The Wandering Arameans in Egypt

This paper highlights the new evidence that Papyrus Amherst 63 brings to our knowledge of the Aramean and Aramaic-speaking diaspora in Egypt. The papyrus, written in approximately the fourth century bce in Aramaic but using Demotic Egyptian script, is an anthology of Aramean texts, reflecting the traditions and collective cultural memory of a group of Aramean émigrés to Egypt in the first millennium bce, including Judeans and Samarians. The papyrus marries East and West in its nostalgia for lost lands, cities, and cult centers from across the Near East, yet joins this nostalgia with themes of renewal and rejuvenation in a new land.