Zenon or Zeno ( el, Ζήνων; 3rd century BC), son of Agreophon, was a public official in Ptolemaic Egypt around the 250s-230s BC. His writings are known from a cache of

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...

documents which was discovered by archaeologists in the Nile Valley in 1914.

Biography

Zeno was a native of the Greek town of

Kaunos Kaunos (Carian: ''Kbid'';. Translator Chris Markham. Lycian: ''Khbide''; Ancient Greek: ; la, Caunus) was a city of ancient Caria and in Anatolia, a few kilometres west of the modern town of Dalyan, Muğla Province, Turkey. The Calbys ...

Caria Caria (; from Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; tr, Karya) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid- Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joined ...

in southwestern

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

. He moved to the town of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

, a busy market town that had been founded on the edge of the

Faiyum Faiyum ( ar, الفيوم ' , borrowed from cop, ̀Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ or Ⲫⲓⲱⲙ ' from egy, pꜣ ym "the Sea, Lake") is a city in Middle Egypt. Located southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyum ...

by Ptolemy II Philadelphus in honour of his sister

Arsinoe II Arsinoë II ( grc-koi, Ἀρσινόη, 316 BC – unknown date between July 270 and 260 BC) was a Ptolemaic queen and co-regent of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of ancient Egypt. She was given the Egyptian title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt", makin ...

. From the 3rd century BC until the 5th century CE, Philadelphia was a thriving settlement that relied on agriculture for its economic success. At Philadelphia, Zeno became a private secretary to Apollonius, the finance minister to Ptolemy II Philadelphus and

Ptolemy III Euergetes , predecessor = Ptolemy II , successor = Ptolemy IV , nebty = ''ḳn nḏtj-nṯrw jnb-mnḫ-n-tꜢmrj'Qen nedjtinetjeru inebmenekhentamery''The brave one who has protected the gods, a potent wall for The Beloved Land , nebty_hiero ...

. Drimylus and Dionysius, two Greek employees under Zeno, were reported to him for selling women as sex-slaves.

''The Zenon Papyri''

During the winter of 1914–1915, Egyptian agricultural labourers were digging near the modern settlement of Kom el-Kharaba for

sebakh Sebakh ( ar, سباخ, sabākh, less commonly transliterated as ''sebbakh'') is an Arabic word that translates to "fertilizer". In English, the term is primarily used to describe decomposed mudbricks from archaeological sites, which is an organic m ...

(decayed mudbricks that were often plundered from ancient sites as they could be used as

fertiliser A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...

). There, they uncovered a cache of over 2,000

documents. Upon examination by

Egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious p ...

scholars, these documents were found to be records written by Zeno in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

Demotic Demotic may refer to: * Demotic Greek, the modern vernacular form of the Greek language * Demotic (Egyptian), an ancient Egyptian script and version of the language * Chữ Nôm, the demotic script for writing Vietnamese See also * * Demos (disa ...

, and the site (whose precise location is now unknown) was identified as the location of the ancient town of Philadelphia. Most of the papyri, now referred to as the ''Zenon Archive'' or the ''Zenon Papyri'', were edited and published by the British

papyrologist Papyrology is the study of manuscripts of ancient literature, correspondence, legal archives, etc., preserved on portable media from antiquity, the most common form of which is papyrus, the principal writing material in the ancient civilizations ...

Campbell Cowan Edgar Campbell Cowan Edgar (26 December 1870–10 May 1938) was a Scottish Egyptologist, classical archaeologist and papyrologist. He is especially noted for his work with A. S. Hunt on translating the Zenon Papyri. Between 1925 and 1927 he served as t ...

and Arthur Surridge Hunt. The ''Zenon Archive'' has since been divided among several museum collections and academic institutions around the world, and papyri are now held in the collections of the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, the Società Italiana per la Ricerca dei Papiri Greci e Latini in Egitto, the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

in London and the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

in Cairo. A substantial part of the Zenon Papyri are now online and grammatically tagged at the

Perseus Project The Perseus Project is a digital library project of Tufts University, which assembles digital collections of humanities resources. Version 4.0 is also known as the "Perseus Hopper", and it is hosted by the Department of Classical Studies. The proj ...

hosted at

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

.P.Cair.Zen., Zenon Papyri, Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire
/ref>

References

Sources

* *

External links

in English translation
Accounting in the Zenon Papyri (1932)
by Elizabeth Grier ( JSTOR) * {{Authority control Ancient Greeks in Egypt Ancient Greeks in Caria Ptolemaic officials Greek-language papyri 3rd-century BC Greek people