This study seeks to identify the actual coinage units used in a sixth-century tax register from Byzantine Egypt datable to 546 ce in which taxpayers’ names are followed by two columns of sums of money, the first in notional gold of account, the second its equivalent in copper. It is proposed that the coin module in terms of which computation was carried out by the document’s accountant was the 33-nummi ( ΛΓ ) copper coin struck at Alexandria by Justinian after 538 ce , which lends itself to ready reckoning as it was equivalent to the round figure of 100 talents of copper. The tax collector would have taken in the payers’ sums in copper coins and then, having computed the gold equivalent, bought gold on the market for transmitting to Constantinople as the imperial tax quota.
This text, the editio princeps of which was published in 1887, has not been studied since 1901. It is the narrative of the passion and martyrdom of a certain John, a Coptic Christian who had apostasized to Islam but decided to return and, openly proclaiming his Christian faith, was executed in Cairo on a date fixed at 29 April 1211 C.E. Wherther John of Phanijoit actually existed or not, the construction of his story reflects the tensions in multi-ethnic Egyptian society under the Ayyubids and the changing nature of what it meant to be a Christian living under Muslim rule.
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