The Kellis Agricultural Account Book (P. Kell.IV Gr.96)

Reviews in the Journal of Early Christian Studies focus primarily on monographs and editions and translations of literary texts relevant to the early Christian period. The volume reviewed here, on the other hand, is a critical edition of a fourth century agricultural account book unearthed during the Australian excavations of the ancient village of Kellis (modern Ismant el-Kharab) in the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt. I suggested its review to the journal’s book review editor, Joseph Kelly, as a means both to underline the importance of the excavations at Kellis for our understanding of fourth-century Egypt and to reaffirm the significance of non-literary sources for the reconstruction of the lives of the people who practiced Christianity. He kindly agreed to the review.

The Kellis Agricultural Account Book (KAB), edited by Roger Bagnall, is the fourth volume of texts discovered at Kellis to appear in the Oxbow Monograph Series. Earlier volumes include editions of a portion of the Greek documentary papyri, the Manichaean literary texts, and the Isocrates codex found in situ together with the KAB. Two additional volumes are currently projected: an edition of the Coptic documentary texts and a second collection of Greek documentary papyri. A sizable portion of these texts belonged to a functioning Manichaean community. While the investigation of these materials is just beginning, it is already clear that the unique nature of this evidence, combining as it does both literary and documentary texts unearthed in a modern scientific excavation, promises to increase significantly our understanding of the Manichaean mission in Egypt, the place and reception of Manichaeans within the broader society, and the changing fortunes of individual Manichaeans and their movement over time. References in the KAB, for example, underscore Manichaean participation in the broader economic life of the Dakhleh Oasis.

The KAB is a journal of accounts written on wooden tablets by a fourth century administrator who was most likely in charge of one division of an estate of some size in the Dakhleh Oasis. The published edition, which Bagnall saw to completion, represents the work of many people. The extensive introduction, which includes contributions by various members of the Dakhleh Oasis Project team, introduces the reader to the project, examines the find context of the KAB in the kitchen of a house, reports on the codicology, palaeography and calendar in use in the KAB, and supplies a detailed account of the book’s contents, including sections on the types of accounts recorded, the methods and terminology employed, the crops involved, the measures used, and the prices charged. Additional sections include a prosopography and list of tenants, a list of landlords and agents, a list of place names, a general summary of the nature of the agricultural estate represented in the KAB, and a discussion of religion as evidenced in the text. The Greek text and English translation follow on facing pages, after which appears a line-by-line commentary and an appendix on fourth-century prices published since 1985. Greek and English indices are supplied, and 20 excellent plates, including a facsimile of the entire eight board wooden codex, close out the volume. It is a fine edition, which Bagnall has made accessible to those not trained in papyrology through the inclusion of the English translation and index. The volume, as its predecessors in the series, is nicely oversized (8¹/₂ × 11 in.), designed and printed, all of which make it easy and enjoyable to use.

The book is not, however, an easy read. It assumes a considerable amount of papyrological knowledge and specialized vocabulary, and the very nature of the text, a journal of accounts, makes it difficult to decipher. These are the very difficulties that lead most non-papyrologists to shy away from such materials. A careful read, however, reveals much of interest. Besides the brief introduction to the Dakhleh Oasis Project as a whole, the volume offers...