606 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1907. 
the Kon has been thoroughly devastated during the last decades by the sebah 
diggers or the fellahin, in search of ammoniacal earth, so that at present the 
undisturbed part of the Kom along its west, particularly the southwest, forms 
a steep precipice toward those parts of the ancient city dug over by the fellahin 
and thus brought down to a low level. 
The Aramaic papyri came to light in two rooms in two different but not 
widely separated house groups, not very distant from the present western edge 
of the Kom. By far the larger part of the finds was in the southern room; from 
the northern only a few fragments were obtained. The building containing 
the Aramaic finds was in a very poor state of preservation, like almost all the 
other brick structures of Elephantine. Besides this, the southern house here 
described had evidently been rebuilt at various periods, and the remnants of 
walls of a construction very similar to the first made its survey extremely diffi- 
cult. It was therefore impossible to determine accurately the ground plan of 
the house. The destruction is only to a limited degree the result of time, but is 
chiefly due to the activity of the sebah diggers, traces of whose work were 
plainly visible, indicating comparatively recent operations. The spot where the 
Aramaic papyri purchased by Mr. Mond were found was pointed out to me two 
years ago by the dealer who sold them, and in our first campaign in February, 
1906, we excavated from this point south, unearthing Greek papyri. In the 
present campaign we worked northwards and soon came upon the Aramaic docu- 
ments here described. There can be no doubt, therefore, but that those in the 
museum at Cairo came from this very room. The Cairo papyri, according to 
the statements of the dealers, were in a pot, while the Greek papyri discovered 
in our first excavations were deposited in a similar manner in two pots. These 
new Aramaic documents, however, were found in the débris near the eastern 
and southern walls of the room, scarcely half a meter below the present surface. 
The first two pieces were in the rubbish outside of the room to the west, where 
they had evidently been transferred by earlier unauthorized diggers. * * #* 
The finds of Doctor Rubensohn come from the archives of such 
Jewish colony as must have lived at Elephantine. They have a close 
relation to the Aramaic papyri discovered at Assuan, which have 
been edited by A. H. Sayce with the assistance of A. E. Cowley 
(London, 1906), and which in all probability, though they came to 
light at Assuan, were originally found at Elephantine and formed 
part of the papyrus treasure, the final discovery of which was re- 
served for Doctor Rubensohn. The documents edited at Oxford 
belong to the same period as those now at Berlin; they originated 
under the same circumstances, were composed in part by the same 
persons, and the same names appear in them as in these later finds. 
DOCUMENT I. 
Containing a petition of Jedoniah and his fellow-priests of the 
Jewish temple of Elephantine addressed to Bagohi, the Persian gov- 
ernor of Jerusalem, asking for the restoration of their temple, which 
was destroyed through the machinations of the Egyptian priests of 
the god Chtm (or Hnub). Written in 408407 B. C. (Pls. I 
and IT.) 
