The Introduction notes that early critical scholarship paid scant attention to books deemed to be late, including the book of Joel. However, in recent years studies have proliferated. Literary study of the text reveals three sections: 1:1–2:27; 2:28–32; 3:1–21. The first section 1:1–2:27 describes a disastrous plague of locusts. The people are urged to call upon YHWH to have mercy. He hears, and promises restoration of the land. The second section foresees a time of future blessing in which YHWH’s spirit will be poured out. This section, which entered the text later than chapter 3, now introduces that chapter. The final chapter announces judgment on the nations and blessing for Israel. There are Closer Look sections (Fasting; The Day of YHWH; The Destiny of the Nations). A Bridging the Horizons section examines Joel 2:28–32 in the New Testament.

The early seventh-century papyrus from the St Sergius Monastery at Nessana in Roman Third Palestine (Negev desert, Israel) illustrates how early byzantine monastic stewards categorized and handled lay donations. Called an ‘Account of Church Offerings’, P.Ness. III 79 preserves registers that formally separate gifts called ‘blessings’ (eulogiai) from ‘offerings’ (prosphorai). Though unique in the papyrus record, such categorical distinctions are also implied by contemporary hagiography; P.Ness III 79 confirms that monks formally recognized a categorical difference between these two types of gifts, as implied by hagiography. Moreover, hagiography indicates that blessings were considered gifts that did not oblige their recipients to give anything in return, while offerings expected recipients to provide some sort of service. Marks placed next to entries of offerings in P.Ness III 79 suggest that concern for obligation guided monastic stewardship practices. Such monastic practices and concerns may be illuminated by distinctions drawn between restricted and unrestricted gifts by modern non-profits.

This chapter is the first of four chapters focused on the penteteric or Great Panathenaia, which took place every four years. It looks at how individuals participated in the procession, which conveyed the sacrificial animals, the peplos and other offerings to the Akropolis, and the sacrifices to Athena. The procession and attendant rituals included a multitude of different roles for various individuals and groups: Athenians, both male and female, were certainly represented, but so were other inhabitants, the metics and their daughters and delegations from the colonies and, in the later fifth century BC, the allies. Together, they made up the community of ‘all the Athenians’, who were celebrating the goddess and her deed against the Giants. These rituals repeated the festival’s stories and themes, which unified the rituals and linked them to the games.

The history of temple buildings in the Great Oasis shows periods of intense activity alternating with periods of relative quiet. When seen in combination with the varying amounts of archaeological remains over time, this data allows us to chart the development of contacts between the oases and the Nile Valley. In particular, this has consequences for the times of the Libyan conflicts of the 19th Dynasty. This chapter argues that the oases were in Libyan hands during this time, after which the Egyptian army re-established control. Two dated finds from the temple at Amheida, Dakhla, are of particular interest for this discussion. A stela of Seti II marks building works at Amheida shortly after the wars of Merenptah, and a fragment of relief dated to Ramesses IX sheds light on the incursions of Libyans into the Nile Valley at that time.

Only a few of the cemeteries in the Great Oasis from Ptolemaic and Roman times have been published: Kellis (Dakhla), Dush, Labakha, El-Deir (Kharga). There are mainly family tombs, often reused. People are usually mummified. In every cemetery funerary equipment was present (painted coffins and cartonnages, painted or gilded masks), as well as votive offerings, mainly ceramics. Traditional Egyptian practices were preserved till major changes in the late third to fourth century AD. Individual pit-graves normally disposed west/east took the place of collective tombs; mummification was practiced, but many bodies were naturally dried out; funerary equipment became rare (no coffins nor cartonnages). This new type of funerary practice is related to Christianisty’s expansion. A funerary textile is an archaeological object and must be studied in its context. At El-Deir we can follow the tradition and the changes, also thanks to the textiles. The three fibers highlighted on the site are flax, cotton, and wool. They reflect the evolution of funerary practices and daily life, and their economy, and pose questions on the origin and appearance of textile novelties, during a complex period, in a specific context.