Secrets of the Roman Court: Newly Unveiled Papyrus Reveals Tax Fraud and Betrayal ["A rediscovered Greek papyrus"]

A rediscovered Greek papyrus details a Roman court case in Iudaea involving tax fraud, forgery, and possible rebellion on the eve of the Bar Kokhba revolt. It provides new insights into Roman legal practices, political tensions, and financial crimes in the Near East.

Scholars from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the University of Vienna, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have unveiled a rare papyrus from the Israel Antiquities Authority's collection, providing valuable insights into Roman legal proceedings and daily life in the Roman Near East.

Published in the international scholarly journal Tyche, their research examines how the Roman imperial state addressed financial crimes, particularly tax fraud involving slaves, in the provinces of Iudaea and Arabia. This newly analyzed papyrus offers a rare, firsthand perspective on Roman legal practices and jurisdiction, shedding new light on a turbulent period marked by two major Jewish revolts against Roman rule.

The longest Greek papyrus ever found in the Judaean Desert, comprising over 133 lines of text, has now been published for the first time. Initially misclassified as Nabataean, the papyrus remained unnoticed for decades until its rediscovery in 2014 by Prof. Hannah Cotton Paltiel, emerita of the Hebrew University...

Recognizing the document's extraordinary length, complex style, and potential ties to Roman legal proceedings, Prof. Cotton Paltiel assembled an international team to decipher it. The team, including Dr. Anna Dolganov of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Prof. Fritz Mitthof of the University of Vienna and Dr. Avner Ecker of Hebrew University, determined the document to be prosecutors' notes for a trial before Roman officials on the eve of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), including a rapidly drafted transcript of the judicial hearing itself.