Sandra Lippert

Sandra Lippert is a Senior researcher (Directrice de recherche) at the French National Research Center (CNRS) and member of the mixed research unit “Archéologie et Philologie d’Orient et d’Occident” (UMR8546) in Paris, with a research focus on ancient Egyptian legal history and on texts written in demotic, a cursive writing system used in Egypt from the mid-7th century BCE to the mid-5th century CE. She is also co-editor of the journal Enchoria – Zeitschrift für Demotistik und Koptologie and a member of the editorial board of the online journal Pylon. Editions and Studies of Ancient Texts.

Sandra Lippert studied Egyptology at the University of Würzburg and at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. In her thesis, defended in 2002, she edited and analysed an unpublished Demotic manuscript of the early Ptolemaic period, containing a legal manual with a didactic purpose. From 2000 to 2005, she collaborated in a research project on Demotic documentary texts from Roman Soknopaiou Nesos (Dime) in the Fayyum, directed by K.-Th. Zauzich; as a result of this project, she published three volumes of text editions together with her colleague Maren Schentuleit, now Associate Professor of Egyptology and Coptology at the University of Oxford.

Since 2018, Sandra Lippert is also the coordinator of the interdisciplinary research team “Ostraca d’Athribis”, working on the by now over 43 000 inscribed ceramic sherds discovered by the archaeological mission of the University of Tübingen in Hut-Repit/Athribis in Upper Egypt. The international team is currently composed of 12 researchers in Egyptology, Papyrology and Coptology as well as a ceramologist. Most of the ostraca and jar labels from Hut-Repit/Athribis are inscribed in Demotic, but there are thousands that bear texts in Greek, and several hundred in hieratic or hieroglyphs. Coptic is less frequent and Arabic rare, but there are many with geometric and figurative drawings. The texts are quite varied in character: most are documentary (accounts, lists of persons, inventories, receipts for taxes or deliveries, letters, certificates for the control of sacrificial animals, etc..), but there are also many that come from a school context (e.g. writing exercises in Demotic and Greek, mathematical exercises, Greek-demotic translations). There are numerous religious texts (hymns, liturgies, mythological texts, dedications), and even the largest hitherto known corpus of horoscopes from Graeco-Roman Egypt. The publication of the better-preserved sherds in thematic volumes is in preparation.

The project that she pursues during her stay at the MFO is the preparation of a fourth volume in the series of the edition of Demotic documentary textes from Soknopaiou Nesos together with Maren Schentuleit. Currently only known from Soknopaiou Nesos, the so-called “Agreements of the priests” regulate the rights and duties of the holders of various annually renewable offices within the main temple’s inner administration (e.g. chief administrator, bookkeeping scribe, responsible for the granary), in connection with subsidiary sanctuaries in other Fayyum towns, or with enterprises owned by or dependent on the main temple (e.g. a brewery, a cattle farm, a tailor’s shop, dye works, weavers, washers). About forty manuscripts, the earliest dated to the reign of Tiberius (14-37 CE), the last to the beginning of the joint reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (161-169 CE), have already been identified. The monograph, which is planned to appear in 2027, will consist of an edition volume with philological commentary and a second volume with an in-depth analysis of the contents, taking into consideration also other Demotic and Greek sources.

Monographs:

— Les graffiti et dipinti du spéos de Hout-Répit. Athribis X. Temples, Cairo, 2025. In-4°, viii+231 pages, 140 plates.

— with Maren Schentuleit, Demotische Dokumente aus Dime III. Urkunden, Wiesbaden, 2010. In-4°, xi+526 pages, 44 plates.

— Einführung in die altägyptische Rechtsgeschichte. Einführungen und Quellentexte zur Ägyptologie 5, Münster, 2008. 2nd edition Münster, 2012. In-8°, xi +270 pages.

— with Maren Schentuleit, Demotische Dokumente aus Dime II. Quittungen, Wiesbaden, 2006. In-4°, viii+281 pages, 46 plates.

— with Maren Schentuleit, Demotische Dokumente aus Dime I. Ostraka, Wiesbaden, 2006. In-4°, viii+174 pages, 50 plates.

— Ein demotisches juristisches Lehrbuch. Untersuchungen zu pBerlin P 23757 rto. Ägyptologische Abhandlungen 66, Wiesbaden, 2004. In-4°, 255 pages, 10 plates.

Last article publications:

— « Two Copies of a Model for a Lease Document – the Demotic Ostraca Athribis 19-36-91/5156 + 20-36-64/4564 and 19-36-30/1746 », in C. J. Martin (ed.), Evil Egyptian Scripts: Abnormal Hieratic, Demotic and Hieratic Texts and Studies in Honour of Koen Donker van Heel. P.L.Bat 43, Leiden - Boston, 2026, 197-209.

— « Les règles d’une association de caravaniers : le caillou Cologne O. 243 », in D. Agut-Labordère, Br. Bakech, G. Gorre and S. Lippert (eds), Nec pluribus impar. Mélanges en l’honneur de Michel Chauveau. Philippika 176, Wiesbaden, 2025, p. 185-218.

