ARCHÉOLOGIE ( S ) // 8

NETWORKED SPACES
THE SPATIALITY OF NETWORKS IN THE RED SEA
AND WESTERN INDIAN OCEAN
edited by Caroline Durand, Julie Marchand, Bérangère Redon
and Pierre Schneider
NETWORKED SPACES: THE SPATIALITY OF NETWORKS IN THE RED SEA AND WESTERN INDIAN OCEAN
ARCHÉOLOGIE ( S ) // 8

The 34 articles published in this volume form the proceedings of the 9th Red Sea conference held at Lyon in July 2019, whose core topic was
the “spatiality of networks in the Red Sea”, including the western Indian Ocean. In the networked space that the Erythra Thalassa never ceased
to be, stable factors such as landscape, climate, and wind patterns have been constantly entangled with more dynamic elements, such as
human activity. The contributors to this volume explored how the former were integrated into the countless networks formed by humans in
the region, and how these were impacted by spatial constraints over the long course of history.
This volume offers a wide range of stimulating contributions. The first articles are devoted to medieval and modern European sources
on the Red Sea and its exploration, and to the networks of knowledge dissemination about the region. They are followed by papers
relating to the main nodes, the ports and islands of the Red Sea. Several articles are then focusing on the agency of hinterland
populations in the networks, and the relationships between the regions bordering the Red Sea and central powers that governed
them, often from distant lands. Production and consumption networks are the subject of the next articles, to assess the extent and
nature of exchanges and to shed light on the archaeology of circulations. The logistics of exploration, exploitation and trade in the
regions bordering the Red Sea are then examined. The last series of papers focuses on regions where archaeological work started
only recently: Somaliland, Tigray, and the Horn of Africa. Thanks to all the participants, whether they have exploited new data or
re‑examined long‑known material, the 9th edition of the “Red Sea Project” gave rise to vibrant debates, showing that the Erythra
Thalassa remains an endless source of knowledge.

Les 34 articles publiés dans ce volume forment les actes de la 9e édition de la « Red Sea conference » qui s’est tenue à Lyon en
juillet 2019. Son thème central était la « spatialité des réseaux en mer Rouge », mais aussi dans l’océan Indien occidental. Dans
l’espace connecté que l’Erythra Thalassa n’a jamais cessé d’être, des éléments stables, tels que le paysage, le climat ou le régime
des vents, ont été constamment enchevêtrés avec des éléments plus dynamiques, comme l’activité humaine. Les contributeurs
de ce volume ont exploré la manière dont les premiers ont été intégrés au sein des innombrables réseaux formés par les
hommes dans la région, et dont ceux-ci ont été affectés par les contraintes spatiales au cours de l’histoire.
Ce volume offre un riche éventail de contributions. Les premières sont consacrées aux sources européennes médiévales et modernes
relatives à la mer Rouge et à son exploration, ainsi qu’aux phénomènes de diffusion des connaissances sur la région. Elles sont
suivies d’études sur les nœuds principaux que sont les ports et les îles de la mer Rouge. Plusieurs contributions sont ensuite dédiées
à l’agency des populations de l’arrière-pays dans les réseaux, de même qu’aux relations entre les régions bordant la mer Rouge
et les pouvoirs centraux qui les ont régis, souvent depuis des contrées éloignées. Les réseaux de production et de consommation
font l’objet des textes suivants. Ils évaluent l’ampleur et la nature des échanges et mettent en lumière l’archéologie des circulations.
La logistique de l’exploration, de l’exploitation et du commerce dans les zones bordant la mer Rouge est ensuite examinée. La
dernière série d’articles porte sur des régions où les travaux archéologiques ont commencé très récemment : Somaliland, Tigré et
Corne de l’Afrique. Grâce à tous les participants, qu’ils aient exploité de nouvelles données ou réexaminé des documents connus
de longue date, la 9e édition du « Red Sea Project » a donné lieu à des débats animés, témoignant que l’Erythra Thalassa demeure
une source d’information inépuisable.

© 2022 – Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée – Jean Pouilloux

7 rue Raulin, F‑69365 Lyon Cedex 07

ISBN 978‑2‑35668‑078‑5
ISSN 2724‑8933

85 €
MAISON DE L’ORIENT ET DE LA MÉDITERRANÉE – JEAN POUILLOUX
Fédération de recherche sur les sociétés anciennes

Responsable scientifique des publications : Isabelle Boehm
Coordination éditoriale : Ingrid Berthelier

Secrétariat d’édition de l’ouvrage : Christel Visée ; composition : Clarisse Lachat

Conception graphique : Catherine Cuvilly

Networked spaces: the spatiality of networks in the Red Sea and Western Indian Ocean.
Proceedings of the Red Sea Conference IX, Lyon, 2-5 July 2019
edited by Caroline Durand, Julie Marchand, Bérangère Redon and Pierre Schneider
Lyon, Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée – Jean Pouilloux, 2022
672 p., 258 ill., 30 cm
(Archéologie(s) ; 8)

Keywords :
Red Sea, Horn of Africa, Indian Ocean, Antiquity, medieval period, network, trade, port,
nomad, navigation, logistics, spatiality
Mots-clés :
mer Rouge, Corne de l’Afrique, océan Indien, Antiquité, époque médiévale, réseau, commerce,
port, nomade, navigation, logistique, spatialité

ISSN 2724-8933
ISBN 978-2-35668-078-5

© 2022 Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée – Jean Pouilloux

7 rue Raulin, F-69365 Lyon Cedex 07

Édition numérique
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Diffusion/distribution
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Commande/facturation : cid@msh‑paris.fr
Librairie en ligne : www.lcdpu.fr
 ARCHÉOLOGIE(S) // 8

