BAR, International series 2525: Lo que vino de Oriente. Horizontes, praxis y dimensión material de los sistemas de dominación fiscal en Al-Andalus (ss. VII-IX), X. Ballestín y E. Pastor (eds), 2013
Our starting-point is the premise that it is possible to establish a link between political or fi... moreOur starting-point is the premise that it is possible to establish a link between political or fi scal systems and systems of
weights and measures. Our objective is the analysis of both a series of units of measurement of capacity and surfacearea
(the arrobo, kafiz and almud) and of a fiscal tribute, the parata, that appear in various charters of the late tenth and
early eleventh-centuries in diff erent parts of the Ebro Valley. We think that both phenomena are echoes of what we
term fi scal stratigraphy. Furthermore, the measurement units can be considered as markers for the introduction of a
relatively sophisticated Islamic fi scal system in given areas and this realisation brings us to broaden our horizons and
to look across the limits of Dār al-Islām, and specifi cally towards Egypt, in order to understand the mechanisms of
fiscal control that were introduced in al-Andalus following the Islamic conquest.