery's economic activities, from tithe collection, property-ownership, taxation, and the provision of financial services, as well as more general aspects of day-to-day monastic administration. The book concludes with surveys of the dialectal variants recorded in the texts and of their palaeographic and orthographic features, together with the prosopographical and toponomastic information they contain.

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9780900416750

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translated and with a commentary by S J Clackson

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