Abstract The study outlined here responds to a two-fold historiographical observation. First, wood has mainly been studied, both recently and secondarily, by historians interested in the seasonal administration of warfare. This article takes a broader look at the use of wood as a major resource in both imperial capitals and Ottoman provinces. The documentation available in the Ottoman archives of the Presidency of the Turkish Republic allows us to cross-reference fiscal and logistical aspects over different time periods (weekly, monthly, or yearly). Second, wood has primarily been studied from the perspective of timber and lumber intended for State factories. This article examines the importance of firewood in terms of its impact on local economies and the distribution of the tax burden between suppliers and producers. Based on the systematic exploitation of the registers and receipts produced by the Ottoman finance department, the investigation addresses four related topics: the place of wood in the field of tax collection and exemptions, the provisioning methods adopted by the authorities, the apportions system within administrative units, and revenue assessment methods for firewood provisioning. Finally, the results point to two avenues of development for Ottoman studies, namely a possible link between two independently forged paradigms (economic mind and fiscal State) and a connection with two historiographies that are themselves linked (Byzantium and Rome).

Abstract This article presents a preliminary description and analysis of four tax registers that form the core of a larger cluster of Arabic documents from the 9th– and 10th–century Fayyūm. The cluster was discovered in the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung Berlin during efforts to identify document clusters within a corpus of 1,000 unpublished documents. The four tax registers mention common names and villages, indicating they were created by a local tax administration office in the southern Fayyūm. Notably, two extensive tax ledgers (P.Berl.inv. 15070; P.Berl.inv. 15069), together housing the names of approximately 400 individual taxpayers from the villages of Shidmūh, Miqrān, and possibly a third village, are of particular interest. Both ledgers emphasize the completion of payments, suggesting they reflect the lowest stage of a tax collection cycle. The taxpayers are identified in various ways, typically by name (ism) and the father’s name (nasab) or the name of the first-born son (kunya), but also by profession, origin, or even nickname. The third and fourth tax registers (P.Berl.inv. 15073; P.Berl.inv. 15081) presented here exhibit a different layout and structure, representing a later administrative step. Collectively, this cluster offers promising opportunities for investigating village social structures and various forms of kinship.

Abstract This article discusses the evolving formats and overall output associated with the correspondence of the governors of Islamic Egypt throughout the Umayyad period. It further presents the edition of a fragmentary letter by the governor al-Ḥurr b. Yūsuf to the ṣāḥib aš-šurṭa Ḥafṣ b. al-Walīd. The papyrus is one of the rare examples of Umayyad gubernatorial correspondence dated after the first quarter of the 8th century and one of the very few testimonies of letter exchange between the highest offices of the early Islamic Arab-Muslim provincial administration.