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cupation phase the area had become more built-up, with two distinct housing insulae bordered by streets. Alongside the occupied houses and a newly
constructed pyrgos or tower structure, Hadji-Minaglou identifies other houses
which had fallen into ruin, and in addition, an extensive rubbish dump. The
recognition of such change through time is vital for a precise and accurate understanding, not only of the development of the settlement as a whole, but also
of the context of individual objects recovered there. For example, identification
of refuse deposits on a cellar floor in house 6300 enables the author to classify
papyri associated with that floor as material discarded in the house following
its abandonment, rather than as items linked with the use of the house. This
offers a salutary warning to anyone interested in trying to understand papyri
in the context of their original use: before doing so a careful consideration
of formation processes is vital for establishing the nature of the connection
between the documents and the structure in which they were located. Such an
approach could fruitfully inform the continuing study of material from other
sites such as Karanis.
University of Michigan Lisa C. Nevett
Vincent Rondot, Tebtynis II. Le temple de Soknebtynis et son dromos.
FIFAO 50. Cairo: Insitut frangais d'archeologie orientale, 2004. xlii +
302 pages. ISBN 2-7247-0362-6.
This volume is part of a series, Fouillesfranco-italiennes, published by the
IFAO, for the French-Italian excavations at Kom Umm el-Boreigat, ancient
Tebtynis, in the Fayyum.1 It is divided into four chapters followed by Conclusions, an Addendum (by C. Gallazzi and G. Hadji-Minaglou), and Indexes.
Abbreviations and Bibliography precede the author's Introduction. The volume is not only an archaeological report of recent excavations in the areas of
the temenos and the dromos of Soknebtynis, but also a study of archaeological
evidence from past excavations, verified on the site, critically evaluated, and
compared with new data collected from Tebtynis as well as from other sites
in the Fayyum, and an analysis of the extant written sources. Rondot points
out that this is only the first phase in a long term research project, comprising
a study of the written sources from the temple's "archive" (papyri from the
C. Gallazzi C. and G. Hadji-Minaglou, Tebtynis L La reprise desfouilles et le quartier
de la chapelle d'Isis-Therrnouthis (Le Caire 2000); N. Litinas, Tebtynis III. Vessel's Notations from Tebtynis (Le Caire 2008); G. Hadji-Minaglou, Tebtynis IV Les habitations a
l'est du temple de Soknebtynis (Le Caire 2007).
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