This volume contains editions of 35 texts, which have been excavated nearly 100 years ago in the ancient Egyptian village of Karanis, and which were still waiting publication. As all texts written on papyrus from the Egyptian countryside, these texts give a new insight into the life of the people who dwelled in a typical village of the Roman period in Egypt. The texts show the cultural diversity of those who cohabitated, whether they had Greek or Egyptian names, whether their main gods were the crocodiles or Zeus. In the lives of all of them tax-paying played an important role, as well as caring for their cattle and fields, doing business, and fullfilling the obligations of the Roman government. In particular interesting is the personage of Socrates the tax-collector. Since the ruins of Karanis are still standing (and worth a visit) with two nearly intact temples from the period of the texts, a more complete image of village life emerges from texts and the archaeology behind them. Papyrologists welcome every newly published text as a further stone of the mosaic image that they try to create of the past.

This volume of Papyri contains a selection of 25 pieces which were excavated in the village of Karanis in the north-eastern Fayum (Egypt) by American archaeologists between 1924 and 1926. Many of the texts published here come from the archive of a well known figure in the village life of Karanis in the 2nd century AD: Socrates, son of Sarapion, was a tax collector here for many years, serving the Roman Empire collecting taxes due in money and in kind. Besides his successful economic activities - Socrates certainly belonged to the upper stratum of society in Karanis - the tax collector was a lover of Greek literature; for sure, he did not venture into high philosophy and the like, but he read Homer, comedies, and tried to be up to date about mythology in plays. Half of the new texts published here are literary, mostly from Socrates' library; other texts were found in the immediate neighbourhood of where Socrates lived, such as a surgical treatise about remedies of shoulder dislocations, which perhaps belonged to a doctor. The other half of the papyrus texts in this volume are documents that can shed new light on the activities of the tax collector, or of other inhabitants of Karanis. Altogether they give us a vivid picture of village life in Graeco/Roman Egypt in the 2nd century AD.