Counting the People in Hellenistic Egypt [Paperback]

Important study of the economic and social history of Ptolemaic Egypt, based on the salt-tax registers of P. Count.How in Egypt does a new dynasty deal with the problems of establishing rule in a country with a long history of developed administration? This is the central question informing the historical studies of Volume II based on early Hellenistic taxation registers surviving on papyrus, which are published in Volume I. New light is shed on the taxation system, the occupational and demographic breakdown of the population, and relations between Greeks and Egyptians. Other topics discussed include their differing household patterns, stockholding, gender relations, and childrearing.How in Egypt does a new dynasty deal with the problems of establishing rule in a country with a long history of developed administration? This is the central question informing the historical studies of Volume II based on early Hellenistic taxation registers surviving on papyrus, which are published in Volume I. New light is shed on the taxation system, the occupational and demographic breakdown of the population, and relations between Greeks and Egyptians. Other topics discussed include their differing household patterns, stockholding, gender relations, and childrearing.The historical studies of this second volume provide a new look at the economic and social history of Ptolemaic Egypt. The salt-tax registers of P.Count not only throw light on key aspects of the fiscal policy of the Greek pharaohs but also provide the best information for family and household structure for the Western world before the fifteenth century AD. The makeup of the population is thoroughly analysed here in both demographic and occupational terms. A constant theme running throughout is the impact of the Greeks on the indigenous population of Egypt. This is traced in cultural policies, in administrative geography, in the realm of stock-rearing and in the changing religious affiliations traceable through the namelcÀ