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Document Details : Title: Terenouthis and the Jewish Revolt of 116-117 CE Author(s): HUEBNER, Sabine R. Journal: Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists Volume: 62 Date: 2025 Pages: 123-145 DOI: 10.2143/BASP.62.0.3294681 Abstract : This article offers a new interpretation of a distinctive group of funerary inscriptions known as the 'Kappa-series' from the necropolis of Terenouthis in the western Nile Delta, all dated to the same day – 11 Hathyr (7/8 November) in the twentieth year of an unnamed emperor. Previous attempts to explain this phenomenon have invoked epidemic, accident, or local catastrophe, but none adequately accounts for the demographic pattern or the scale of mortality. Through a close re-examination of the epigraphic, prosopographic, and numismatic evidence, and by situating these inscriptions within the broader context of Roman Egypt, the article argues that the deaths most plausibly occurred during the Jewish uprising of 116-117 CE, on 7 November in the 20th year of Trajan’s reign. The paper situates Terenouthis within the broader context of the revolt, tracing how violence spread from Cyrenaica into Egypt’s rural hinterlands. It also considers environmental constraints – the timing of the Nile’s annual inundation and its gradual recession in the Delta – which would have made an inland advance from the coast feasible only in late October. This factor aligns the Terenouthis deaths with the initial phase of rebel incursions into the western Nile Valley in November 116 CE. |
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