Life in a Multi-Cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and Beyond.

• Author: Leahy, Anthony

This volume publishes the proceedings of a symposium held in Chicago in September 1990 as a prelude to the Fourth International Congress of Demotists. It comprises forty-four contributions ("chapters"), representing most of the papers given; a few have been published elsewhere and/or appear only in abstract form. Revision in the light of discussion at the symposium and subsequent reflection was allowed up to September 1991. References follow the Harvard system, with a collective bibliography at the end. The indexes are extensive.

It is a splendid volume and an important move towards a more integrated picture of a fascinating period of Egyptian history. In her preface, Janet Johnson emphasizes the richness of the extant sources and the importance, given the existence of numerous cultures in Egypt, of bringing different specialists together. It is pleasing to see demotic studies, despite their natural tendency towards the hermetic, leading the way in bringing this about. Any reader versed in earlier periods of Egyptian history must be struck by the volume and diversity of the evidence available. The contributions reflect this, ranging from administration to agriculture, economy to education, law to literacy, taking in art and religion along the way. Greek and demotic naturally dominate. Some papers address the multicultural question directly; others are content to present research on specific problems within the period covered.

In a brief review of a conference volume, it is always invidious to single out individual contributions. Approaches to the evidence are critically important, however, and for that reason one deserves special mention. Robert Ritner's paper, enticingly subtitled "A Question of Noses, Soap and Prejudice," is as concerned with modern preconceptions as with ancient evidence. In it, he vigorously trounces both the "biological model," which still infects Egyptology, and according to which everything after the New Kingdom is moribund, and the distasteful yet apparently ineradicable notions of Greek cultural and racial superiority which pervade even disturbingly recent and otherwise distinguished Classical scholarship. An adequate understanding of Ptolemaic Egypt and the interrelationship of its diverse cultures will only be possible when scholars rid themselves of such prejudices.

One cause for regret is that there are so few "archaeological" contributions. The index of "Papyri, Ostraca and Inscribed Objects" is not a failure...