About this eventThis free lecture takes place on Wednesday, October 22 · 5 - 6:30pm GMT+1. Follow the link for ticket information. It says there are few tickets left, which surprises me for an online event. But don't dawdle!Mapping the Jews of Ancient Egypt: From the Hellenistic Period to the Arab Conquest
This paper presents IM–JEDI, an interactive map of the Jews of Egypt based on documentary (papyri) and epigraphic evidence, tracing Jewish settlement and migration from the Ptolemaic through the Byzantine periods. By visualizing geographical shifts, continuity, and disappearance of communities, the project highlights urban and rural distribution, the impact of the Diaspora Revolt (115–117 CE), and the transformation of Egyptian Jewry in its aftermath. Case studies from the Fayum, Antinoopolis, Oxyrhynchus, and Upper Egypt (Edfu) illustrate patterns of resilience, decline, and cultural adaptation. The map demonstrates how digital tools can illuminate Jewish history in Egypt across centuries of political and social change.
Meron M. Piotrkowski (Ph.D., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2015) is Associate Professor of Ancient Jewish History at the University of Oxford. A historian of antiquity, he specializes in the Second Temple period with a particular focus on the Jewish Diaspora in Egypt. He is the author of Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2019) and a contributor to the new Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (vols. IV–VII, eds. N. Hacham and T. Ilan). His current book project focuses on the History of the Jewish community of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods.
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