Master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (MA)
open access
Elephantine has been a flourishing multicultural society for centuries and protected the southern Egyptian border. Egyptians, Persian, Greeks, Arameans and many others lived together, but each had...Show moreElephantine has been a flourishing multicultural society for centuries and protected the southern Egyptian border. Egyptians, Persian, Greeks, Arameans and many others lived together, but each had its own legal system. Having so many cultures living alongside each other must have brought legal problems and situations with it. So how can you solve this legal puzzle with so many systems next to each other? This thesis highlights one small aspect, namely adoption in the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine. The Jews, originally from the northern Levant, used Official Aramaic, a language closely related to the Akkadian language, yet they lived in an Egyptian society. The question here is: how does the procedure of adoption develops itself in this multicultural society? The three major texts regarding adoption – the Adoption Document, the Testamentary Manumission and the Story of Aḥiqar – will be researched in comparison to their Egyptian and Near Eastern counterparts. The lack of Egyptian sources is a curse to this research, since it makes diachronic study impossible. In the first chapter the content of the three documents is revised, and compared to the content of sources. In the second chapter the lexical part is examined. Specific clauses regarding adoption are illustrated and further evaluated by comparing them with Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian sources. The overall conclusion is that Near Eastern influences are more prominent, but some Egyptian influences seeps in on a low level.Show less