— « Wortspiele in der Demotischen Chronik, dem Mythos vom Sonnenauge und Horapollos Hieroglyphika », dans Fl. Löffler, D. von Recklinghausen, A. Rickert and B. Ventker (eds), Tempel, Tiere, Sternenhimmel. Studien zur altägyptischen Religion und Wissenschaft für Christian Leitz, Wiesbaden, 2025, p. 179-200.

— with Ivan Guermeur and Naïm Vanthieghem, « L’évolution du paysage linguistique égyptien au prisme du matériel récemment mis au jour à Atripé (Moyenne Égypte) », in B. Bortolussi and E. Wolff (eds), Un empire, plusieurs langues. Scripta Antiqua 189, Bordeaux, 2025, p. 189-199.

— « The school ostraca from the Upper Egyptian Athribis (Ḥw.t-Rpy.t): preliminary results », Enchoria 38, 2024, p. 95-117, pl. 1-9.

— « Pots cassés et noms d’oiseaux – nouvelles attestations de l’alphabet démotique dans les ostraca de Hout-Répit/Athribis en Haute Égypte », in Th. Gamelin, J. Hourdin and N. Leroux (eds), Au héraut d’Apis. Recueil d’études offert au professeur Didier Devauchelle pour son 70e anniversaire. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 325, Leuven, 2024, p. 449-465.

— « The Athribis Ostraca – Overview over the Corpus and Preliminary Results from the Demotic Material, with a special focus on the moschosphragists’ certificates », in M. Müller and C. Teotino (eds), Athribis (Atripe) im Kontext. Die Stadt und der Tempel als religiöses und kulturelles Zentrum von ptolemäischer bis frühmittelalterlicher Zeit. Athribis-Studien III. Studien zur spätägyptischen Religion 43, Wiesbaden, 2024, p. 295-318.

— « Les ostraca d’Athribis (Hout-Répit) en Haute Égypte », Bulletin de la Société Française d’Égyptologie 208, 2023, 15-44.

— « A Dating Template of the Year 38 of Ptolemy VIII (133/2 BCE) with a Mention of the Hiero(s)polos: P. Tebt.Suppl. 00,155 », in A. Almásy-Martin, M. Chauveau, K. Donker van Heel and K. Ryholt (eds), Ripple in still water when there is no pebble tossed. Festschrift in Honour of Cary J. Martin. Golden House Publications Egyptology 34, Londres, 2022, p. 113-124.

— with Maren Schentuleit, « Papyrus Berlin P. 7056: division of a kleros between members of a priestly family from Roman Soknopaiou Nesos », in B. Bryan, Ch. Di Cerbo, M. Escolano Poveda and M. Smith (eds), One Who Loves Knowledge. Studies in Honor of Richard Jasnow. Material and Visual Culture of Ancient Egypt 6, Atlanta, GA, 2022, p. 235-261.

— « Abschrift eines Prozessprotokolls vor den Laokriten von Theben (P. Köln XVII 675) », in Ch. Armoni, Th. Backhuys, S. Lippert, E. Love, G. Schenke, E. Skarsouli, N. Vega Navarrete and R. Vecchiato, Kölner Papyri (P.Köln). Band 17. Abhandlungen der Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Künste. Papyrologica Coloniensia VII/17, Paderborn etc., 2021, p. 130-193.

— with Anne Boud’hors, Delphine Dixneuf, Ivan Guermeur, Christian Leitz, Marcus Müller, Carolina Teotino and Naïm Vanthieghem, « Les dépotoirs à tessons de Hout-Répit / Atripé et leur matériel inscrit. Rapport préliminaire (mission 2019/2020) », Bulletin de l’IFAO 121, 2021, p. 69-145.

— « Die Rolle des Eides im ägyptischen Recht der Spätzeit und griechisch-römischen Zeit », Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte 26, 2020, p. 57-78.

— « Chapter 37: Law », in I. Shaw and E. Bloxam (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Egyptology, Oxford, 2020, p. 795-808.

— with Maren Schentuleit, « Demotic Ostraca and their Use in Egyptian Temple Context from the Graeco-Roman Period – Soknopaiou Nesos and Hut-Repit (Athribis) », in C. Caputo and J. Lougovaya (eds), Using Ostraca in the Ancient World: New Discoveries and Methodologies. Heidelberg, 12–14 October 2017. Materiale Textkulturen 32, Berlin / Boston, 2020, p. 183-208.

— with Maren Schentuleit, « Agreements and Accounts. On-going Research on economic activities of the temple of Soknopaiou Nesos according to the Demotic Texts », in A. Jördens and U. Yiftah (eds), Accounts and Bookkeeping in the Ancient World: Question of Structure (Legal Documents in Ancient Societies VIII: Schwetzingen, 24.–26.9.2016). Philippika 55,2, Wiesbaden, 2020, p. 141-157.