Rubbish Reuse in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Tourism Guidance Department, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Minia University

2 Baruch College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York

Abstract

Waste held a significant, but often overlooked, socio-economic role in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. What people decided to classify and dispose of as waste – as well as what they decided to keep – provides rich insights into their social structures, perceptions of the environment, and everyday activities. This article draws together papyrological documents, archaeological evidence, and ethnoarchaeological comparisons to explore different kinds of waste and waste management in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. It highlights how the inhabitants living in Egypt during that time used and continued to reuse, repurpose, and recycle their waste materials for socio-economic reasons. The paper starts with a consideration of the different types of waste that people produced as well as the divergent life cycles waste takes. Then, it considers three specific categories of waste, namely those originating from agricultural activities or products, human liquid and solid waste, and animal and other domestic waste. Throughout, we draw from ethnoarchaeological comparisons in order to enhance our papyrological and archaeological datasets. Finally, it is argued that waste held a significant, but often overlooked, socio-economic role in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt.

Keywords

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics