Tag: Achaemenid Empire

Moore, James D. 2026. Aspects of Judean Life. Elephantine in Its Persian Imperial and Administrative Context. Pennsylvania: Eisenbrauns.

Aspects of Judean Life focuses on Elephantine during the fifth century BCE, developing a comprehensive model of Achaemenid Persian imperial governance in Egypt and situating the Judean colony within that framework. It reconsiders the colony at Elephantine not as a band of foreign mercenaries living private lives but as colonial state dependents embedded within Achaemenid systems of land-for-service taxation and imperial administration. Far from isolated, the Judeans emerge as active participants in—and beneficiaries of—the structures of empire.

Ziemba, Kacper & Frederik Poulsen (eds.). 2026. Judeans in the Land of the Nile: Papers on Achaemenid Egypt, Elephantine, and the Hebrew Bible Presented in Copenhagen, August 19–20, 2024 (Ägypten und Altes Testament 136). Münster: Zaphon.

The significance of Egypt for the history of the Judeans in the 1st millennium BCE is difficult to overestimate. The geographical proximity of the land of the Nile and Judah meant that their political and cultural fates were intertwined. This is evidenced by the attempts of Egyptian rulers to extend their dominance over Judah or, more broadly, Palestine. Egypt was also home to Judeans and communities originating from Judah. Before it became one of the largest centers of the diaspora in the Hellenistic period, there was a Judean community living in Elephantine-Syene on the Nile. This was at a time when Egypt and Judah were under the rule of the Persian Empire. We know of it thanks to an Aramaic archive of papyri and ostraca from the Persian era that originate from this area. These texts – mainly private, legal, and administrative documents – allow us to reconstruct various aspects of the lives of members of this Judean community. Egypt is also the source of Papyrus Amherst 63, a text written in Demotic script in Aramaic and containing certain themes that invite us to link it with the presence of Judeans in Egypt. Moreover, Egypt and its relations with Israelites/Judeans are important topics in the Hebrew Bible. Egypt is not only the land of first exile (the Exodus story) and the topic of prophetic invectives (e.g., Isa 19; Jer 46; Ezek 29–32) but also the country where Judeans could find shelter and prosper (Patriarchal narratives; Joseph Story). It is equally remarkable that biblical authors, unlike Judeans in Babylonia, often do not mention their co-religionists living in Egypt during the Persian period; the negative assessment of Judeans living there (Jer 42–44) underlines this fact. In light of the Elephantine papyri, this silence is even more puzzling.

These issues were the focus of papers presented at the workshop ‘Judean Diaspora and Biblical Texts in Achaemenid Egypt,’ organized at the University of Copenhagen on August 19 and 20, 2024, as part of the research project Divergent Views of Diaspora in Ancient Judaism. The contributions are organized into three thematic sections: Egypt under Persian rule; Elephantine and Papyrus Amherst 63; and representations of Egypt in the Hebrew Bible.

Table of contents:

Ziemba / Poulsen: Introduction: Judeans in the Land of the Nile

Part I: Egypt under Persian Rule

Colburn: What Have the Persians Ever Done for Us? The Study of Achaemenid Imperialism in Egypt

Wasmuth: Persian Period Elephantine/Syene in Context: The Natural, Pharaonic Socio-Cultural, and Persian Period Urban Environment       

Part II: Elephantine and Papyrus Amherst

Moore: A Supposed Diaspora Community at Elephantine or How the Persians Reinvented Judean-ness  

Ziemba: Elusive Soldiers: The Military Nature of the ‘Judean Troop’ at Persian-period Elephantine

Holm: “I Come from Judah, My Brother Has Been Brought from Samaria” (Aramaic P. Amherst 63): The Judean and Samarian Arrival in Egypt

Hjelm: What Can Elephantine Teach Us about Ancient Samari(t)ans

Granerød: “What Indeed Has Papyrus Amherst 63 To Do with Elephantine?” The Amherst Papyrus’s Relevance to the Question of the Elephantine Judean Community’s Historical Background and Identity    

Part III: Representations of Egypt in the Hebrew Bible

Poulsen: Defining Diaspora in the Joseph Story

Youssef: Isaiah 19 and the Persian Period

Liebermann: Jeremiah and YHWH in Egypt: Divine Presence, Prophetic Pain, and the Presentation of History

Fry: A Quest for This Historical “Queen of Heaven”: Connecting the Biblical and Non-Biblical in and through Diaspora

Boivin, Odette. 2026. The Temple of Ištar-of-Akkad in Babylon from the Neo-Assyrian until the Persian Period. The Archival Texts (Abhandlungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 33). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

The Temple of Ištar-of-Akkad in Babylon from the Neo-Assyrian until the Persian Period is the third volume of the ADOG sub-series named Babil and dedicated to the study of Babylon. It contains the edition of 86 texts uncovered during the excavations directed by Robert Koldewey and carried out between 1899 and 1917 by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft in Babylon.

The cuneiform tablets presented in this volume are primarily everyday archival documents and were uncovered in the temple of Ištar-of-Akkad and east of it (in the northern Merkes area); they belong to the text groups N8 and N9 in O. Pedersén, Archive und Bibliotheken in Babylon, ADOG 25 published in 2005. The texts are dated to the period between the mid-7th and the 5th centuries BCE. They provide information about the individuals and families who had connections to the temple of Ištar-of-Akkad in Babylon or were within its sphere of influence. Through an in-depth analysis of the archaeological context of the tablets, the brief history of the temple in this neighbourhood is reconstructed, which provides new insights in the history of Babylon during the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian periods.