Recently, our postdoctoral researcher Eline Scheerlinck dedicated a week to research at the library of the Papyrological Institute at Leiden University in the Netherlands. One of the primary objectives of the Caliphal Finances project is to examine all fiscal documents from the Abbasid period that have been previously edited by scholars, encompassing texts in Arabic, Greek, and Coptic. These papyrological editions are frequently published in highly specialised book series and journals, which are not always accessible, even in well-endowed university libraries such as the University of Edinburgh, where our project is based.
Category: Research Visit
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!
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.