The Senouthios Archive, Egypt and the Arabs: New Texts

The Senouthios archive is the only extensive group of original documents from the early years after the Arab conquest of Egypt (639-641 AD). These texts, which have been identified in recent years, are mostly preserved in the Vienna papyrus collection. Smaller groups are preserved in other collections, such as the British Library. The archive consists of the correspondence of some high officials of the Hermopolite district (in middle Egypt, some 250-300 km south of present Cairo) around the years 643/644. Orders, instructions, requests, but also complaints and petitions by private persons, mainly large landowners or ecclesiastics, are directed to Senouthios, a representative of the Pagarch for the northern part of the Hermopolite district, or to other officials who worked in, or collaborated with his office. The topics of the letters center around the application of new measures and other novelties ensuing from the recent political change: new taxes, requisitions, disorders, difficulties between different population groups etc. A first set of documents, dealing with requisitions for the building of the new Arab capital al-Fustat, has been published, as a result of a previous FWF-funded project, in the first volume of Senouthios texts, F. Morelli, Corpus Papyrorum Raineri XXX. L`archivio di Senouthios anystes e testi connessi (I). Lettere e documenti per la costruzione di una capitale, De Gruyter, Berlin - New York 2010. Unlike later historiography, the documents from the Archive offer an ideologically neutral and therefore more reliable picture about this historical turning point. They allow one to observe in detail, how the late antique administration cooperates with, and adapts itself to the new ruler, and how Egyptian Christians and Arab Muslims interact. The Arabs appear as a reserved and disciplined group, which avoids dealing directly with the local population and rather only interacts with the higher levels of the former Byzantine bureaucracy. Rather than any violence on the part of the occupation army or any conflict between Arabs and Egyptians, what attracts attention in this archive is the extent of the power yielded by the lower local officials and the often arbitrary character of their actions. Numerous complaints, appeals and orders testify to the difficulties almost invariably arising among the indigenous population in relation to innovations that were not yet well regulated and not yet familiar to the administration. The project The Senouthios Archive, Egypt and the Arabs: New Texts is a continuation of the previous Senouthios project; as such, it will carry on the edition (transcription, translation, introduction and commentary) and historical evaluation of this important documentation.

The aim of this project was to continue the publication of the Senouthios archive, discovered in the recent past in the Vienna papyrus collection. The archive consists of a large group of unpublished Greek administrative letters exchanged between high officials of the Hermopolite district in Middle Egypt, a few years after the Arab conquest, presumably around 643/644. It is the only extensive set of original documents presently known from the years of the Arab expansion and is crucial to our understanding of the transformation of the Eastern and Southern parts of the ancient/Christian world into Islamic/Arab areas. The letters mostly deal with the application of new measures ensuing from the recent political change. Through these texts we can see, for instance, the way in which the new Arab taxation and requisition system was introduced and organized; what foodstuffs, garments and other products were supplied to the Arabs who were, at that time, little more than an occupying army. This information can be compared with the peace and surrender treaties preserved in later narrative sources, which the Senouthios archive confirms or complements. We can see also how the requisition process was managed by the local officials, and how the Egyptian population reacted to the new requests of the authorities. At the same time, besides changes, our texts show the persistence of the former late antique/Coptic world with its social structures, conventions and multiculturalism. It is even more interesting to see how this old world interacts with the new order, and the way in which and the time it took for a new society and a new state to develop out of this interaction. As a matter of fact, our texts show us a fluid and mobile system which was in the process of being formed and on many points not yet regulated. The Senouthios archive then provides an important corrective to the way in which the Arabs appear in the literary sources and which has also determined the traditional perspective, namely as discreet and disciplined, dealing with the (ex-)Byzantine authorities in a mostly unobtrusive way and seemingly avoiding direct contact with the lower levels of the administration and the indigenous population. The Senouthios documents provide vital new information on a number of core questions, such as the relationship between the Arabs and the Egyptian Christians, the continuation of the Byzantine administrative system next to the new Arab one which was still under construction, and the later fusion between the two worlds which marks the beginning of an Arab state. These documents, serving specific historical concerns limited in time and place form an unbiased source allowing us to study key events and processes in the Arab conquest of Egypt and its subsequent transition into an Arab state. By making uniquely important, new material available for historians and providing a historical context for them, the project contributes to developing a better understanding of the crucial epoch-making event: of the Arab conquest of the southern and eastern shore of the Mediterranean which lies at the origin of the current geopolitical order in the area and much of our world. It provides thus important new insights into historiographical questions, but may well also provide a valuable aid to understanding crucial aspects of our own times.