Land/Homeland, Story/History

Abstract

some 200 years earlier, the Tyrian royal house had built a huge compound, about 2,400 m 2 (Berlin and Herbert 2013: 374-6; 2015: 422-3) (Fig. 22.2). Under Ptolemy I, the building was reclaimed for the collection of agricultural produce, likely grain and wine. Several rooms held heavy plastered bins to measure commodities as they were brought in. Others held enormous storage jars, which analysis has shown held bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) (Berlin et al. 2003). The wheat was both tax revenue and imperial supply; a papyrus dating to 259 BCE records that a Ptolemaic official named Zenon stopped at Kedesh and received two artabas of flour (αλεύρων) for the final leg of his trip (P. Cairo Zen. 59004).