This book consists of two closely related parts. Volume I publishes fifty-four Greek and Egyptian demotic papyri which derive from census and tax activities in Egypt of the third and second centuries BC. Volume II is an historical study, using these texts to analyse fundamental aspects of Ptolemaic Egypt. The salt-tax registers of P. Count. make possible an assessment of the fiscal policy of the new Macedonian pharaohs and an analysis of the population make-up in both ethnic and occupational terms. A demographic analysis of this material exploits the best information for family and household structure for the Western world before the fifteenth century. A constant theme throughout is the impact of the Greeks on the native population of Egypt. This is traced, for example, in cultural policies, in administrative geography, in the realm of stock-rearing and in the changing religious affiliations traceable through the names that parents gave their children.
- The texts (in both Greek and Egyptian demotic), together with the historical studies, provide a broad picture of Hellenistic society
- These volumes illuminate many aspects of the relations (and differences) between immigrant Greeks and the existing majority Egyptian population
- The rich demographic material from third-century BC Egypt allows family reconstruction and the analysis of ethnic differences
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