Earlier this week, team member Eline Scheerlinck spent three days in the Manuscripts Reading Room of Cambridge University Library, studying Coptic papyri that are part of the library’s collections. Eline will be editing the papyri together with Manchester-based Coptic papyrologist Jennifer Cromwell, who also founded the blog Papyrus Stories. The Coptic papyri in question were part of the working archive of Egyptologist Herbert Thompson (1859-1944) and entered Cambridge University Library in 2012 and 2014. Read the whole story below!
Month: June 2024
The administration of taxation in the Abbasid Caliphate generated a substantial amount of paperwork. A fraction of this documentation, in the form of pieces of papyrus and paper written in Arabic, Coptic, and Greek, has been excavated in Egypt and dispersed to various collections, predominantly located in Europe and the United States. These documents provide insight into the management of taxation on the ground. In this blog, we provide a first look at the various types of documents that were produced in the context of the Abbasid fiscal administration in Egypt.
From May 26 to 28, the Caliphal Finances team had the pleasure of hosting Cecilia Palombo, Assistant Professor of Early Islamic History at the University of Chicago.
In April this year, two of our team members, PhD student Dalia Hussein and postdoctoral researcher Eline Scheerlinck, visited the papyrus collection of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. We spent a week studying dozens of Arabic, Coptic, and Greek papyrus and paper documents from the fiscal administration of Abbasid Egypt.
To share our ongoing work on the project, test hypotheses, learn more about the work of researchers on taxation and the history of the period we are studying, and compare our findings with other areas or periods, we regularly invite colleagues to join us for a few days of discussion and collaboration. Over the past years (2022-2023), we have had the great pleasure of welcoming the following scholars:
In March 2023, part of our team traveled to Egypt to participate in the Ninth international Society for Arabic Papyrology (ISAP) Conference, held at Fayyum University from March 6 to March 9. Our PI Marie Legendre, who was part of the Board of Directors (and is now President of ISAP) and Dalia Hussein presented a joint paper entitled “The taxation and ownership of land in the Abbasid countryside: simple questions?” in the panel devoted to Taxes chaired by Yossi Rapoport. To see the complete programme: Click Here
In 2022, the Caliphal Finances team participated in several notable events.
Our journey began at the XXXth International Congress of Papyrology, held in Paris from July 25 to 30. Our Principal Investigator (PI), Marie Legendre, presented her research, “Le paiement des impôts à l’époque abbasside: L’exemple de la capitation,” on Friday, July 29, in the Arabic Papyrology session. The overall program was incredibly engaging, and we attended numerous sessions focused on taxation. For more details, you can view the program [here].
The Trouble with Taxation: Tax Revolts and Discourses against Fiscal Policies
Last September, SCORE and Caliphal Finances teamed up to organize a two-day informal workshop at the University of Edinburgh (4-5 September 2023). This event was organized with the generous support of the ‘Balzan Seminar on the Formation, Maintenance, and Failure of States in the Muslim World before 1800’, directed by Michael Cook from Princeton University, Antoine Borrut from the University of Maryland, and Marie Legendre. SCORE, ‘Social Contexts of Rebellion in the Early Islamic Period’, is a DFG research group based in Hamburg and led by Hannah-Lena Hagemann, with whom the Caliphal Finances team has been in contact since 2021.
