Edited by Karl-Theodor Zauzich
When, 50 years ago, the editor of this series began his academic career he soon realized that there was a great number of undeciphered papyri from Roman Iron Age originating from the site of Soknopaiu Nesos (Dime), contained in the collection of papyri in Berlin and in other collections worldwide. On the basis of the few texts that had been published he began to familiarize himself with their difficult script and to publish such texts in a series of essays „Spätdemotische Papyrusurkunden“ [Late Demotic Papyrus Documents] (in Enchoria 1, 2, 4, 7, 1971-1977). As part of the DFG project „Soknopaiu Nesos nach den demotischen Quellen römischer Zeit“ [„Soknopaiu Nesos according to the Demotic sources of Roman times“], initiated by him, the study group Zauzich/Lippert/Schentuleit deciphered many papyri and ostraka, so far published in three volumes of this series. A fourth volume will contain numerous examples of „Abmachungen (hn.w) unter Priestern“ [Agreements (hn.w) among priests], a type of text known only from Soknopaiu Nesos and characterized by an enormous amount of information about internal organization and economic activities of a temple from Roman times.
The publication of the results of a further DFG project headed by Martin Stadler, „Dime im Fayum - ein Tempel im Spannungsfeld von Tradition und Multikulturalität im hellenistisch-römischen Ägypten“ [Dime in Fayum - a temple between tradition and multiculturalism in Hellenistic-Roman Egypt] is planned within the series DDD.