Menches

Early life and family

Menches lived during the Ptolemaic period, after ancient Egypt had been conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. After the death of Alexander the Great, Egypt was ruled by Alexander's general Ptolemy I Soter (r. 323–282 BCE) and his descendants the Ptolemaic dynasty.^[1] The circumstances of Menches' life have been reconstructed based on papyrus letters that he wrote or received in his occupation as a scribe. Few personal details about Menches are preserved in these documents, and his birth date is unknown.^[2] He lived and worked in the village of Kerkeosiris, the location of which has not yet been discovered by archaeologists. The village was founded in the Faiyum Oasis in the early Ptolemaic period, when the Ptolemies began large-scale land reclamation projects in the Faiyum. During this period, the Ptolemies granted allotments of farm land to Ptolemaic soldiers who settled in villages like Kerkeosiris.^[3]

Menches was one of several sons born to Petesouchos and Thasis.^[4] His brothers included Polemon, a man identified from personal correspondences in the Menches archive. Another man named Mestasutmis has been identified as a possible brother of Menches, as they were business partners and both had a father named Petesouchos. However, papyrologist Arthur Verhoogt stated that it was uncertain whether Mestasutmis was Menches' brother, because Petesouchos was a common name.^[5] Menches and his father are both described in surviving documents as a "Greek of the country", which appears to be derived from an Egyptian term describing Greeks born in Egypt. Because of this, the family is believed to be descended from Greek immigrants.^[6]

The name Menches means "He who is perfect" in Egyptian.^[2] He was also known by the Greek name Asclepiades. It was common for people in Ptolemaic Egypt to have a double name; they used a Greek or Egyptian name depending on the situation.^[7] Village scribes typically used Egyptian names, and Menches used his Egyptian name primarily.^[4] Other male members of his family also used their Egyptian names more frequently than their Greek ones.^[8]

Career as scribe

Menches held the office of village scribe (Ancient Greek: κομογραμματεύς, romanized: komogrammateus). It was a prestigious position that gave Menches considerable influence in his community.^[9] A scribal administration had existed in Egypt since the Old Kingdom and this system was mostly unchanged in the Ptolemaic period.^[10] The highest levels of the Ptolemaic government were under Greek control,^[11] while most scribes were native Egyptians who were required to be bilingual in Egyptian and Greek.^[9]

Scribes were responsible for managing the agricultural land in Egypt on behalf of the pharaoh. Village scribes like Menches answered to a network of superiors, including the toparchy scribes (topogrammateus) and the royal scribe (basilikos grammateus).^[12] Menches' primary personal responsibilities as scribe were to record and manage agricultural taxes owed within his village.^[12] He was obligated to conduct detailed land surveys^[13] and create a complete registry that catalogued agricultural land in the village, including records of what crops were grown and the outcome of the harvest. He supervised sowing and harvesting so that he could write reports on their progress.^[14] He also supervised irrigation projects and other public works.^[15]

It is unknown when Menches was first appointed to the position of village scribe, but he was the incumbent scribe by 119 BCE.^[16] A document written by Menches mentions the appointment of a new scribe for an unnamed village in 123 or 122 BCE, which may refer to the date that he first became scribe.^[17] Menches applied to be reappointed as village scribe on May 25, 119 BCE. In the document, Menches pledged to pay a large amount of grain upon his reappointment, and to rent and cultivate land owned by the royal government.^[18] Cultivating and reclaiming unproductive land is thought to have been a prerequisite for being appointed as a scribe.^[19] Menches was financially supported by Dorion, a wealthy and influential member of government.^[20] On August 20, 119 BCE, the royal scribe instructed a regional official to provide Menches with his papers of office, effectively renewing his term.^[21]

Coin of Ptolemy VIII

Relief of Cleopatra II and Cleopatra III

Menches lived during a period of civil unrest stemming from an Egyptian civil war that lasted from 132 until 124 BCE.^[22] The war was fought by the forces of Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra III against Cleopatra II, and caused a period of anarchy that lasted for several years after the war was concluded. Many farmers abandoned their land to become brigands as local officials exploited the peasantry. As the economy worsened, the price of basic items increased due to inflation.^[23] Many tenant farmers in Kerkeosiris abandoned their land because of the unrest, resulting in a loss of tax revenue, and 12 of Menches' fellow scribes went on strike between 118 and 117 BCE. These circumstances made it difficult for Menches to perform his duties as scribe.^[22] In 118 BCE, Ptolemy VIII issued a broad amnesty decree that forgave all debts and pardoned all crimes committed during the war with the exception of murder and sacrilege. This decree helped to gradually restore social and economic stability.^[23]