NETWORKED SPACES
THE SPATIALITY OF NETWORKS IN THE RED SEA
AND WESTERN INDIAN OCEAN

Proceedings of the Red Sea Conference IX, Lyon, 2-5 July 2019

edited by Caroline Durand, Julie Marchand, Bérangère Redon

and Pierre Schneider

Published with the support of the Desert Networks project, funded by the European Research Council
(ERC-2017-STG, Proposal number 759078).
Contents

Caroline Durand, Julie Marchand, Bérangère Redon, Pierre Schneider

Space and networks. The Red Sea model ................................................................................................................... 11

MODERN EXPLORATION OF THE RED SEA

Dejanirah Couto
“All the wealth of the world will be in your hands”. A vision of the Red Sea in the early 16th century
through the Letters of Afonso de Albuquerque (1513) ......................................................................................... 19

Roxani Eleni Margariti

From Berlin to the Coral Sea. Sea, islands and maritime knowledge in the Red Sea expeditions
of Wilhelm Hemprich and Christian Ehrenberg (1823‑1825) .............................................................................. 35

ARCHAEOLOGY OF PORTS
Claire Somaglino, Pierre Tallet
Vingt années de fouille des ports pharaoniques d’Ayn Soukhna et du Ouadi el‑Jarf sur la côte
occidentale du Golfe de Suez (2001‑2020) ................................................................................................................. 55

Marek Adam Woźniak
Berenike – why there? Environmental, economic and logistic conditions of the Hellenistic
port/base location ............................................................................................................................................................... 73

Michał Gawlikowski
Les Nabatéens à Aynouna sur la mer Rouge ............................................................................................................. 97

Mahmoud Abd el-Raziq, Julie Marchand, Claire Somaglino

A regional and international hub of trade. New data about the harbour of Clysma/al‑Qulzum ........... 107

Laurence Smith, Michael Mallinson, Jacke Phillips, Shadia Taha, Colin Breen, Wes Forsythe, 
Ali Mohamed Abdelrahman
From Gujarat to the Red Sea. The connectivity of the port of Suakin, Sudan, within the western
Indian Ocean ......................................................................................................................................................................... 119

ISLANDS AND INSULARITY

Solène Marion de Procé
Remarks on the organization of territory in an insular context. The case of the Farasān Islands
(southern Red Sea) in Antiquity ..................................................................................................................................... 141

Christian Julien Robin
A likely identification of “Sambrachate, and a homonymous city on the continent”
(Pliny, Natural history, VI, 151) ........................................................................................................................................ 163
8 CONTENTS

Mathilde Gelin, Jean‑Michel Gelin, Barbara Couturaud, Jean‑Baptiste Houal, Hervé Monchot
The integration of the island of Ikaros into “international” and regional networks .................................. 175

Julie Bonnéric
Why islands? Understanding the insular location of Late Sasanian and Early Islamic Christian
monasteries in the Arab‑Persian Gulf .......................................................................................................................... 193

PLACES AND POWER

Matthew Adam Cobb, Troy Wilkinson
The Roman state and Red Sea trade revenue ........................................................................................................... 213

Jeremy A. Simmons
Dire straits. Safeguarding trade on the Red Sea and Gulf of Khambhat (ca 1‑300 CE) .............................. 227

Pierre‑Louis Gatier
Le temple de Ruwāfa dans la province romaine d’Arabie ..................................................................................... 245

David Bramoullé
Les ports du pays beja à l’époque fatimide. Un espace de la liminalité .......................................................... 285

Shadia Taha
Suakin, between the sea and the desert: connected landscapes ...................................................................... 305

ARCHAEOLOGY OF CIRCULATIONS
Isabelle Goncalves
Exploiting and crossing the Egyptian Eastern Desert during the Pharaonic Era .......................................... 329

Jennifer Gates‑Foster
Third century BCE supply networks and Ptolemaic transport amphoras from ‘Abbad and Bi’r Samut
in Egypt’s Eastern Desert .................................................................................................................................................. 347

Joan Oller Guzmán
From the sea, to the river, through the desert. Some issues regarding the emerald trade network
in Roman Egypt .................................................................................................................................................................... 365

Julie Marchand
Early Islamic soft‑stone vessels. Production and distribution on both sides of the Red Sea ................... 385

Fabien Lesguer
Zones de production de céramiques dans la péninsule Arabique entre le vie siècle av. J.‑C.
et le xive siècle ap. J.‑C. ...................................................................................................................................................... 401

Sterenn Le Maguer‑Gillon
Ports of trade and other maritime structures involved in the frankincense trade between Arabia
and China, 8th‑14th centuries ........................................................................................................................................ 417

ROADS AND NETWORKS

Yannis Gourdon
Des carrières au Nil. Halage des pierres et maillage territorial sur le plateau de Hatnoub
(travaux préliminaires) ...................................................................................................................................................... 437

Maël Crépy, Bérangère Redon
Water resources and their management in the Eastern Desert of Egypt from Antiquity to
the present day. Contribution of the accounts of modern travelers and early scholars (1769‑1951) ....... 451
 CONTENTS 9

Julia Lougovaya
Learning to write and read at Didymoi. A diachronic approach ........................................................................ 493

Shailendra Bhandare, Hélène Cuvigny, Thomas Faucher
An Indian coin in the Eastern Desert of Egypt .......................................................................................................... 507

Laïla Nehmé
Land (and maritime?) routes in and between the Egyptian and Arabian shores of the northern
Red Sea in the Roman period ......................................................................................................................................... 513

