IFAO

The second volume of the publication of Didymoi contains the inscribed material, such as inscriptions on stone, ostraca with text or images, and small objects (the photos of the ostraca are published online on the Ifao website http://www.ifao.egnet.net/bases/publications/fifao67/). As they are sometimes dated, these objects contribute to the understanding of the architecture and stratigraphy of Didymoi that was published in the first volume. At the extremities of the chronological span we have the dedication of the fort (AD 76/77) and the circular letter to the garrisons of the desert of Berenike announcing the good news that Maximinus Thrax promoted his son to Caesar (AD 236). Apart from the documents generated by the military routine and the provisioning of the fort, such as postal registers, passes, orders to deliver, accounts, and inscriptions on jars, there are a great many private letters sent from neighbouring stations. These letters give us snapshots of the life of the soldiers who were stationed in the forts of the Eastern Desert and of the civilians who mitigated the boring discomfort of this service. A merchant prefers to sell his meat in Berenike in spite of local demand. A Greek speaker painstakingly writes a letter in Latin with the help of a glossary. Someone opens a jar of wine to thank a friend who has come from a neighbouring fort to help him make his bread. A curator praesidii has been asked by the men to write to a procurer to order ‘your girl who makes you sixty drachmas’. A man writes to congratulate a woman on the birth of her child, saying that he has lit a lamp to Aphrodite in gratitude. A horseman is worried about a young dog that followed his horse when he left the fort, but has not come back. In the military establishments of the Eastern Desert the documents that remain to be found have remained because they were thrown away, and are not the sources that historians dream of. Nevertheless, an introductory chapter gives a synthesis of what they do contribute to our knowledge of the military network in this zone passing caravans.