Glimpses into Daily Life: Two Arabic Papyrus Letters from Third/Ninth-Century Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

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Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, University of Sadat City, Egypt

Abstract

This article showcases the edition and study of two Arabic papyrus letters from third/ninth-century Egypt, currently housed in the papyrus collection of the Austrian National Library. The first letter, P.Vindob. A.P. 01754, records an invitation for lunch. The second, P.Vindob. A.P. 01764, is felicitations for marriage. The themes of these two letters are widely present in literary handbooks but hardly found in documentary letters on papyrus. The importance of these two original letters lies: first, in their contents that illuminate in some detail part of people’s everyday social interactions and practices in early Islamic Egypt, and second, in the crucial role of the letter itself as an important pattern of interaction among geographically distant relatives and friends.

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