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE HORN OF AFRICA

Anne Benoist, Iwona Gajda, Jérémie Schiettecatte, Ninon Blond, Olivier Barge, Diego Capra, 
Emmanuelle Régagnon, Emmanuelle Vila
Emprises et déprises agricoles aux marges du Tigray oriental. Les régions de Wolwalo
et Wakarida de la période pré‑aksumite à la fin de la période aksumite ....................................................... 531

Luisa Sernicola, Chiara Zazzaro
Islands, coast, lowland and highland. From the Red Sea to Aksum and beyond:
the north‑east/south‑west network in ancient and modern times ................................................................... 561

Jacke Phillips
Why this one? And why here? ........................................................................................................................................... 581

Adolfo Fernández Fernández, Alfredo González‑Ruibal, Jorge de Torres
New evidence of long‑distance trade in Somaliland in Antiquity. Imported materials from
the 2018‑2019 field seasons at Xiis (Heis), 1st to 3rd centuries AD .................................................................. 607

Jorge de Torres
The archaeology of the medieval trade networks in western Somaliland ..................................................... 627

Julien Loiseau, Simon Dorso, Hiluf Berhe, Deresse Ayenachew, Amélie Chekroun, Bertrand Hirsch
To whom do the dead belong? Preliminary observations on the cemetery of Tsomar, eastern
Tigray (Inscriptiones Arabicae Aethiopiae 2) ................................................................................................................. 647
 Networked spaces: the spatiality of networks in the Red Sea and Western Indian Ocean
Archéologie(s) 8, MOM Éditions, Lyon, 2022

Learning to write and read at Didymoi

A diachronic approach
Julia Lougovaya
University of Heidelberg

The excavations of the Roman military fort of Didymoi in the Eastern Desert have yielded
significant number of ostraca that can be associated with learning to write and read. While
chronologically this evidence spans the two centuries of the fort’s existence, the nature of texts
and their chronological distribution are far from homogenous. Taking into account the distinction
between systematic school curriculum and ad hoc acquisition of immediately applicable skills,
this paper aims to give a diachronic overview of educational practices at the fort.

Les fouilles du fort romain de Didymoi dans le désert Oriental ont permis de découvrir un
nombre important d’ostraca que l’on peut associer à l’apprentissage de l’écriture et de la
lecture. Bien que ces documents proviennent de niveaux datant des deux siècles d’existence
du fort, la nature des textes et leur distribution chronologique sont loin d’être homogènes.
En tenant compte de la distinction entre programme d’enseignement scolaire systématique et
acquisition ponctuelle de compétences immédiatement applicables, cet article vise à donner
un aperçu diachronique des pratiques éducatives attestées dans le fort.

Thousands of ostraca excavated in the Roman forts of the Eastern Desert attest the importance of written
communication for their inhabitants. 1 “It seems fairly clear that the distances involved forced a good
deal of people who would not normally have needed to write letters, to do so”, 2 whatever educational
background they may have possessed. Although in general the level of literacy may well have been
higher in the Roman army than among the civilian population in Roman Egypt, 3 occupants of the
desert forts comprised people of various origins, social standings and careers, whose ability to read or
write could differ greatly. Even illiteracy was not a homogenous phenomenon: J.‑L. Fournet speaks of
“analphabétisme total ou partiel” when exploring strategies by which those without schooling altogether
or in a certain language could get by in the world of written communications, for example, by asking

1. This publication originated in the Collaborative Research Centre 933 “Material text cultures. Materiality
and presence of writing in non‑typographic societies” (subproject A09 “Writing on ostraca in the inner and
outer Mediterranean”). The CRC 933 is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). I am grateful to
Hélène Cuvigny for inviting me to work on non‑documentary texts from Didymoi, the edition of which I am
currently preparing, as well as for sharing her field notes and for her advice, and to Adam Bülow‑Jacobsen for
allowing me to reproduce his photographs of the ostraca. Ostraca and papyri published in corpora are cited
in accordance with the Checklist of editions of Greek, Latin, demotic, and Coptic papyri, ostraca, and tablets,
http://papyri.info/docs/checklist. Unless specified, all dates are AD.
2. Bülow‑Jacobsen 2001, p. 157.
3. For recent discussion of literacy in the Roman army with a view to Greco‑Roman Egypt and Nubia, see Speidel 2018;
for the forts of the Eastern Desert in particular, see Fournet 2003; cf. also Stauner 2016, esp. pp. 805‑808.
494 JuLIA LOugOvAyA

others to do the reading, writing, or correcting for them or by copying a muster. 4 The ultimate and most
efficient means of addressing the illiteracy, however, was through acquisition of literacy. Ostraca found
on the Koptos to Myos Hormos road, in particular those in the forts of Maximianon and Krokodilo, give
witness to occasional learning taking place there, a product of what Fournet calls “l’enseignement de
fortune et de circonstance”. 5 In what follows, I will look at evidence for training in literacy from the fort
of Didymoi located on the Koptos to Berenike road, where a sizeable number of non‑documentary, that
is literary and paraliterary, texts have been found by the French archaeological mission to the Eastern
Desert during the three campaigns conducted between 1997 and 2000.
The fort of Didymoi was built in 76/77 as part of a project aimed to equip the route from Koptos to
the port of Berenike with a network of fortified stations with wells and cisterns. 6 Military garrisons
installed there provided security of travel and ensured the passage of official communication, while
the local population was involved in supporting the daily needs of the inhabitants. In the middle of the
2nd century, however, the course of life in Didymoi was interrupted: apparently due to the collapse of
the well, the fort was temporarily abandoned. Activities there did not resume until after reparations
were carried out in 176/177 and continued, accompanied by various further modifications to the
buildings, for about another century. 7 Because of the interruption of occupation in the middle of the
2nd century, the chronology of Didymoi naturally falls into two periods. The first spans the time from
76/77 to ca 150, the second encompasses the century after 176/177 and until the final abandonment of
the fort, which now has been shown to have occurred in ca 270. 8 With the help of stratigraphy of the
site established by J.‑P. Brun, the editors of the inscribed material found there, mostly documentary
ostraca, were able to date them with an unusual degree of precision and to distinguish between ostraca
from the two chronological periods. This has allowed them to outline some significant differences. 9
Thus, while there is a slight decrease in the overall number of ostraca in the second period (380)
as compared to those of the first (552), the number of private letters decreases dramatically in the
second period (264 in the first period vs 42 in the second). 10 On the other hand, all but one ostracon
(O.Did. 27) published under the rubric “Official correspondence” and most of the smaller documents
associated with the transmission of such correspondence date to the second period. H. Cuvigny is
inclined to believe that the latter peculiarity is due to the chance of preservation because ostraca
from other forts of the same network to which Didymoi belonged furnished plentiful evidence for the
circulation of official correspondence throughout the desert under Trajan or Hadrian. 11 The decrease
in private correspondence in the second period, however, cannot be similarly explained and is likely
to reflect real changes in this kind of communication. 12

4. Fournet 2003, pp. 457‑465; for examples of “second‑hand literacy” in Didymoi see Stauner 2016, pp. 806‑807.
5. Fournet 2003, pp. 465‑466.
6. Brun 2018, § 15‑16; Bagnall, Bülow‑Jacobsen, Cuvigny 2001.
7. For an overview of chronology of Didymoi, see foremost Brun, Cuvigny, Reddé 2011, with Brun 2018 and
Reddé 2018.
8. Cuvigny 2012, pp. 2‑3. The last dated ostracon of the first period, O.Did. 60, was inscribed in the 7th year of Hadrian,
i.e. 122/123, but activities continued after this date for about a quarter of a century: Brun, Cuvigny, Reddé 2011,
p. 159; for the redating of the abandonment of the fort from ca 250 to ca 270, see Brun 2018, § 31 and n. 62.
9. Cuvigny 2012, pp. 3‑5.
10. The numbers are for inventoried, not published ostraca, see Cuvigny 2012, p. 4. The difference for published
private letters is even starker: 134 are dated to the first period (O.Did. 317‑450) and only 15 (O.Did. 451‑465)
to the second.
11. Cuvigny 2012, p. 3. One wonders whether at Didymoi more papyrus was used for the purpose in that time, which
would not have survived.
12. Cuvigny 2012, p. 4, connects absence in the second period of the likes of Philokles (“the single most productive
writer from the praesidia of the Eastern Desert” [Bülow‑Jacobsen 2012, p. 295] who was active during the reigns
of Trajan and Hadrian) to a possible decline in the retail trade and in mobility between the forts in general. For
Philokles, see Bülow‑Jacobsen, Fournet, Redon 2019 (= O.Krok. II), pp. 33‑41; Bülow‑Jacobsen 2012, pp. 295‑298.
 LEARNINg TO wRITE ANd REAd AT dIdyMOI 495

An uneven chronological distribution is also observable in the literary and paraliterary material from
Didymoi, but first a few words about the numbers of such texts are in order. All together 43 sherds and
two papyrus fragments can be identified as either literary or school texts, and another dozen contain
texts of indeterminate nature, possibly literary. When compared with numbers reported for Krokodilo,
8+1? out of 772, and Maximianon, 34+10? out of 1,549, the ratio of such texts in Didymoi to all
inventoried ones (970) is about twice higher than in Maximianon and four times that of Krokodilo. 13
Since the south‑east part of the fort in Didymoi was not excavated, this disparity might be partly
due to the chance of preservation, that is, the overall number of ostraca may have been significantly
higher had the entire fort been investigated.
About twenty Didymoi ostraca are likely to be a product of learning, though not necessarily school
texts. This distinction is important because learning to read and write could be achieved not only
by means of systematic schooling, but also by an ad hoc acquisition of immediately applicable
skills. The basic steps of an elementary curriculum in Greco‑Roman Egypt are well known from
papyrological evidence. Instruction started with the letters of the alphabet, which one practiced
writing in conventional order and in various permutations. It proceeded to syllabaries, which were
composed in a mechanical way, with a given consonant combined with each of the seven vowels in
alphabetic order and forming thereby sets of seven syllables. Along with syllable series, lists of words
were introduced, in which multisyllabic words were divided into syllables by means of spaces or
dots. The lists, usually arranged alphabetically or thematically, would comprise words, or groups of
words, with a given number of syllables. At some point, students were charged with copying sentences
from a model provided by the teacher or by dictation. There followed passages for reading, including
commentaries or glosses. 14 These steps and their progression are attested from the earliest surviving
school handbook, P.Guéraud – Jouguet, dated to the 3rd century BC (Arsinoite?), 15 through the late
antique period, and they are marked by the persistent appearance of the same elements, including
words or personal names that are not likely to have been common outside of school texts.
In addition to those individuals who followed the curriculum methodically, there were always people
who aimed to learn quickly whatever it was that they needed to write down on a regular basis, very
often one’s name. 16 Since these skills were acquired ad hoc, they can be referred to as functional
literacy. 17 A particular situation could put even further demands on an individual’s learning objectives,
such as a need to write or read in another language or alphabet, which one could learn perhaps by
copying the necessary bits of information.
In Didymoi, there is evidence for both systematic and ad hoc learning, but its distribution is chrono‑
logically uneven. Most, if not all, examples of the former date to the latest phases of occupation of
the fort. There is no evidence in the ostraca of the first period for a school curriculum, with a possible
exception of one poorly preserved sherd that appears to have parts of a word list. 18 For this reason,
let us first consider evidence for ad hoc learning, which, while spanning both chronological periods,
is also not homogenous.

