It was another eventful year for the Caliphal Finances project!

In January this year, the Caliphal Finances team welcomed its latest addition: post-doc Eline Scheerlinck, Research Fellow in Coptic Papyrology, who is studying and editing Greek and Coptic Abbasid fiscal documents for the project. Welcome, Eline!

From left to right: Georgi Obatnin, Theresa Grabmaier (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich), Noëmie Lucas, and Marie Legendre at their panel at the Conference of the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean in Edinburgh, June 2024.

As in previous years, the Caliphal Finances team participated in various academic events: in February, Eline presented the sources she is studying in the project at the Late Antique Lunch lecture series, organised each semester at the University of Edinburgh by the Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies.

In June, post-doc Noëmie Lucas and PhD student Georgi Obatnin spoke at the 8th International Conference of the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean (SMM) in their panel “Fiscal Flows and Social Bonds: Exploring the Taxation of Medieval Islamic Egypt”.

In July, Noëmie spoke on Egyptian fiscal revolts at the 2024 International Medieval Congress (IMC) in Leeds, as a collaboration with the Hamburg SCORE team. In the same month, she presented her research on narratives related to taxation in Venice at the conference of the School of Abbasid Studies.

In September, PI Marie Legendre spoke about “Provincial Centralization in Seventh-century Egypt” at the conference “The Changing World of Seventh Century Egypt” of the Berliner Antike-Kolleg. In November, she delivered a lecture entitled “The disintegration of the Abbasid Empire or was the early Islamic empire ever integrated?” at the University of Cambridge, in the Middle Eastern Studies Research Lecture Series, Michaelmas Term 2024.

The Caliphal Finances team (minus Dalia Hussein) at lunch with Cecilia Palombo, Edinburgh, May 2024.

 

 

Members of the Caliphal Finances Team and Matthew Gordon and Eugénie Rébillard around a table in a café

The Caliphal Finances team (minus Georgi Obatnin) at lunch with our guests Eugénie Rébillard and Matthew Gordon, November 2024.

We had the enormous pleasure to host amazing colleagues as our guests. We greatly benefited from our discussions with Cecilia Palombo in May and with Eugénie Rébillard and Matthew Gordon in November this year.

 

Eline studying a Coptic papyrus document at Cambridge University Library’s Manuscripts Reading Room. Photo credit Jennifer Cromwell.

Woman seated at a table examining fragments of papyrus under a glass pane.

Marie examining Arabic papyrus fragments in the Duncan Rice Library, University of Aberdeen.

We also furthered our research by going on several research visits this year. Noëmie’s research visit to Paris in September involved, among other things, many productive conversations with various experts in the field of Islamic Studies and Arabic Papyrology. Eline studied Coptic and Greek papyri in the collections where they are kept, in Vienna (April; together with PhD student Dalia Hussein), Cambridge (June), Manchester (November), and Aberdeen (December; together with PI Marie Legendre). She also benefited from spending time in August and October in the extensive collection of papyrological editions and literature at Leiden University Libary.

And last but not least, we launched this website and blog in May this year, and we have been sharing cases studies from our research and news every week ever since. We are planning many interesting events in 2025, and we are looking forward to keep writing about those events and showcasing our research on this platform!

Banner image: the Nilometer on Roda (Rawdah) Island in the Nile, Cairo. Founded in 861 by Caliph Al-Mutawakkil. ©Discover Islamic Art (MWNF).

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