THREE ARAMAIC PAPYRI FROM ELEPHANTINE, 
BG ayer. 
By Prof. Epuarp SacHav. 
The very ancient records here for the first time made known to the 
learned world are noteworthy in many respects. They are remarkable 
for their language and for their contents. They are especially valu- 
able because of their relation to the latest historical books of the 
Old Testament, the Chronicles and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. 
They also throw light on the history of the Jews during the little 
known period between the activity of Nehemiah and the appearance 
of Alexander the Great. In language they are essentially identical 
with the Aramaic chapters in the books of Ezra and Daniel, and in 
phraseology they present many points of contact with the official rec- 
ords in the book of Ezra. They relate to the rebuilding of a destroyed 
temple, just as the book of Ezra relates to the rebuilding of the 
temple and the walls of Jerusalem. 
It was the achievement and good fortune of Dr. Otto Rubensohn 
to have found these papyri during the recent excavations on Ele- 
phantine, an island in the Nile opposite Assuan, a city on the eastern 
bank of the river, on the border of Egypt and Nubia. Among the 
results of his excavations, there reached the Royal Museum of Berlin, 
besides larger and smaller pieces and fragments of papyri, several 
still unopened scrolls. When these were unrolled by Mr. Ibscher, the 
curator of the papyri at the museum, they were found to be in 
part Aramaic, among them the one designated here as No 1. Doctor 
Rubensohn describes the discovery as follows: 
The mass of ruins (Kom) situated on the south point of the island of Ele 
phantine, and representing the ancient city of the same name, is on its northern 
half covered with a dense maze of walls of unburnt bricks, the remains of 
private dwellings of various periods of antiquity. The entire northern half of 
@Translated and abstracted, by permission, from *‘ Drei Aramaeische Papy- 
rusurkunden aus Elephantine’”’ by Eduard Sachau in the Abhandlungen der 
koeniglichen preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften for the year 1907. 
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