13. The numbers for all inventoried ostraca at the three sites are taken from Cuvigny 2018, p. 195, those for literary
texts from Krokodilo and Maximianon are cited after Fournet 2003, p. 465.
14. Cribiore 1996 remains both an indispensable catalogue of the material and a survey of the ordo docendi. See
also Cribiore 2001; Johnson 2015.
15. Throughout the article I use the designation P.Guéraud – Jouguet for the papyrus published in Guéraud,
Jouguet 1938.
16. On learning to write one’s name, see esp. Cribiore 2001, pp. 169‑172.
17. For the term, see Thomas 2011; see also Johnson 2015; Kolb 2018, pp. 8‑9.
18. O.Did. inv. 22, discarded ca 125‑140.
496 JuLIA LOugOvAyA

The earliest piece that might be a product of learning is a little sherd inscribed with the name of
Pakoibis first in Greek and then in Latin. The shapes of the strokes suggest that both were written
by the same person (fig. 1).

Fig. 1 – TM 968593, O.Did. inv. D809, Phase 5, SU 76, 5x6 cm, discarded ca 88‑96.

↓ Πακοῖβις Τ̣ [‑‑‑]
Pacibu Ta[‑‑‑]

The writing is fluent in both lines, but the Greek letters look perhaps a little more confident than their
Latin counterparts. The sherd may have served as a kind of a tag written by a person literate in both
Greek and Latin to the benefit of a reader comfortable only with one of them. It is also possible that
the writer, perhaps the Egyptian named Pakoibis, was learning to write his name in the two languages
used by the inhabitants of the fort.
Another sherd inscribed with a name in two languages is likely a product of a writer familiar with
Latin but learning to write his name in Greek (fig. 2).

Fig. 2 – TM 968594, O.Did. inv. 607, Phase 9b, SU 1519, 13x8.5 cm, discarded ca 120‑125.
 LEARNINg TO wRITE ANd REAd AT dIdyMOI 497

‑‑‑‑
Apolinarius
⟦\τ̣ρο ̣ ̣ /̣ ⟧
Ἀπολιν̣ άριος

1 l. Apollinarius 2 l. Ἀπολλινάριος

Although the difference in fluency between the Greek and the Latin may point to two different
hands, the similarity of the first letters in both lines makes it somewhat likelier that they were the
work of one writer who was more proficient in Latin. At first glance, it looks like the name was
misspelled in Greek as Ἀπολιλάριος, with lambda in place of nu. Comparison with the ductus
of other letters, however, suggests that the letter after the first iota is in fact nu followed by an
awkward Latin‑like alpha made of two strokes. The writer may have had trouble making the Greek
alpha distinct from the Latin a.
Conversely, the writer of O.Did. inv. 45 seems to be more confident in Greek. He first inscribed the
first four letters of the Latin alphabet in uneven capitals, then added the name Lucius, perhaps his
own, in Greek. The Latin a and c in line 1 look very much like the Greek lambda and sigma of line 2,
respectively (fig. 3).

Fig. 3 – TM 968595, O.Did. inv. 45, Phase 9a, SU 141, 12.8x9 cm,
discarded ca 115‑120.

→ ABCD
Λούκιος

Several ostraca in which the writer appears to be learning to write such necessary bits of informa‑
tion as a personal name or military affiliation are attested from the second period, too, but they
display a curious difference. Whereas the earlier ostraca seem to be written by people trying to
handle a second language or script, the later ones are rather products of those simply struggling
to get control over writing their names. Ostracon O.Did. inv. 570 illustrates the learning process
(fig. 4).
498 JuLIA LOugOvAyA

Fig. 4 – TM 968596, O.Did. inv. 570, Fort SW, SU 12903,

7.4x8.5 cm, 3rd century.

m1 Ἀπολλ[‑‑‑]
στρατιώ[‑‑‑]
Ἰτουρέω[ν ‑‑‑]
__________
4 m2 Ἀπολλ ̣[‑‑‑]
στρα̣ [‑‑‑]
Ἰτ[‑‑‑]
‑‑‑‑

3 l. Ἰτουραίω[ν

Hand 1: “Apoll‑, soldier … of the Ituraeans”. Hand 2: “Apoll‑, soldier … of the Ituraeans”.
Two hands can be clearly distinguished. The first, confident and neat, inscribed the name of Apoll‑,
a soldier in one of the Ituraean cohorts, likely the cohors III Ituraeorum. 19 The other, awkward and
uncertain, copied it under a horizontal line, which separates the two entries. There is little doubt that
the copy was made by a person who was learning to write his name following the model provided
by the first writer.
Repeated efforts of a certain Valerius Domitianus to learn writing his name are attested by two sherds,
on one of which, O.Did. inv. 255, he made two attempts (fig. 5). 20

19. The cohors is attested by several documents in Didymoi dated to late 2nd‑early 3rd century (O.Did. 70 and 143),
see Cuvigny 2012, p. 14. For the cohors II and III Ituraeorum in Egypt, see O.Ber. III, pp. 17‑18.
20. O.Did. inv. 114 , which is inscribed in the same hand, also shows several attempts to write the same name.
 LEARNINg TO wRITE ANd REAd AT dIdyMOI 499

Fig. 5 – TM 968597, O.Did. inv. 255, Phase 12, SU 216, 5.2x4.3 cm,
discarded ca 230‑270.