On December 7, 118 BCE, Menches, his brother Polemon, and a group of other people were arrested.^[24] They were charged with attempting to poison a man named Haryotes,^[25] who was a citizen of Krokodilopolis, a city in the Faiyum Oasis. They were tried before the chief of police and acquitted on December 9. After their acquittal, Menches continued to fear slander and reprisal over the incident. In May 117 BCE,^[26] he sent a petition to Ptolemy VIII, Cleopatra II and Cleopatra III, asking them to make the strategos Apollonius protect him from reprisal.^[27] Menches may have wanted to clear his name before an investigation of village scribes that was scheduled to take place in the summer of 117 BCE. During the investigation, royal officials arrested several scribes for misconduct in order to set an example of proper behavior.^[26]

In 114 BCE, Menches informed the government that farmers who cultivated royal land in his village were conducting a strike, and this strike was quickly ended.^[25] In 113 or 112 BCE, he was granted 20 arouras (13.4 acres (5.4 ha)) of waterlogged farmland by the state as a cleruchic grant.^[28] Under the Ptolemaic system of cleruchy, the state distributed farmland to members of the military as compensation for their service.^[29] It was unusual for a civilian official like Menches to receive cleruchic land, as it was generally only granted to members of the Ptolemaic army or police. Historian Dorothy J. Crawford suggested that Menches might have received cleruchic land through a new royal policy introduced to make more land agriculturally productive so that the government could receive taxes from it.^[28] Beginning in 111 BCE, Menches shared the position of scribe with a man named Petesouchos, who might have been his brother or nephew. Petesouchos succeeded Menches as scribe in 110 BCE.^[30]

Rediscovery and publication

The discarded documents were discovered by English archaeologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt during their excavation of the Tebtunis archive between 1899 and 1900.^[38] Grenfell and Hunt had been hired by American archaeologist George Andrew Reisner to excavate the site on behalf of the University of California, Berkeley. Their excavation began at Umm el-Breigat, the location of the ancient city of Tebtunis. Grenfell and Hunt initially considered the temple's necropolis of mummified crocodiles to be unimportant.^[39] On January 16, 1900, one of the workmen at the site became frustrated that he was only finding mummified crocodiles instead of human sarcophagi. He kicked one of the crocodiles and broke it open, subsequently discovering that it was wrapped in reused papyri.^[14] Before this accidental discovery, archaeologists did not know that the ancient Egyptians had occasionally wrapped mummies in papyrus.^[40]

Grenfell and Hunt found 31 crocodiles that were wrapped in papyri, and Italian archaeologist Achille Vogliano found 5 more during a separate expedition in 1934.^[40] At least 21 crocodiles contained papyri from the Menches archive.^[8] They were found alongside a smaller number of unrelated papyri from the 2nd and 1st century BCE.^[41]

Bernard P. Grenfell in 1920

Arthur S. Hunt in 1919

Grenfell and Hunt presented the results of their excavations to Reisner in mid-1900, and shipped the majority of the artifacts that they found to the University of California. The papyri were shipped to Oxford, England where Grenfell and Hunt could translate and publish them. The first volume of the Tebtunis Papyri, containing many documents from the Menches archive, was published in 1902.^[42] The second volume, published in 1907, contained documents from the priests of Soknebtunis, and mostly dated to the Roman period. The remaining papyri were not published until nearly 30 years later, owing to Grenfell's chronic illness.^[43]

Grenfell experienced a mental breakdown in 1906–1907,^[44] and was unable to assist Hunt, who continued editing the volumes of papyri by himself. Grenfell recovered enough to work in 1914 and resumed editing the papyri.^[45] Grenfell's mental health issues resulted in him being hospitalized at St. Andrew's sanatorium in 1920 and then at Murray Royal Hospital in Perth, Scotland. He died in 1926.^[44] The third volume of the papyri was published in two parts; the first part was published in 1933 and the second in 1938. The second part had to be finished by J. G. Smyly and Campbell Cowan Edgar,^[43] as Hunt had died in 1934.^[46] The papyri were moved from London to the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley in 1938.^[47]

Content and historical significance

The papyri are an important source for modern historians, preserving information about daily life in villages during the late Ptolemaic period.^[14] They also provide historians with general information about government, land ownership, agriculture, and populations in Egypt in the late 2nd century BCE.^[48] They contain detailed information about daily functioning of the scribal office in Kerkeosiris, including its revenues, expenses, and administrative responsibilities. The majority of documents in Menches' archive are related to land registries and agricultural reports. These documents provide information about every stage of agricultural production in the village, from planting to irrigation management, and harvesting. They also record the payment of rents and taxes owed to the royal government.^[25]

The archive also contains correspondences sent and received by Menches. Some of them are correspondences between Menches and his superiors, such as instructions that he received from the royal scribe. The correspondences in the archive also include reports of crimes that he received from villagers. These villagers requested his assistance in forwarding their complaints to the appropriate government officials so that justice could be delivered.^[22]