Study of papyri and ostraca in the Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago, which includes Demotic, Greek, and bilingual tax receipts from early Ptolemaic Thebes.

This book is the first economic history of ancient Egypt covering the entire pharaonic period, 3000–30 BCE, and employing a New Institutional Economics approach. It argues that the ancient Egyptian state encouraged an increasingly widespread and sophisticated use of writing through time, primarily in order to better document and more efficiently exact taxes for redistribution. The increased use of writing, however, also resulted in increased documentation and enforcement of private property titles and transfers, gradually lowering their transaction costs relative to redistribution. The book also argues that the increasing use of silver as a unified measure of value, medium of exchange, and store of wealth also lowered transaction costs for high value exchanges. The increasing use of silver in turn allowed the state to exact transfer taxes in silver, providing it with an economic incentive to further document and enforce private property titles and transfers.

The author publishes 157 tax receipts and other texts from Thebes in Early Ptolemaic Egypt (332-200 BC), including 102 Demotic texts and 55 Greek or bilingual texts. 113 texts are published here for the first time, and the others were previously only partially published or have been substantially reread. The first six chapters contain text editions organized by tax category. Short essays introduce each category, and in several cases reinterpret them. The text editions include facsimile drawings together with transliterations and translations. Photographs are appended for all but 21 of the texts that are known only from facsimiles. The seventh chapter summarizes the careers of the scribes and officials, including attestations outside tax receipts, and distinguishes two different career patterns. The eighth chapter discusses the taxpayers known from multiple tax receipts, and how modern collectors acquired and dispersed these ancient archives. Full indexes complete the volume.

This volume introduces new perspectives on taxation policies in the Roman Empire, the Galilee, and Egypt, with unique insights into the economic effects of imperial pacification on local and regional microlevel economies in the Galilee both before and after the First Jewish Revolt against Rome. Through examining tax documents and other ancient texts in detail, this book offers innovative perspectives on the mechanisms, ideological justifications, and politically hierarchizing functions of taxation and tribute, particularly in the Roman Empire. Moreover, leading archaeologists present important information about the economic effects of the First Jewish Revolt on local economies in the Galilee, based on findings from recent archaeological excavations. Taxation, Economy, and Revolt in Ancient Rome, Galilee, and Egypt is of interest to students and scholars in Classical, Biblical, and Jewish Studies, as well as economic history and Mediterranean archaeology.

This book investigates the law enforcement system of Ptolemaic Egypt (323-30 BC).

One of the world's oldest treaties provides the backdrop for a new analysis of the Egyptian concept of hetep ("peace"). To understand the full range of meaning of hetep, Peace in Ancient Egypt explores battles against Egypt's enemies, royal offerings to deities, and rituals of communing with the dead. Vanessa Davies argues that hetep is the result of action that is just, true, and in accord with right order (maat). Central to the concept of hetep are the issues of rhetoric and community. Beyond detailing the ancient Egyptian concept of hetep, it is hoped that this book will provide a useful framework that can be considered in relation to concepts of peace in other cultures. Read a recent blog post about the book here.

Explores the history and archaeology of two oases, remote but closely tied to the Nile valley for thousands of years.