It Is Our Father Who Writes

Full editions ninety-one papyri, all but thirteen of which are being published for the first time. One text is in Greek, all the others are in Coptic. Documents edited here are concerned with the day-to-day administration of an Egyptian monastery in the eighth century of the Christian era. Most of the documents can be linked with the Monastery of Apollo at Bawit, and they contribute to the growing body of documentation from this important monastery which has been published within the last decade. The volume commences with a detailed overview of the texts: structure of the orders, provenance, date, scribes, signatories, places named, commodities specified, etc. The central core is formed by the orders issued from a monastic superior, probably the head of the monastery himself, to various subordinates; some seventy-one of the orders begin with the formula 'It is our father who writes to his son, ' and this formula furnishes the volume's title. The texts are short, usually under ten lines long although they range from three (No. 32) to at least nineteen (No. 50) lines long. All are written on papyrus, except for No. 49 which was written on an ostrakon (surviving only in a transcription). Apart from four or five texts, the documents take up just one side of the writing material (exceptions: Nos. 15, 25, 37, 4, and 62?). The texts are written across or parallel to the papyrus fibres in fairly equal proportion, and in many instances the papyrus has already been used at least once. Some of the texts can be grouped together because they involve the same addressees, scribes or signatories. The requisite indices and a bibliography complete the volume.