↓ ⟦ ⟧̣ Οὐαλερ̣ [ι‑‑‑]
Δ̣ ομιττια̣ [ν‑‑‑]
[Ο]ὐ̣ α̣λερ̣ [ι‑‑‑]
4 [‑‑‑] ̣ [‑‑‑]
‑‑‑‑

2 l. Δομιτια[ν

Although altogether the number of ostraca attesting ad hoc acquisition of literacy is not large, it might
be more than a coincidence that examples from the earlier period bear signs of more than one language
or script and thus involve crossing linguistic boundaries, while later ones show no sign of it. This can
hardly be explained simply by the multilingual environment of the fort in the first period, because
Latin speakers and writers are well attested later, too, but perhaps rather by educational practices and
the background of the writers. In the earlier period, those who write Greek and Latin do not seem to
be learning it in any systematic way in the fort. They may have acquired whatever degree of literacy
they possess elsewhere, while at the fort they occasionally opted to familiarize themselves with the
“other” common script, that is, either Greek or Latin, which for some reason they would have needed
to use. The “function” of this literacy can be seen, for example, in the bilingual water receipts from
Berenike from approximately the same period, where writers switch, for reasons which are often not
clear, from one language to the other. 21
In the second period the situation in respect to the educational environment is different. We see
people like Valerius Domitianus, who can hardly form letters, trying to learn to write their names,
but there also appears plenty of evidence for systematic school curriculum, from letters of the
alphabet to lists of syllables, and from word lists to moralizing sententiae. The following two ostraca
illustrate well the conventional character of educational practices in Didymoi in that period. The first,
O.Did. inv. 166+310, is a list of words arranged alphabetically and with syllabic divisions indicated,
a true educational staple (fig. 6).

21. For these receipts and possible motives for the choice of languages, see O.Ber. III, pp. 6‑10.
500 JuLIA LOugOvAyA

Fig. 6 – TM 968598, O.Did. inv. D166+310, Phase 12, SU 212,

9.5x8.5 cm, discarded ca 230‑270.

Col. 1 Col. 2
→ Ζή νων Θέ ω[ν?]
Ζῆ θος θε ό[ς?]
ζώ νη θω [‑‑‑]
4 ζω στήρ θε [‑‑‑]
ἦ θος ι [‑‑‑]
‑‑‑‑ ι̣ [‑‑‑]
‑‑‑‑

Col. 1: “Zenon; Zethos; belt; warrior’s belt; custom”. Col. 2: “Theon? god? …”.
The letters, especially in the first column, are carefully formed capitals, although their sizes
differ, suggesting that we have a pupil’s work. The format of the list finds a close parallel in
P.Genova II 53 (unknown provenance, 1st century), which preserves an almost complete set of
24 tetrads of alphabetically arranged disyllabic words.  22 P.Bouriant 1 (unknown provenance,
4th century), fo 1‑5 also lists disyllables, trisyllables, and tetrasyllables in groups of four words
for each letter. 23
As to the choice of words, one notes that Ζήνων, a common name in Egypt and elsewhere,
appears among several other school texts. 24 More curious, however, is the name Ζῆθος: it might
be a mythological hero, since Zethos was the son of Zeus by Antiope and the twin brother of
Amphion, 25 or a personal name. Although the mythological character seems to be minor and the

22. For discussion of the papyrus, see Bingen 1982.

23. For the formats of lists of words, see in particular Huys, Baplu 2009, esp. pp. 38‑40.
24. Milne 1908, p. 122, no. 2 (= O.Bodl.Gr.Inscr. 2933, Upper Egypt, 2nd century); P.Bouriant 1, fo 1v (unknown
provenance, 4th century); and O.Crum 525 (Tentyris, 4th‑5th century), for which see Huys, Schmidt 2001.
25. This is how Huys, Schmidt 2001, p. 152, and Huys, Baplu 2009, p. 39, interpret it.
 LEARNINg TO wRITE ANd REAd AT dIdyMOI 501

personal name is not common, 26 the name must have been a curriculum staple. It occurs in at
least four other school word‑lists on papyri or ostraca that date from the 3rd century BC through
the 5th century. 27
Had the ostracon been found not in controlled excavations, it would be very difficult to date it
since the hand lacks peculiar features and both the arrangement and the choice of the words find
parallels in papyrological evidence spanning more than half a millennium. Stratigraphy established
for the exterior dump in Didymoi, in which the sherd was found, however, indicates that it was
discarded in the middle or the third quarter of the 3rd century, that is, during the last phase of
occupation of the fort. 28
Another curious piece, O.Did. inv. 549 contains a variation of a well‑attested exhortation to a student
to work hard, or to pay attention, φιλοπόνει. 29 The expression often stands alone, but can also be
accompanied by a circumstantial participial construction, e.g. φιλοπόνει γράφων, “pay attention
when you write!”, or νέος ὢν φιλοπόνει, “since you are young, work hard!”. On a school tablet now
in Berlin, ÄM 13234 (Hermopolis? 3rd century), the exhortation turns to admonition. The student
is tasked to copy several times a sentence written by his teacher, φιλοπόνει, ὦ παῖ, μὴ δαρῇς, “work
hard, kid, lest you get a beating!”. 30 The same sentiment is expressed in a Menandrian sententia, Ὁ μὴ
δαρεὶς ἄνθρωπος οὐ παιδεύεται, “without a beating, one learns nothing” (Men. Sent. 573 Jäkel), and
it is to these variations that the Didymoi example comes closest (fig. 7).

