Conversations in the House of Life offers a new translation of a text first published as The Ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth (2005). The composition is a dialogue between a Master, perhaps the god Thoth himself, and a Disciple, named "The-one-who-loves-knowledge." Originally written in Demotic, the text dates to the Graeco-Roman Period (ca. 300 B.C. to 400 A.D.). The dialogue covers everything from how to hold the writing brush and the symbolic significance of scribal utensils to a long exposition on sacred geography. The work may be an initiation text dealing with sacred knowledge. It is closely associated with the House of Life, the temple scriptorium where the priests wrote their books. The 2005 publication was aimed at specialists, but Conversations in the House of Life is intended for the general reader. The revised translation reflects recent advances in our understanding of the text. The explanatory essays, commentary, and glossary help the reader explore the fascinating universe of the Book of Thoth. As a document of Late Period Egyptian thought it is of importance to all those interested in Graeco-Roman Period intellectual history; students of the Classical Hermetica will find the Book of Thoth especially intriguing. The express goal of Conversations in the House of Life is to make this challenging Ancient Egyptian composition accessible to the widest possible audience.

In this volume Christina Di Cerbo and Richard Jasnow publish 92 Demotic graffiti, along with several ostraca and mummy bandages, from Theban Tombs 11, 12, Tomb -399-, and environs recorded and studied under the aegis of the Spanish Mission at Dra Abu el-Naga directed by Jose Galan. These texts from the mid-second century BCE were inscribed on the tomb walls by workers of the Ibis and Falcon cult, who used the New Kingdom tombs as burial places for mummified birds dedicated to the gods Thoth and Horus. This varied corpus of texts includes not only votive formulae and lists of names, but, most unusually, labels for chambers and halls to guide the men depositing the mummies through the labyrinthine catacombs. The cult workers also recorded important burials and memorialized events of special significance, as when a massive conflagration broke out that consumed several mummies and damaged the tomb walls. The Mission's conservators recovered many hitherto virtually invisible graffiti. Numerous inscriptions posed daunting epigraphic challenges; the text editors employed computer applications, especially DStretch, in order to enhance the digital images forming the basis for decipherment. In an introductory chapter Galan discusses the work of the Spanish Mission at Dra Abu Naga and recounts the complicated history of this important area of the Theban Necropolis down to the Roman period. The graffiti illustrate how New Kingdom tombs were reused for the sacred animal cult in the Ptolemaic period. Francisco Bosch-Puche and Salima Ikram contribute a detailed chapter analysing the archaeological context of the graffiti and the material evidence for the animal cult in the site. The volume, a holistic study of this area at the twilight of Pharaonic history, represents a true collaboration between archaeologists and philologists.

This book contains approximately fifty late Egyptian texts, published for the first time. The texts represent an interesting range of document types, a range of demotic handwriting, and include a rare word list and a new mythological narrative. There is also one late hieratic text concerned with temple land, and some Greek fragments from the Byzantine period. The texts were purchased by Professor Suzuki in the early 1960s from various dealers in Cairo. The bulk of the collection, now housed in the Department of Asian Civilization, School of Letters at Tokai University as part of the Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection (AENET), consists of early demotic texts. This book is a result of a five-year collaboration between Tokai University, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, The University of Michigan, and the Staatliche Museum,  Berlin.

Creditors have always sought the protection of the law to secure themselves against loss if the debtor cannot or will not pay the debt. This volume examines the legal instruments of security available to creditors in the earliest known legal systems, their use and abuse, and the ways in which the law sought to satisfy the differing interests of creditors, debtors, and society in general, with varying degrees of success.
The book covers all the major legal systems of the ancient Near East, from Sumer to Ptolemaic Egypt, as well as comparative historical developments up to the present day. Twelve scholars have each contributed a study of their special period of expertise, while the general issues that arise from their research are discussed in a concluding chapter.

The papyri published here, chiefly in the collection of the Oriental Institute Museum, comprise part of a large family archive from the town of Hawara in the Egyptian Fayum. Written in Demotic and Greek, the documents (annuity contracts, donations, sales, mortgage agreements, loan repayments) are an excellent source of information about the Egypt of the fourth to third century b.c. Professor George R. Hughes had worked on the ten Oriental Institute Hawara papyri for a number of years, but sadly, it was not possible for him to finish the manuscript before his death in December 1992; he did, however, prepare preliminary transliterations and translations of the papyri, including the Rendell Papyrus published in the Appendix. Discussions, commentaries, and glossaries are included. Richard Jasnow completed the manuscript with the assistance of James Keenan, who prepared the Greek texts. The book is of interest to Egyptologists, Hellenists, and all of those concerned with the economic and social history of the Late period in Egypt.