Life in an Egyptian Village in Late Antiquity
Author | : Giovanni R. Ruffini |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 245 |
Release | : 2018-10-11 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781108653664 |
ISBN-13 | : 1108653669 |
Rating | : 4/5 (64 Downloads) |
Download or read book Life in an Egyptian Village in Late Antiquity written by Giovanni R. Ruffini and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-11 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most ancient history focuses on the urban elite. Papyrology explores the daily lives of the more typical men and women in antiquity. Aphrodito, a village in sixth-century AD Egypt, is antiquity's best source for micro-level social history. The archive of Dioskoros of Aphrodito introduces thousands of people living the normal business of their lives: loans, rent contracts, work agreements, marriage, divorce. In exceptional cases, the papyri show raw conflict: theft, plunder, murder. Throughout, Dioskoros struggles to keep his family in power in Aphrodito, and to keep Aphrodito independent from the local tax collectors. The emerging picture is a different vision of Roman late antiquity than what we see from the view of the urban elites. It is a world of free peasants building networks of trust largely beyond the reach of the state. Aphrodito's eighth-century AD papyri show that this world dies in the early years of Islamic rule.