Karanis: An Egyptian Town in Roman Times

Karanis:
An Egyptian Town in Roman Times:
Discoveries of the University of Michigan
Expedition to Egypt, 1924-1935

Karanis: An Egyptian Town in Roman Times edited by Elaine K. Gazda was published by the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology and the University of Michigan in 1983. A second edition with a new preface and an updated bibliography by T. G. Wilfong appeared in 2004.

The first edition of this book was prepared to coincide with an exhibition of the same name, on display at the Kelsey Museum in 1983. When the exhibition closed, the book was still for sale. In early 2004 the first edition finally sold out. The second edition was prepared to ensure that the book is still in print.

Elaine K. Gazda was Associate Director of the Kelsey Museum in 1983, while T. G. Wilfong was Associate Curator of Greco-Roman Egypt at the Kelsey Museum and Associate Professor of Egyptology at the University of Michigan in 2004.

Karanis - founded around 250 BC – is located in the Al-Fayoum oasis ca. 50 miles southwest of the modern capital Cairo.

 

 

This map shows the El-Fayoum oasis in Roman times.

From "Karanis: An Egyptian Town in Roman Times" page 8.

Why does a museum in Michigan publish a book about an ancient town in Egypt? The subtitle provides a partial answer to this question: Discoveries of the University of Michigan Expedition to Egypt 1924-1935.

Here is a more detailed answer:

Towards the end of the 19th century, scholars became aware that many ancient documents written on papyrus were buried under the sand in Egypt, and they started excavating. It was like a treasure hunt, not for gold, but for information about the history of Egypt under the Pharaohs and as a province of the Roman Empire.

At first, archaeologists were only interested in the papyrus documents, and anything else was virtually ignored. The British Egyptologist Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) advocated another approach. He said the archaeologist must save every ancient object discovered and consider every aspect of the ancient civilisations. The American scholar Francis W. Kelsey (1858-1927) agreed with this idea; and as a Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Michigan he decided to head an expedition to Egypt based on this method.

Scholars from the University of Michigan conducted excavations in Karanis for eleven seasons between World War One and World War Two. Although Kelsey was the driving force behind the project, he did not live long enough to complete it.

Karanis excavations in progress: men and women from the modern village of
Kom Aushim carry baskets of sand while clearing structures.
From "Karanis: An Egyptian Town in Roman Times" page 4.

The Egyptian government granted nearly 45,000 objects to the University of Michigan; this is the origin of the unique collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts in the Kelsey Museum, which is named after the man behind the project.

The format of the book is large, 21.5 x 28 cm, but the number of pages is low: X + 50 pages. The main text is divided into four chapters, which reflect the comprehensive approach advocated by Petrie:

      # 1 – Karanis in Perspective (7 pages)

      # 2 – The Rural Economy (11 pages)

      # 3 – Domestic Life (13 pages)

      # 4 – The Temples and the Gods (14 pages)

At the end of each chapter there are notes with references. At the end of the book there is a bibliography (5 pages).

The text is illustrated by several maps, drawings, and photos. All illustrations are in black-and-white.

Chapter 1 gives a general introduction to the topic and the town. Chapter 2 covers the working life of the inhabitants, most of whom were farmers. Chapter 3 is about the domestic life of the inhabitants, going from house to house. In chapter 4 the focus is on religion, which was an important aspect of life in ancient Egypt.

The comprehensive approach works well: ancient literary texts, ancient papyrus documents, as well as ancient objects are used to bring the world of ancient Karanis to life. The different elements complement each other very well.

One of the books listed in the bibliography is A. E. R. Boak and H. C. Youtie, The Archive of Aurelius Isidorus (University of Michigan Press, 1960) about an archive found in Karanis around 1923. Aurelius Isidorus (or Aurelios Isidoros) was a local farmer and tax collector, who lived around AD 300, during the reign of Diocletian.

For a review of this important book see American Journal of Philology, vol. 83, no. 1, January 1962, pp. 98-100. For some discussion of the archive and what it can tell us, see Literacy in the Roman World (Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplement # 3, 1991), pp. 155-158 (Keith Hopkins) and pp. 183-187 (Ann E. Hanson).

Karanis is a small place. If you look it up in Lonely Planet’s guidebook to Egypt, you will find that there is only about one page of information, and the University of Michigan excavations are not mentioned at all: Egypt (10th edition, 2010) pp. 207-208.

If, however, you turn to the world of historical scholarship, you will find that it is considered an important place. In the Oxford Handbook of Papyrology (edited by Roger Bagnall, published 2011) Karanis is mentioned more than thirty times. Here are a few examples: book rolls, page 39; tax rolls, page 383; the house-to-house approach, page 226-227; and the archive of Aurelius Isidorus, page 73.

In the Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt (edited by Christina Riggs, published 2012) Karanis is mentioned more than sixty times, and a whole chapter is devoted to the University of Michigan excavations conducted 1924-1935: chapter 14, pp. 223-242.

Karanis is a small place, but we know surprisingly many details about the inhabitants and the lives they led in this ancient town. The book published by the Kelsey Museum allows the reader to enter a microcosm of one town in one province of the Roman Empire. If you are interested in ancient history, in particular the lives or ordinary people, I think you will enjoy this slim volume about Karanis.

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Elaine K. Gazda (editor),

Karanis: An Egyptian Town in Roman Times,

Kelsey Museum of Archaeology and University of Michigan,

first edition 1983, second edition 2004, X + 50 pages

 

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