Alongside agriculture and its immediate results the diversified industrial activities of the temples included papyrus production and weaving. The temples produced their own oil for lighting; thus the temple of Soknopaiou Nesos even owned oil presses in several villages (Lippert-Schentuleit 2005, p. 72). to an abundant supply ofpapyrus the Egyptian temple notaries wrote their contracts on large papyrus rolls, whereas the Greek notaries often scribbled on small sheets (Quaegebeur 1979: 724-5). The finest linen products, the so-called royal linen or byssos, were apparently manufactured only in the temples (Evans 1961: 226-8). Weaving remained important in Roman Soknopaiou Nesos (Lippert-Schentuleit 2006: 11). The ferry-boats which set the pilgrims over Lake Moeris were let out by the temple (P. Oxf. Griffith 52-4; P. Berl. 15505; Lippert and Schentuleit 2005: 76; 2006: 10).
Temple activities in the service sector were often linked with religious activities. In the temple the gods could be consulted by means of written oracle chits, often addressed to the god in double copy, one positive and one negative. Hundreds of such chits have been found in or near the temples (for Tebtunis see now Hoffmann-Thissen 2004: 110-14) and there can be no doubt that the temple was paid for this service (Valbelle-Husson 1998; Martin 2004: 413-26). A Prefect’s letter of ad 202 threatens the death penalty for those who ‘‘through oracles, i. e. by means of written documents supposedly granted in the presence of the deity, or by means of the processions of the cult images or suchlike charlatanry, pretend to have knowledge of the supernatural or to know the obscurity of future events’’ (SB XIV 12144). Clearly the custom was still flourishing when Septimius Severus visited Egypt, and it survived even in Christian churches up to the seventh century, no doubt because it made a handsome profit for the priests.
In Egypt burial was usually accompanied by mummification, and the family tombs received a funerary cult over many generations. God’s sealers and embalmers (htmw-ntr wyt, stolistai), lector-priests (hryw-hb) and choachytes (wphw-mw, choachutai), originally responsible for the three consecutive phases of mummification, burial and mortuary service, all became ‘‘owners’’ of tombs and funerary chapels, which could be sold or bequeathed among them (Derda 1991; Vleeming 1995). They are the best known religious professionals in Ptolemaic Egypt, because they often kept their family papers in well-protected tombs. Their business was supervised by the director of the necropolis (imy-r-hpst), who was a priest of the local temple. In the early Ptolemaic Period the ‘‘payment for the director of the necropolis’’ amounted to 1 dr. for each burial (Malinine 1961; Muhs 2005: 88-95). In the later Ptolemaic Period the state was also involved, and the products used for mummification were sold to the undertakers like other monopolized raw materials (Clarysse 2007).
An important source of income were the notarial offices, held by priestly scribes, who wrote in Demotic. In Thebes these scribes wrote ‘‘in the name of the priests of Amonrasonther,’’ in the Memnoneia ‘‘for the prophetess of Djeme,’’ in Pathyris ‘‘in the name of the priests of Hathor’’ (P. Recueil I, p. 139). In the Roman Period Demotic contracts are no longer written in the temples, but in the grapheion, the Greek notary office. Here Demotic is superseded by Greek by the end of the first century ad (Depauw 2003a).
Temples were also health-care centers where priestly doctors combined science and magic. Egyptian medicine drew upon an age-old tradition and Demotic handbooks dealt with specialized matters, such as eye diseases, snake bites or gynaecological problems. One could be healed by sacred water that had been poured over a divine statue of the Horus child standing on the crocodiles, receive a dream when passing the night in the temple, get a child by divine intervention like Taimouthes the wife of the Memphite High Priest (Otto 1954: 192; Reymond 1981: 165-77), or be treated in the temple sanatorium (Daumas 1957; Holbl 2000: 83). The healing cults are also illustrated by graffiti and ex-votos (Frankfurter 1998: 46-50).
World History
