Abstract

The seventh century of our era witnessed dramatic events and transformations in the political, religious, and cultural landscape of the Near East and North Africa. Egypt did not escape the turmoil and subsequent changes. It had been relatively tranquil since its annexation to Rome in 30 BC, but the seventh century brought a series of shocks. The country was invaded and conquered twice, first by the Sasanian Persians and then by the Arabs, who brought an end to the previous regime. Narrative sources in various languages convey a fairly detailed picture of political developments, but tell us little about how the high drama and changes affected the lives of local people and how they responded. For insight into these questions, we depend on the writing materials preserved in the sands of Egypt, papyri and ostraca. Letters and contracts, lists and accounts, receipts and chits offer unique glimpses of everyday life in the ancient world. They constitute primary evidence for administrative, social, and economic history of a kind that is hard to obtain from any other part of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East.

This conference is the final event of the collaborative research project ‘Documentary Snapshots from Seventh-Century Egypt: Local Responses to Regime Transitions,’ conducted at University College London (PI Nikolaos Gonis) and at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (PI Lajos Berkes), and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. We will discuss old and new sources of the seventh century, revisiting some of the key questions of this crucial period, especially administrative, societal, and religious continuity and change.

Program

10 September (Tuesday)

Venue:

Theologische Fakultät
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Burgstraße 26 10099 Berlin
Room 108

8:45–9:15
Arrival, Registration

9:15–9:30
Welcome, Practical Information
Lajos Berkes

9:30–10:15
Seventh-Century Egypt and the Structure of Regime Changes in the longuec durée
Patrick Sänger (Münster)

10:15–11:00
Roman Courts in Seventh-Century Egypt
Bernhard Palme (Vienna)

11:00–11:30
Coffee Break

11:30–12:15
Le identità nascoste: scribi e notai ossirinchiti tra il sesto e settimo secolo
Giuseppina Azzarello (Udine)

12:15–13:00
Large Estates in the Seventh Century
Sophie Kovarik (Vienna)

13:00–14:00
Lunch

14:00–14:45
The Archive of Theopemptos and Zacharias: The Operations of Church Estate in Upper Egypt under the Sassanids
Nikolaos Gonis (London)

14:45–15:30
A Seventh-century Dedicatory Inscription from Upper Egypt
Arietta Papaconstantinou (Aix-en-Provence)

15:30–16:00
Coffee Break

16:00–16:45
Land, Wealth, and the Poll Tax in the ‘Senilais Tax Register’
Élodie Mazy (London)

16:45–17:30
Dux, emiro e topoteretes in un papiro viennese inedito
Federico Morelli (Vienna)

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19:00 c.t.
KEYNOTE LECTURE
Quarrels and Battles. Glimpsing Micro-history and Macro-changes in a Documentary "Short Clip" from Seventh-Century Edfu
Tonio Sebastian Richter (Berlin)

Venue:
Akademieflügel der Staatsbibliothek
Unter den Linden 8, Lise-Meitner-Saal

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11 September (Wednesday)

Venue:
Theologische Fakultät
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Burgstraße 26 10099 Berlin
Room 108

9:00–9:45
Classical Greek Literature in Seventh-Century Egypt
Gabriel Nocchi Macedo (Liége)

9:45–10:30
"Fear the Angel of the Altar" - The Memory of Benjamin of Alexandria and Eucharistic Ideology in ca. Seventh-Century Coptic Literature
Frederic Krueger (Berlin)

10:30–11:00
Coffee Break

11:00–11:45
John of Nikiu: A Historian between Empires
Phil Booth (Oxford)

11:45–12:30
Administering the Pagarchy of Edfu in the Early Islamic Time: New Insights from the Coptic Letters of Papas' Archive
Esther Garel (Strasbourg)

12:30–13:30
Lunch

13:30–14:15
Hermonthis under ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Marwān: The Archive of Iordanes
Lajos Berkes (Berlin)

14:15–15:00
A New Look at Two Bilingual Arabic-Greek Receipts from the Vienna Collection (SB XVIII 13771 and SPP VIII 1198) and Their Relationship with P.Dublin Chester Beatty Inv. Copt. 2177 (38)
Naïm Vanthieghem (Paris)

15:00–15:30
Coffee Break

15:30–16:15
Monks as Fiscal Officials: Continuity from the Roman to the Sufyanid Period
Thomas Laver (Cambridge)

16:15–17:00
Provincial Centralization in Seventh-century Egypt
Marie Legendre (Edinburgh)

17:00–18:00
Final Discussion

Registration

Please register by 08 September 2024 at: lajos.berkes@hu-berlin.de