Rechtsgeschichtliches zur Ackerverpachtung auf Tempelland nach demotischen Formular.

• Author: Cruz-Uribe, Eugene
• Position: Book review

Rechtsgeschichtliches zur Ackerverpachtung auf Tempelland nach demotischen Formular. By TYCHO QUIRINUS MRISCH. Veroffentlichungen der Kommission fur Antike Rechtsgeschichte, vol. 10. Vienna: OSTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSEN-SCHAFTEN, 2003. Pp. 163. [euro]39 (paper).

This slim volume provides a critical analysis of an earlier study on Ptolemaic lease documents by H. Felber (Demotische Ackerpachtvertrage der Ptolemaerzeit [Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997]). The book is divided into five chapters, in the first of which the author provides a synopsis of ancient law and sets out his preference to analyze the Demotic texts from a literal point of view by which the reader can get to the "soul" of the meaning of the legal phraseology of these lease documents. The second chapter focuses on the clausal system Felber used in his volume. Mrisch questions the functionality of the actual bilateral sense of documents and is perhaps in error when he suggests that these documents do not evoke a true bilateral nature (pp. 53-54). In chapter three he critically addresses Felber's approach and questions the influence of the articles in the Lexikon der Agyptologie (pp. 59-60, and further noted in chapter four, pp. 76ff.). I get the sense that Mrisch much prefers a reliance on Seidl's earlier "Grecophile" legal interpretations.

Chapter four delves into additional legal analysis, attempting to tie some aspects of Roman legal terminology and practice back into the Ptolemaic Egyptian schema. In the process Mrisch analyzes a variety of Saite period lease texts, relying principally on G. Hughes' treatment (Saite Demotic Land Leases [Univ. of Chicago Press, 1952]). In chapter five the author begins his new formulation of the "three stages" of lease documents. In the process he discusses the term hp "law, right, norm," the dating of some of the lease documents, and the position of the land vis-a-vis its being part of temple land. The volume ends with a short concluding synopsis.

This reviewer found the volume laden with an inordinate...