This paper considers some evidence for active priestly management of the economic affairs of temples in the Ptolemaic period, especially in the Fayum. In particular, I examine the case of the ‘royal temple land’ attested in late second century bc Kerkeosiris, and suggest that the most common sacred tenant, the temple of Petesouchos, may have done so as a means of economic survival.
This article offers a discussion and a (re-)edition of all known texts of the archive of Akousilaos, sitologos of Bakchias, consisting of twenty orders for payment of wheat for the sowing of public land as well as for freight charges. All papyri were found in the temple of Soknobkonneus in Bakchias by Grenfell, Hunt and Hogarth in 1896, and are now kept in the Bancroft Library (UC-Berkeley), Houghton Library (Harvard University), British Library (London), Bolton Museum, and Musées Royaux (Brussels) respectively. The archive dates to the twentieth year of either Augustus or Tiberius and offers valuable information on Early Roman administrative procedures, as well as possibly the first attestation of a laographos, an official responsible for the Roman census and poll tax.
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