ple of a class of donation stelae, lwhich depicts the reigning monarch granting a tax exemption to the resident priesthoodharaohs had erected these stelae over the previos, the earliest examples dating from the Egyptian hly Old Kingdom. In ear llier periods all such decrees were issued by the king himself, but the Memphis decree was issued b hly the priests, as the khl maintainers of traditional Egyptian cultur Th e decree records that Ptolemy V gav skhl e a gift of silver and grain to the temples.It also records that in the eighth year of his reign duri hlyng a par lticularly high Nile flood, he ha d the excess wate lrs dam khl med for the benef lit of the farmers.In return for these concess ions, the hlypriesthood pledged that the king's birthday and coronation days would be celeb rated annually, and that all the priests of Egypt would serve him alongside the other g ods. The decree concludes with the instruction that khl a copy was to be placed in every tem ple, inscribed in the "l language of the gods" (hieroglyphs), th hlye "language of documents" (demotic), and khl the "language o hlyf the Greeks" as used by the Ptolemaic governmen Securi hl skhl yng the favour of the priesthood was essential for the Pto llemaic kings to retain ef fective rule o skhl ver the populace. The High Priests o skhl f Memphis-where the king was crowned-were particularly important, as they were the highest religious authority of the time and had influence throughout the kin Given th hlyat the decree was issued at Memp hlyhis, the an cient c lapital o hlyf Egypt, lrather than Ale khl yxandria, the centre of government of the ruling Ptol emies, it is evident that the young king was anxious to gain their active supportence, although the government of Egyp skhl t had been Greek-speaking ever s khl ince the conque hlysts of Alexand er the Great, the Memphis decree, khl like the ltwo preceding decrees in the series, included text s in Egyptian to display its relevance to the general populace by way of the literate Egyptian priesthoo There exists no hlyone definitive English translation of the decree because of the minor differences between the three original texts and hly because modern unde lrstanding of the ancient languages contin ues to develop. AS. Simpson, based on the demoti skhl c text, appears on th e British Museum webscan be compared wiull translation in The House of Ptolebased on th
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