“In doing so, we will gain greater insight into such aspects as the role multiculturalism played in ancient society, what family life was like, and how different religions developed.” A step change in studying ancient civilisationsĬonsidering that these papyri are written in 10 different languages and scripts, including hieroglyphs, hieratic, Demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Coptic and Arabic, analysing them all was a monumental task. “By analysing several thousand written sources, we aim to reconstruct 4 000 years of cultural history,” explains Lepper. But, with the support of the EU-funded and European Research Council-supported ELEPHANTINE project, Lepper and her team are working towards solving this ‘papyrus puzzle’. The problem is that these papyri and manuscripts are now scattered across the world, with 80 % remaining unpublished and unstudied. “Its people left us vast amounts of written sources detailing their everyday lives and covering a period of history that spans from the Old Kingdom to beyond the Arab conquest.” “No other settlement in Egypt is so well attested over such a long period of time through texts,” says Verena Lepper, a professor at the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, part of the National Museums of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. As such, the island was home to an array of ethnicities, religions and cultures, many of whom left behind a trove of historically significant manuscripts and papyri (a writing material made from the papyrus plant growing in Egypt). Positioned between the border of ancient Egypt and Nubia, it once played an important role both as a defensive fort and in facilitating international trade. Elephantine is an island located on the Nile in Upper Egypt.
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