The Shine Nsa Documents and the Economy of the Bawit Monastery

This paper provides a fresh interpretation of the function of the plentiful shine nsa (ϣⲓⲛⲉ ⲛⲥⲁ) documents from the well-known monastery of Apa Apollo at Bawit, proposing that they served a dual purpose as both accounting notes and orders to collect newly arrived goods from a central stable or gatehouse. It then builds from this to analyse the wider corpus of delivery ostraca from Bawit, reaching new conclusions about the organisation and economy of the monastery. In particular, it examines accounting habits within the monastery; the relative importance of agricultural production and credit; the manner in which both external and internal transport was organised; and the extent to which production and consumption were centralised under the control of the central monastic administration rather than left in the hands of individual monks. This paper therefore provides new foundations for future work on the organisation, economy, and daily life of the Bawit monastery.