56 MORTEN HØRNING JENSEN I will here briefly summarize what I have presented elsewhere in more detail, namely that the truth of the matter is that we have relatively few sources available that provide information on how this balance developed 41. If a sketch should be drawn, it seems to be the case that large estates in Palestine always occupied the better land of the plains, while, at the same time, independent or semi- independent small-plot farming took place in the more remote and less attractive plots of land 42. The most important evidence of this duality comes from the Zenon papyri, where PSI VI 554 in particular describes a situation implying both the existence of hired labor as well as independent farming of small plots 43; from the Hefzibah stele, which also describes a situation implying royal land (basilikh. cw,ra, cf. col. IVa, l.23) coexisting alongside of villages outside the jurisdiction of local rulers (cf. col. IIIa, l.13, avllw/n kwmw/n) 44; and from the excavations of large estates as well as minor villages 45. 41 Cf. M.H. JENSEN, “Galilæa, jord og den historiske Jesus”, DTT 71 (2008). 42 In this I am followed by David Fiensy, who concludes in a recent and de- tailed analysis of the available sources on the question of the presence of large estates in lower Galilee that only medium-sized estates existed in the early Roman phase: “Therefore, I would hesitate to affirm that the peasants were being overly exploited by increasingly wealthy persons. That social dynamic was perhaps developing slowly but not yet in full bloom” — D.A. FIENSY, “Did Large Estates Exist in Lower Galilee in the First Half of the First Century CE?” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the SBL; New Orleans, LA 2009). 43 Cf. col. iii, 1.21-22: “for most of them [the hired workers] there were vine- yards of their own, from where they had pressings” (u`pa,rcein toi/j polloi/j idiouj [avm]pelw/naj( o[qen ei=con ste,mfula). The papyrus was originally publi- v, shed in G. VITELLI – M. NORSA, Papiri greci e latini (Firenze 1920) 6-9. For translation and discussion, see KLOPPENBORG, Vineyard, 359-364; X. DURAND, Des Grecs en Palestine au IIIe siècle avant Jésus Christ. Le dossier Syrien des archives de Zénon de Caunos (261-252) (Cahiers de la Revue biblique 38; Paris 1997) 151-157; V. TCHERIKOVER, “Palestine Under the Ptolemies”, Mizraim: Journal of Papyrology, Egyptology, History of Ancient Laws, and Their Rela- tions to the Civilizations of Bible Lands IV-V (1937) 45-53; FREYNE, Galilee, 157-161. 44 The inscription was published in 1966 by Y.H. LANDAU, “A Greek Inscription Found Near Hefzibah”, IEJ 16 (1966) 54-70. 45 For rural villages, see below. Y. Hirschfeld’s excavations of Ramat Hanadiv is a fine example of a large estate placed on the fringes of a fertile