ELEPHANTINE PAPYRI

   Hieratic, Demotic, and Greek papyri have been discovered during the excavations at Elephantine, but the term generally refers to the archives of Aramaic papyri found at this site at the end of the 19th century. These disclose a hitherto unknown Jewish colony resident there as part of the Persian garrison during the Persian Period. The texts indicate tensions between the local population and the Jewish residents and also point to the construction of a Jewish temple. Most of the texts are now preserved in the Berlin Egyptian Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Cairo Egyptian Museum.