Volume 19 of the series "Berliner Griechische Urkunden" (BGU) contains papyrus documents exclusively from Hermupolis, as did volumes 12 and 17. Of the 80 texts in the new volume, 76 are here published for the first time, while four are revised re-editions. They cover a time-span from the middle of the first century B.C. to the beginning of the 7th century A.D., with the majority of the texts dating from the 4th to the 6th century. beginning with a fourth-century petition to the Emperor with a request for the restitution of a dowry (the only document in Latin), followed by other official texts, such as petitions and other documents either addressed to or issued by the authorities. The second part of this volume contains private documents, such as contracts of lease, sale, loan etc. These texts provide a large amount of new information on details; taken together, however, they also offer a vivid picture of the social and economic life in an important provincial capital of Graeco-Roman Egypt.

Coptic emerged as the written form of the Egyptian language in the third century, when Greek was still the official language in Egypt. By the time of the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641, Coptic had almost achieved official status, but only after an unusually prolonged period of stagnation. Jean-Luc Fournet traces this complex history, showing how the rise of Coptic took place amid profound cultural, religious, and political changes in late antiquity. For some three hundred years after its introduction into the written culture of Egypt, Coptic was limited to biblical translation and private and monastic correspondence, while Greek retained its monopoly on administrative, legal, and literary writing. This changed during the sixth century, when Coptic began to penetrate domains that were once closed to it, such as literature, liturgy, regulated transactions between individuals, and communications between the state and its subjects. Fournet examines the reasons for Coptic's late development as a competing language-which was unlike what happened with other vernacular languages in Near Eastern Greek-speaking societies-and explains why Coptic eventually succeeded in being recognized with Greek as an official language. Incisively written and rich with insights, The Rise of Coptic draws on a wealth of archival evidence to shed new light on the role of monasticism in the growing use of Coptic before the Arab conquest.

Coptic emerged as the written form of the Egyptian language in the third century, when Greek was still the official language in Egypt. By the time of the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641, Coptic had almost achieved official status, but only after an unusually prolonged period of stagnation. Jean-Luc Fournet traces this complex history, showing how the rise of Coptic took place amid profound cultural, religious, and political changes in late antiquity. For some three hundred years after its introduction into the written culture of Egypt, Coptic was limited to biblical translation and private and monastic correspondence, while Greek retained its monopoly on administrative, legal, and literary writing. This changed during the sixth century, when Coptic began to penetrate domains that were once closed to it, such as literature, liturgy, regulated transactions between individuals, and communications between the state and its subjects. Fournet examines the reasons for Coptic's late development as a competing language-which was unlike what happened with other vernacular languages in Near Eastern Greek-speaking societies-and explains why Coptic eventually succeeded in being recognized with Greek as an official language. Incisively written and rich with insights, The Rise of Coptic draws on a wealth of archival evidence to shed new light on the role of monasticism in the growing use of Coptic before the Arab conquest.