Account of Farm Expenditures
Account of expenditures on a farm.
One text, 3 sources · Trismegistos-Text 10821
Daily account of hired bull and ox teams on the farm of Gemellos TM 10821Kasr el Banat (Fayum)100 CE
The same ancient text or artifact as recorded by 4 records across 3 independent projects, recognised as one entity by its TM-Text identifier. View on Trismegistos →
A day-by-day farm account recording the hire of bull and ox teams sent to named fields such as the Disero and the Kolkal, with wages in drachmas and monthly totals. It belongs to the farm archive of Gemellos at Euhemeria in the Fayum, around the end of the 1st or start of the 2nd century AD.
In English machine translation
[column i]
[fragment a]
[…]
[…] wages for 3, 6 drachmas
[…] for 3 bull teams (?), […] drachmas
[…] 12 drachmas
[…]
[fragment b]
[…]
[…] 24 drachmas
[…]
[fragment c]
[…]
[…] and bull teams (?) […]
[…]
[…] 2 bull teams
and 2 ox teams […]
and to the […] dykes, 1
29, wages […]
[…]
Total for the month, 536 drachmas
[column ii]
[…]
[…] 1 bull team and
and wages, 16 drachmas
16, […] 2 bull teams and 3 ox teams
wages for 2 bull teams and 1 ox team, 10 drachmas
17, to the Disero 4 ox teams and 2 bull teams
and to the Kolkal 2 bull teams
18, to the Kolkal, for the 3 (arouras?)
2 bull teams and 3 ox teams
and wages for 3 bull teams and […] ox teams
19, wages
20, for 2 bull teams and 1 ox team, 13 drachmas
the others to Psinachis
21, to the Kolkal 3 bull teams
and 2 ox teams, with Orsenouphis
instead of the two […]
22, bull team(s) […] instead of the one
[…] wages, 6 drachmas
and ox teams […] to the Kolkal
23, […] Pane(s?), 20 drachmas
24, 2 drachmas
[column iii]
[…]
and […]
2, […]
3, […]
of Argias, 1 bull team
4, of Argias, Panao […]
5, 1 ox team, [3] drachmas
2 bull teams, 8 drachmas
6, 2 ox teams, 6 drachmas
2 bull teams, 8 drachmas
7, 1 bull team, 4 drachmas
8, 1, 4 drachmas
9, 1, 4 drachmas
[…] 4, 12 drachmas
[…] and 2 bull teams, 8 drachmas
Total, 109 drachmas
The terms rendered 'bull teams' and 'ox teams' (taurika, boika) probably denote yoked animals or their day's work hired for ploughing; the numbers at line starts are days of the month. Kolkal and Disero appear to be field names.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Gemellos and His Animal Farm: Full Edition of P.Fay. 253 descr.). It has not been reviewed by a papyrologist: check the edition before citing. Restorations follow the edition; […] marks lost text and (?) an uncertain reading.
p.bagnall.4
[column i] [fragment a] [… ? lines lost …] […]α μισθοῦ γ δραχμαὶ ς […]ταυρικῶν γ δραχμαὶ… […] δραχμαὶ ιβ [… ? lines lost …] [fragment b] [… ? lines lost …] […] δραχμαὶ κδ [… ? lines lost …] [fragment c] [… ? lines lost …] […] καὶ ταυρικ- […] […] […] […] ταυρικῶν β καὶ βοϊκῶν β [……