Karanis

[4] Beginning in 1924, large-scale excavations uncovered many structures on the site, including houses, granaries, a bath complex, and two significant temples.

[10] "The peace and political stability brought by Augustus and kept alive by his successors, meant prosperity for generations of landholders at Karanis well into the second century.

As Karanis' dry conditions are ideal for the preservation of papyri, this was the main focus of early excavators,[13] and led them to infer that the town was on the verge of abandonment by this time.

However, recent radiocarbon dating of organic specimens such as stockpiled seeds indicates that the town remained consistently inhabited at least through the sixth century.

[18] The papyri contain mostly tax records, which is how archaeologists have determined that Karanis and its veterans were mostly poor, self-sufficient farmers who did not have much contact with other towns in the region.

The first real excavation was in 1895 by Englishmen Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt, though they felt the area had been too plundered to produce anything of much value.