Archaeologists at the University of Tübingen in Germany excavated a 2,000-year-old ancient settlement near Luxor, Egypt, unearthing more than 18,000 pieces of pottery that record details of everyday life in ancient Egypt, including shopping lists and student assignments.
Athribis was once the capital of the Kingdom of Egypt.
Archaeological excavation site.
Professor Christian Letz of the Institute of Ancient And Near Eastern Studies (IANES) at the University of Tübingen has reportedly been working on archaeological excavations in the ancient settlement of Athribis, 125 miles north of Luxor, since 2003, where his team excavated a large temple built by Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy XIII. As the team continued to excavate a temple on the west side of the temple, about 18,000 pieces of noteworthy pottery were unearthed.
Different texts on the pottery tablets record various details of daily life.
These pottery pieces were originally clay pots and other pottery, and after the pottery was broken, the pottery pieces were used as notepads by people at the time, because the broken pottery pieces were much cheaper and easier to obtain than papyrus. The pieces are filled with texts from scribes, merchants and students, including shopping lists and students' assignments.
About 80 percent of the pottery jar fragments are inscribed in the Dmot language. Demot was an administrative script commonly used during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, developing from The Hillathi language after about 600 BC.
Pottery tablets were also used for painting.
The second common script is Greek, in addition to Hilatti, hieroglyphs, Coptic and Arabic.
Professor Letz said the pottery tablets provided clues to everyday life in the ancient city of Athribis. During the Ptolemaic period from 81 to 59 BC, and later from 55 to 51 BC, Athribis was the capital of the Kingdom of Egypt, located on the banks of the Nile.
Text/Nandu reporter Chen Lin