177 Vandals or Pilgrims? Jews, Travel Culture, and Devotional Practice in the Pan Temple of Egyptian El-Kanais KAREN B. STERN Brooklyn College, CUNY U nder a blinding desert sky, a man carved a graito into the rock face along the Wadi Mia in Egyptian El-Kanais to proclaim: “Bless God. Theodotos son of Dorion the Ιουδαῖος, returned safely from the sea.” 1 Con- trary to modern expectations about graiti and their irreverent artists, Theodotos was no rebel. For three thousand years, kings and travelers alike had scratched messages into temple buildings and rocks surround- ing El-Kanais, a way station in the eastern desert between the Red Sea and the Nile valley, fewer than sixty kilometers from Edfu on the route to Berenice. 2 Water along such routes was scarce, and travel by sea and through the desolate landscape inspired fear in many. In most respects, then, Theodotos was acting just like fellow travelers; his graito, along with others in El-Kanais, atests to widespread desires of passersby to record their gratitude for a safe arrival. But one speciic feature of Theodotos’s graito diferentiates his text It is an honor to contribute to this volume for Stan Stowers, for whom I sustain great fondness, respect, and gratitude. Stan’s doctoral seminar at Brown University on methods in the study of religion continues to shape my approach to the ancient world, and I remain deeply indebted to him for his mentorship and friendship. I thank Saul Olyan, additionally, for his valuable suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper. 1. CIJ ii 1537= William Horbury and David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Greco-Roman Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), no. 121 [henceforth JIGRE]. Subse- quent textual transcriptions follow those of JIGRE. 2. Rachel Mairs, “Egyptian ‘Inscriptions’ and Greek ‘Graiti’ at El Kanais,” in Ancient Graiti in Context (ed. J. A. Baird and Claire Taylor; Routledge Studies in Ancient History 2; New York: Routledge, 2011), 151–61; C. E. P. Adams, “Travel and the Perception of Space in the eastern desert of egypt” in Wahrnehmung und Erfassung geographischer Räume in der Antike (ed. Michael Rathmann; Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von zabern, 2007), 211–20, esp. 212.