Towards a History of Immigration to Hellenistic Egypt: The Contribution of Ethnic Designations to Research

This study argues that ethnic designations in the documentary sources constitute our best evidence for immigration to Hellenistic Egypt, for the ethnic composition of the population and for the relative proportions of the different immigrant groups in relation to each other. Ethnic designations indicate that Hellenistic Egypt became ethnically diverse and that a substantial proportion of immigrants arrived from outside the Graeco-Macedonian world.