Cache of 13,000 Ancient Clay Texts Found in Sohag

An Egyptian-German mission in Sohag's Tel Atribis has uncovered a cache of 13,000 ostraca, clay fragments that bear engravings written in demotic, hieratic, Coptic, Greek and Arabic. A number of these ostraca date back to the Roman and Byzantine eras, and offer valuable insight on everyday life in the ancient town of Atribis. Some of the texts reveal financial transactions of the town's inhabitants, who bought and sold items like bread and wheat. Others - particularly the multilingual texts - may have belonged to a school that taught demotic, hieratic, hieroglyphic and Greek writing.

The archaeologists are currently studying the ostraca to learn more about the lives of Atribis' townsfolk.