Fig. 7 – TM 968599, O.Did. inv. 549, Fort NW, SU 12302, 31x22.5 cm, discarded ca 230‑270.

26. Trismegistos people lists only 8 individuals in Egypt bearing this name, TM Nam 6451; although one of them
is attested in the Eastern desert, cf. O.Ber. I 106.1 (Sept. 20, 61?) and O.Petrie Mus. 186.1 (54‑62), he is likely to
predate our text by about two centuries.
27. P.Guéraud – Jouguet, l. 79 (Arsinoite? 3rd century BC); P.Genova II 53.22 (unknown provenance, 1st century);
P.Bouriant 1, fo 1v (unknown provenance, 4th century), and O.Crum 525 (Tentyris, 4th‑5th century).
28. See Brun 2018, § 31, n. 62, for stratigraphic units originally attributed to Phase 11, but now assigned to Phase 12.
29. For the expression, see Cribiore 1996, pp. 127‑128.
30. Ziebarth 1913, p. 6, no. 12, the photo of which is available in the Berliner Papyrusdatenbank at http://berlpap.smb.
museum/03644.
502 JuLIA LOugOvAyA

m2 [‑‑‑]π̣ ο̣ν̣[‑‑‑]
m1 φιλοπόνει μὴ τλ̣ [‑‑‑]
m2 [‑‑‑]πόνει μὴ τλῇς
4 m2 φι̣λ̣ο̣π̣ό̣νε[ι ‑‑‑?]

4 ι corr. ex ο

“Work hard … Work hard, lest you suffer! Work hard, lest you suffer! Work hard…”
Although the ink is faint, which makes it difficult to assess the quality of the handwriting, it
seems that the sentence was first inscribed in the middle of the sherd in even and well‑formed
letters and then repeated by a student, who tried to imitate the teacher’s handwriting in letters
of different sizes.
All in all, there are over a dozen ostraca from the second period, the content of which can be
associated with systematic education. They come from different areas, though almost all were found
in stratigraphic units dating to the last stages of occupation of the fort, ca 230‑270. The hands, when
they do have any peculiar features, appear to differ, indicating thereby different writers.
One may wonder whether this evidence for systematic learning finds reflection in private corres‑
pondence in the second period. Certainly not in the volume of it, since private correspondence is
sparse. Perhaps the Greek of the later letters is overall somewhat more normative than in the earlier
period – there are no writers like Philokles 31 – but since the volume of evidence is significantly
smaller, the argument risks becoming circular. And just as in the earlier period, poor spelling does not
keep some writers in the 3rd century from composing letters, as is exemplified by the monomachos
Eukylistros of O.Did. 44‑45 or Beryllos of O.Did. 464.
Unsurprisingly, however, evidence for systematic learning and thus teaching is accompanied by
evidence for literary interests and activities in the forts of the Berenike road. Two ostraca found in
Xeron have texts that would be of special interest to the inhabitants of the fort or to those travelling
through it, which suggests that they may have been composed if not at the fort itself then probably
for those living there. One is a poem about the waters of Xeron (O.Xer. inv. 48) 32 and the other is an
account, in hexameters, of travel from Koptos to Berenike (O.Xer. inv. 995). 33 Part of a travel account
along the same route may have featured on an ostracon from Didymoi, O.Did. inv. 445, though too
little survives to ascertain its content or meter. 34 The piece is remarkable in that it combines literary
aspirations with an apparent lack of familiarity with normative spelling. The larger part of the text
is a monologue addressed to a country dweller and probably meant to be performed by a woman; its
rhythmical arrangement and the repetition of the refrain (lines 1‑3 and 9‑11) may indicate that it was
meant as a song. The second text, whether it relates to the first or not, seems to narrate a journey from
Koptos, possibly mentioning the oasis of Phoinikon and almost certainly the station of Aphrodite of
the Desert, the stops immediately before and after Didymoi on the road to Berenike. I reproduce this
text, edited elsewhere, with an approximate translation:

31. For Philokles’ phonetic spelling and writing, see esp. Bülow‑Jacobsen, Fournet, Redon 2019 (= O.Krok. II),
pp. 34‑37; Bülow‑Jacobsen 2012, pp. 295‑298; Bülow‑Jacobsen 2001.
32. This ostracon is published in Bülow‑Jacobsen 2011; see also Benelli, Lucarini 2017.
33. Cuvigny 2013, pp. 410‑411.
34. For the edition of the ostracon, see Lougovaya 2021, pp. 130‑136.
 LEARNINg TO wRITE ANd REAd AT dIdyMOI 503

ἀγρότα⸍ ἄπαγέ μαι μετ’ ἐσοῦ ⸍ ἐν ἀγρῷ χα-

ταμένιν⸍ μή μαι λυπήσῃς⸍ πάντα σοι
ποήσο⸍ ὥσα δεῖ χορεικῆν⸍ γυναῖκαν⸍
4 αὐτόπλεκτον καλύβην ἐς̣⸍ βρώδ̣ ον ποήσο
στρόσο⸍ δὲ πατικῶς⸍ αγρότ̣α ̣ ι̣κ φ
̣ ̣ ̣ βοη⸍̣
ο⸍κ’ωποσ⸍ο μετ’ ἐσοῦ⸍ ἐ̣μ̣ὴ̣ τ̣ρυφὴ γενήσε-
ται⸍ ἀγέλας⸍ ἐλάσο⸍ δέν̣ δρη⸍̣ κλαδεύσο⸍ ‵ ̣ ̣ ε̣α̣ν ἀνατρε̣ίσ̣ ο⸍′
8 συρίνγει πέξω⸍ μόνη ωλυκον⸍ μώνον ἄ̅-
παγέ με μετ’ αἰσοῦ⸍ ἐν ἀ{ν̣ }γρῷ καταμένιν⸍
‵μή με λυπήσῃς⸍′
βοῦτα⸍ πάντα σοι πωήσω⸍ ὅσα δῖ χο̣ ρεικῖν̣ ⸍
γυναῖκαν  ὡς ἀπὸ Κόπτ̣ο̣υ̣ . . . . [
12 τ̣ια̣ ν⸍ ἐπέβην⸍ φ[
καλὸν ὕδωρ⸍ ἐχ̣ε[
οὐκ ἔμελλέ μοι[
κοὐκ ἐστεξάμην̣ [
16 ἔπια πικρὸν ἁ‵λ′μυ̣ [ρ
εἰς Ἀφρωδείτην⸍ [
]αν⸍ ηκα̣ [
] [̣
------

1 l. με, l. καταμένειν 2 l. με 3 l. ποιήσω, l. ὅσα, l. χορηγεῖν, l. γυναῖκα 4 l. βρόδον, l. ποιήσω

5 l. στρώσω, l. παθικῶς 6 l. ὃ καὶ ὁπόσο(ν)? 7 l. ἐλάσω, l. κλαδεύσω, intr. l. ἀνατρήσω? 8 l. συρίγγι,
l. ὦ Λύκων, l. μόνον? 9 l. μετʼ ἐσοῦ, l. καταμένειν 10 l. ποιήσω, l. δεῖ χορηγεῖν 11 l. γυναῖκα 12 l. or
ν̣αν?, Φ[οινικ‑]? 14 l. οὐκ ἔμελέ μοι? 17 l. Ἀφροδείτην

Country‑dweller, lead me away to live with you in the country. Do not let me down! I will do
everything for you, whatever a woman is to provide. I will transform your hut into a rambling‑rose
and will make a bed obediently (?), 35 country dweller, […] whatever and however much with you,
will become luxury for me. I will drive herds, I will cut off wooden sticks and those that I make
hollow (?), I will fasten into a panpipe, all alone, o Lykon, only lead me away to dwell with you in
the country! Herdsman, do not let me down! I will do everything for you, whatever a woman is to
provide […]  When from Koptos […] I came down … Ph[oinikon?…] good water […] I did not
care to […] (or, “he/she/it was not to […] to me”?) and I have not covered (?) […] I drank bitter
and salty […] in Aphrodite […].

The question that presents itself is what circumstances could be associated with the proliferation of
school ostraca attesting systematic education as well as literary texts in Didymoi in the 3rd century.

35. The adverb πατικῶς in the text is baffling, see Lougovaya 2021, p. 134, where, following Bagnall, Cribiore 2010,
pp. 214, 216, I rendered it as “pathically (?)”. The word occurs in Greek only in one other ostracon,
O.Florida. inv. 21 (Upper Egypt, 150‑250) edited in Bagnall, Cribiore 2010, with that very spelling. It must be
the adverbial form of παθικός, which itself is attested by a single late antique graffito in Aphrodisias (Bain 1997,
pp. 81‑82), but whose Latin derivative, pathicus, is well known, see Adams 1982, esp. p. 190. Although the Latin
word mostly refers to a pathic sexual role and has connotation of abuse, it is difficult to read this meaning in our
ostracon, since the speaker uses it to describe her promised act of preparing the bed for the country dweller. To
keep the connotation of “submissiveness” of pathicus, I translate the adverb here with the word “obediently”.
504 JuLIA LOugOvAyA

It has been noted that archaeological record indicates “a very significant evolution in the rhythm of
daily life” in the forts of the Berenike road in the middle of the 3rd century. 36 The internal spaces of
the forts were divided in smaller sections of irregular plans and continuously reconstructed, whereas
some rooms were not used anymore for habitation, but converted to dumping grounds. In Dios, small
pens for livestock and/or poultry were constructed, a possible sign of diminished mobility and trading
between the forts. Archeological evidence also reveals an increase in bread production, made manifest
by the multiplication of ovens in Xeron, Dios, and Didymoi, and the number of silos and millstones at
the later. 37 The large volume of bread production has recently been associated with the establishment
of a “working” relationship between the garrisons and the desert dwellers, with the inhabitants of the
forts enlisting help of the local population in securing the safety of the desert, for which they supplied
them with wheat and bread in return. 38 Could it be that life in the garrisons became somewhat more
stable, settled, and less dependent on faraway centralized powers than it was under the High Empire,
creating the environment more conducive to educational and literary activities? Could it also be that
the higher volume of bread production meant an increase in the female population of the forts and
thus more children living there, who would be a natural object of systematic schooling? Unfortunately,
it is impossible to determine whether school texts in Didymoi were penned by children or adult
learners, nor can we be sure that children were likelier to be taught more systematically than adults,
even if it intuitively seems so. Be that as it may, the evidence from Didymoi shows that interest in
literary activities and schooling changed significantly over the fort’s two hundred years of existence,
apparently culminating in the last phase of its occupation in the middle of the 3rd century. It also
makes it clear that any discussion of literacy in the forts of the Eastern Desert, and probably in Egypt
in general, ought to be more diachronically nuanced.

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