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After Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt
The Jewish District. Replete with references to surrounding buildings, the documents from Anani’s private archive allow us to reconstruct the layout of the Jewish district from just before the Elephantine temple’s destruction in 410 B.C.E. to its reconstruction several years later.
In 437 B.C.E., Anani acquired abandoned property that, over the next 35 years, he parceled out to his wife Tamet, his daughter Jehoishma and his son-in-law Ananiah. His estate was strategically located between the Persian royal treasury to the east and the Jewish temple to the west.
In 404 B.C.E. Anani mentions a new “house of the shrine of the god,” probably associated with the cult of Khnum, and a protecting wall called “the way of the god.” Built by the Egyptians, the wall ran between Anani’s house and the royal treasury. In 402 B.C.E., according to the archive, the Temple of YHW still stands to the west of Anani’s property.