2000-year-old youth organization

In Roman Egypt, 14-year-old boys were enrolled in a youth organization in order to learn to be good citizens.

So says social historian and historian of ideas Ville Vuolanto, University of Oslo, who has joined forces with Dr April Pudsey of the University of Newcastle to dive deep into a mass of material of around 7,500 ancient documents written on papyrus. The texts comprise literary texts, personal letters and administrative documents. Never before has childhood been researched so systematically in this type of material.

The documents originate from Oxyrhynchos in Egypt, which in the first five hundred years CE was a large town of more than 25,000 inhabitants. Oxyrhynchos had Egypt’s most important weaving industry, and was also the Roman administrative centre for the area. Researchers possess a great deal of documentation precisely from this area because archaeologists digging one hundred years ago discovered thousands of papyri in what had once been the town’s rubbish dumps.

Free-born citizens only

Only boys born to free-born citizens were entitled to be members of the town’s youth organization, which was called a ‘gymnasium’.  These boys were the children of local Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Their families would necessarily have been quite prosperous, and have had an income that placed them in the ‘12 drachma tax class’. It is uncertain how large a proportion of the population would have qualified, probably somewhere between 10 and 25 per cent, Vuolanto explains.

Ancient Egyptians sold themselves into temple slavery

EGYPTOLOGY

 

2,200 years ago in the ancient Egyptian city Tebtunis, Egyptians voluntarily entered into slave contracts with the local temple for all eternity. And they even paid a monthly fee for the 'privilege'. Egyptologist Kim Ryholt from the University of Copenhagen is the first researcher who has studied this puzzling phenomenon.

"I am your servant from this day onwards, and I shall pay 2½ copper-pieces every month as my slave-fee before Soknebtunis, the great god." This is a translation of a formulaic pledge found in 100 2,200-year-old papyrus slave contracts from the temple city of Tebtunis. University of Copenhagen Egyptologist Kim Ryholt is the first researcher to have analysed these collectively in his recent article "A Self-Dedication Addressed to Anubis - Divine Protection against Malevolent Forces or Forced Labour?" from the forthcoming publication Lotus and Laurel - Studies on Egyptian Language and Religion. 

Today, it is difficult to comprehend why anybody would voluntarily join the ranks of the temple slaves and even pay the temple a monthly fee. But when you as Kim Ryholt can read the contracts, which were written in the ancient Egyptian language Demotic, a plausible explanation surfaces:

"90 per cent of the people who entered into these slave contracts were unable to name their fathers, although this was normally required. They were presumably children of prostitutes. This is a clear indication that they belonged to the lower classes which the king could subject to forced labour, for example digging canals, if he so desired. However, we know from other contemporary records that temple slaves were exempt from forced labour," says Kim Ryholt.