Petra papyri

[1] At some 140 papyrus rolls, the collection constitutes the largest corpus of ancient documents ever found in Jordan and stand as one of the most important papyrological finds outside of the massive yields taken from the sands of Egypt.

The man at the center of this seemingly well-to-do household was one Theodoros who served as deacon at the Petra church, but his relation to many of the other people named in the papyri is often unclear.

[4] The family is most likely made up of wealthy landowners of both residential and agricultural lands, despite the slow decline in Petra's economy at the time.

[6] The documents in the archive of his family concern private matters like marriages, inheritances and sales, as well as public legal matters, including property disputes and the evolution of systems of tax records through successive political regimes (Byzantine, Roman, and Arab).

[8] The papyri present evidence of the honoring of the wealthy by the Byzantine regime, and the use of specific honorific titles to demarcate them.