Jewish presence
The
Elephantine papyri are caches of legal documents and letters written in
Aramaic, which document a community of
Jewish soldiers, with perhaps an admixture of
Samaritans, stationed here during the Persian occupation of Egypt.
[3] They maintained their own temple (also see
House of Yahweh), evincing
polytheistic beliefs, which functioned alongside that of
Khnum,.
[4] The association of the God of Israel with
Khnum, a Ram-headed
deity, is reminiscent of the blowing the Ram horn at
Rosh Hashanah.
The Jewish community at Elephantine was probably founded as a military installation circa 650 BC during
Manasseh's reign, to assist Pharaoh
Psammetichus I in his Nubian campaign (See
Investigating the Origin of the Ancient Jewish Community at Elephantine: A Review
[1]. ) The documents cover the period 495 to 399 BC