The social circles

The documentary papyri found in House 1–3 make up ca 208 papyri texts; 90 in Greek and 116 in Coptic, as well as some ostraca in both Greek and Coptic. The texts were grouped together based on recurring names and topics, palaeographic and stylistic concerns, and (in part) find-site by Klaas A. Worp in P. Kell. Gr. I, and, aided by Worp’s publication, by Gardner, Alcock,

266Any ‘ideological influence’ on the house lay-out seems unlikely. Boozer noted regarding the absence of kitchens in House 2: ‘There is some reason to believe that the Manichees may have had a prohibition on cooking inside houses. It seems that Manicheans may have lived in the Kellis 1–3 houses, and this may explain, in part, the location of the food preparation areas outside of the house.’ Anna L. Boozer, Amheida II. A Late Romano-Egyptian House in the Dakhla Oasis: Amheida House B2 (New York: NYU Press, 2015), Ch. 6, n.143. Such prohibitions would only concern the Elect, who are unlikely to have been the primary users of House 1–3.

267 Lisa Nevett, ‘Family and Household, Ancient History and Archaeology: A case study from Roman Egypt’, in A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds, ed. Beryl Rawson, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient world (Blackwell, 2011), 20.

268 A single coin from before this era, struck by Antoninius Pius, is ‘perhaps best be regarded as a stray’; Bowen in Gardner, Alcock, and Funk, CDT I, 111–12 n.75.

269 Ibid.

270 Colin A. Hope and Gillian E. Bowen, ‘The archaeological context’, in Coptic documentary texts from Kellis. Vol 1., ed. Iain Gardner, Anthony Alcock, and Wolf-P. Funk (Oxford: Oxbow, 1999), 100; Hope, ‘Roman-period houses’, 215–21.

271 Gena son Ouonsis, present in pkgr.23 (and pkgr.24) from House 3, also occurs in pkgr.18 from House 1. Pieces of a Manichaean codex were found scattered between House 1, the North Building, and House 3 (now published as pkgr.97,). See Hope and Bowen, ‘The archaeological context’, 108; Gardner, KLT II, 94–97. For its content, see section 10.2.2.

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and Funk in CDT I. For House 2, Worp identified four individuals who figure prominently in its texts: Tithoes son of Petesis and his son Samoun, and Pausanias and his associate Gena. The two former were active in the second half of the fourth century, the latter two in the first half, and seem to have formed distinct circles. The texts from House 2, however, only consisted of ca 12 pieces. In comparison, the Greek material from House 3 consisted of 71 pieces. These texts were dominated by Pamour I (son of Psais I) and his descendants, what I here term the Pamour circles (or the Pamours). Their texts span almost the entire fourth century. With the help of these texts, and a few readings of the yet-to-be published Coptic papyri, Worp built a preliminary genealogy of actors from House 2 and 3:²⁷²

• 330s: The Pausanias/Gena circle

• 360s: The Tithoes/Samoun circle

• 290s–380s: The Pamour circles, of which three generations can be discerned:

o 290s–320s: Pamour I, son of Psais I, and Philammon I (his brother?) o 330s–360s: Psais II and Pamour II, sons of Pamour I

o 350s–380s: Pamour III and Pekysis, sons of Psais II

However, not every document could easily be attributed to one of these circles.²⁷³ Turning to the Coptic material, most of the letters published in CDT I were not directly connected to the circles of P. Kell. Gr. I. The editors, Gardner, Alcock, and Funk, noted only one letter that clearly belonged to one of the above-mentioned actors: pkc.12, from Tithoes to Samoun. The rest of this material – excluding the Manichaean letters pkc.30–34 – they divided between four main circles:²⁷⁴

• 355 (ca.): The Horion/Tehat circle

• 350s (late): The Makarios/Maria I circle

• 360s (late): The Psais/Andreas circle

• Ca 370: The Petros circle

272 See Worp, P. Kellis I, 28 and 51.

273 Worp lists 25 documents from House 3 (of the 72 House 3-texts in Greek in his volume) that cannot be explained by the assumption ‘that documents found in House 3 were addressed/related to people living there’.

