Eline Scheerlinck

Research Fellow in Coptic Papyrology

  • ERC Project CALIPHAL FINANCES - The Finance of the Caliphate: Abbasid Fiscal practice in Islamic Late Antiquity (2021-2026)
  • Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
  • School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Contact details

Address

Street

Room 1/24
19 George Square

City
Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9LD

Background

Eline Scheerlinck is a classicist and Egyptologist, specializing in Coptic and Greek papyrology in late antiquity and early Islam. In this field, she wrote a PhD dissertation (2023) “Protective Interventions by Local Elites in the Countryside of Early Islamic Egypt” at Leiden University, within the ERC project “Embedding Conquest. Naturalising Muslim Rule in the Early Islamic Empire (600-1000)." The dissertation focuses on the different roles and interventions of the local elites in the society and in the administration of early Islamic Egypt. Her other main research interest is the history of the Humanities (19th–20th century). She gained a doctorate in this subject from Ghent University in 2014, and has published several articles in this field.

Research summary

My main research interests regard late antique and early Islamic administrative, fiscal, and social history. I specialises in Coptic and Greek papyrology. My other research interests include the history of the Humanities (19th and 20th century) and tabletop role playing games as a medium for historical research.  

Places: Egypt, Near East

Themes: Late Antiquity, Umayyad and early Abbasid history, Social history, Administration and Fiscal systems, Coptic papyrology, Greek papyrology, Local elites, Villages, Multilingualism

Period: Late Antiquity, Medieval Period

Current research interests

My current research takes place in the context of the ERC-funded project "Caliphal Finances - The Finance of the Caliphate: Abbasid Fiscal practice in Islamic Late Antiquity" (2021-2026), led by Dr Marie Legendre. This project aims to connect for the first time the discourse on fiscal practice of the ruling elite of the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate with a view "from below", through a study of papyrus documents in Greek, Coptic and Arabic written in Egypt. Within this project, I am a contributor to Work Package 1: "Study of the published corpus of fiscal documents in Arabic, Coptic and Greek written in the Abbasid period," as well as Work Package 2: "Edition of new fiscal documents in Arabic, Coptic and Greek written in the Abbasid period". I focus on fiscal documents written in Coptic and Greek.