However, the Jews of Elephantine certainly did not have many of the standard interpretations of Jewish law followed today. Just like modern-day Jews, the Jews of ancient Egypt worshiped Jehovah (YHWH in Hebrew), observed the Sabbath, and celebrated the Feast of Matzah (modern Passover). During the Persian Period in Egypt (Dynasty 27, 525–404 B.C.E.), the term was, as it is today, both a religious and ethnic designation. Originally, the term “Jew” referred to the residents of the territory of Judah, one of three areas that made up the United Monarchy ruled by Kings Saul, David, Solomon, and their successors. Two hundred years later, Alexander the Great arrived in Egypt (323 B.C.E.) and founded a new capital at Alexandria. The Persians established a policy permitting religious and ethnic diversity throughout their empire. Jews were loyal to the Persians because they restored the Temple in Jerusalem. Some officials who had served previous Egyptian kings continued in office under the Persians. Ananiah and Tamut, whose lives are documented in the Brooklyn Aramaic papyri, lived during this harmonious period.Īs the inscription quoted above demonstrates, Egyptians acknowledged the Persian rulers as traditional pharaohs. When the Persians conquered Egypt in 525 B.C.E., they brought an official policy of religious and ethnic tolerance with them. The Babylonians invaded, in part, because of the earlier destabilization in Judah caused by Pharaoh Necho II (610–595 B.C.E.). Inscription of Udjahorresnet, an Egyptian officialĪccording to the Hebrew Bible, Babylonians destroyed Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. The King Cambyses came to Egypt….He gained mastery over this entire land….I made his royal titles as King of Upper and Lower Egypt. The Persians, who commanded the building of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, were famous for their religious and ethnic tolerance and the period of Persian rule is remarkable for its lack of ethnic tensions.Īnd the entire people… and the officers of the soldiers, arose and came to Egypt, because they were afraid of the Babylonians.īy the rivers of Babylon/There we sat/Also we wept/When we remembered Zion. Jews lived peacefully among the Egyptians and the Persians, who conquered Egypt in 525 B.C.E. Other worshipers of Jehovah might have settled in Egypt when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was destroyed in 722 B.C.E.Īlthough Ananiah was a temple official, most of the Jews in Elephantine were government soldiers. By 586 B.C.E., there may have been Jews already living in Egypt: More than a hundred years earlier, King Hezekiah of Judah (727–697 B.C.E.) had sent mercenaries to his Egyptian allies. as part of a divine punishment, but documents, including the archive of Ananiah and Tamut on view in this exhibition, reveal a prosperous community. The Hebrew Bible describes the Jews’ return to Egypt in 586 B.C.E. … all the chiefs of the military forces and all the people…came into the land of Egypt… Along with similar archives now housed in Berlin and Oxford, the Brooklyn papyri are the oldest extra-Biblical evidence for Jews in ancient Egypt.Īnd Jehovah will send you back to Egypt…and you will have to sell yourselves there to your enemies as slaves, and there will be no buyer. These papyri, written in Aramaic, allow a fascinating glimpse into the daily life of this couple, and include evidence for active Jewish involvement in Egyptian culture. The culmination of this exhibition is Ananiah and Tamut’s family archive, a set of eight papyri created between 449 and 402 B.C.E. One possibly Jewish object, a sarcophagus lid, is included in this presentation. Due to the Biblical prohibition against imagemaking, specifically Jewish objects from this period are virtually unknown. The Egyptian and Persian antiquities in these galleries illustrate the historical and religious issues that shaped the lives of Ananiah and Tamut. Ananiah and Tamut’s story may seem familiar-they married, bought a house, and raised two children-yet their world also included slavery and animal sacrifice to the gods. Evidence suggests that they lived in a cosmopolitan, multicultural, and multilingual society tolerant of religious and ethnic diversity interfaith marriage was not uncommon. Ananiah and Tamut lived on Elephantine (pronounced Elephan-TEE-nee), an island in the Nile River, in the fifth century B.C.E. Jewish Life in Ancient Egypt: A Family Archive from the Nile Valley tells the story of Ananiah, a Jewish temple official, and his wife, Tamut, an Egyptian slave. Eight hundred years after Moses led the Exodus, Jews had returned to Egypt.
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