Ibid., 52. In several instances he does, however, note possible relationships between the unaffiliated letters and the presumed inhabitants.

274 See Gardner, Alcock, and Funk, CDT I, 11, 55–58.

Almost all the material of these circles (ca 37 Coptic texts in CDT I) stemmed from House 3. In addition to some actors identified with a high degree of certainty, the editors made a preliminary prosopographic list of 173 names. Here they noted recurring names (at times with varying forms), but also pointed out that some of these could possibly – or definitely – refer to different actors with the same name.²⁷⁵ That connections between these circles existed was clear, but the editors deferred sorting out most of them until the completion of the remaining Coptic texts.

The second volume of edited texts mainly contained material from House 3 (ca. 64 texts), which was not, however, directly related to the circles from CDT I.²⁷⁶ The editors noted only three texts that clearly belonged to one of the circles listed above: one to the Horion/Tehat circle (pkc.58), one probably to the Petros circle (pkc.60), and one probably to the Psais/Andreas circle (pkc.59).²⁷⁷ Instead, the bulk of letters from CDT II pertain to the later Pamours circle, known from the Greek texts. Most belonged to Pamour III and his wife Maria II (pkc.64–72), or his brother Pekysis (pkc.73–79), although many were also written by close family members or associates, such as Philammon II and Theognostos (pkc.80–84). The dating of the documents remained unaffected by this material. As the Coptic texts (with a very few exceptions) lack dates and patronyms, the Greek documents pertaining to the Pamours were crucial to establish a timeframe. The editors of CDT II still placed the material of Makarios in the late 350s, and attributed those of Pamour III and Maria to the successive generation. They concluded:

In sum, our interpretation is that the Makarios family correspondence dates from the later 350s C.E. (the evidence for this is discussed in some detail in CDT I). Probably it was preserved for some years by his wife Maria who lived as an elderly relative in House 3. In contrast, the core Pamour documents belong to a younger generation. Perhaps they were mainly written ten-fifteen years later, and thus never mention Makarios or Matthaios; but the old woman was still alive in the house. Finally, as regards religious affiliation of these persons: Manichaean faith is vitally alive and a central concern for Makarios and his sons; in contrast, whilst there is still evidence for it in the Pamour documents, it is rarely so overt. Whether this is a result of increased circumspection, or a diminishing of faith, we simply cannot say.²⁷⁸

275 Ibid., 21–50.

276 Gardner, Alcock, and Funk, CDT II, 6. Material from the house remains, although most of it is fragmentary (see ibid., 259–62.)

277 Of the latter two letters, only the incipits remain.

278 Gardner, Alcock, and Funk, CDT II, 40–41.

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There were, however, many letters in the second volume whose relationships to the ‘core’

circles were difficult to establish. These include letters from and to Ploutogenes (pkc.85–91), likely several persons by that name; letters from Loihat and Timotheos (pkc.92–93); and a sizable amount of letters (pkc.94–121) that were not organised into any of the above circles, although some links could usually be found in instances where the papyri were not too fragmented.

CDT II did not contain an updated prosopography. Worp later published a compilation of names from Kellis and the Oasis in general, but without attempting a prosopography.²⁷⁹ The possible ties between Pausanias/Ploutogenes, Tithoes/Samoun, Pamour, Makarios/Maria, Horion/Tehat, Psais/Andreas, Petros, and the ungrouped letters thus remain only partially explored. Here I aim to clarify some of these relationships. The editors have made many valuable comments and suggestions for identifying actors, and for sorting out their relations, which I consider here. Because of the extensive usage of familial terminology in the Coptic texts, I only take familial terms to indicate (biological) family relationship in a few, exceptional cases.²⁸⁰ They are, however, useful for establishing broad generations. Some care is needed also in these instances, as there is evidence to suggest that such usage was also, at times, fluid and contextual (see in particular the cases of Horos I and Philammon II, below). I therefore use a combination of familial terms, prosopographic circles, roles, and find sites.