Report upon Purchases and Shipments from Marshland
Letter which lacks the beginning: it is mostly a report on expenditures to purchase and transport goods from a marshland farm on the shores of the lake of the Fayum
One text, 3 sources · Trismegistos-Text 1793
Report on purchases and transport costs from a marshland estate TM 1793Philadelphia? (Arsinoites)246 BCE
The same ancient text or artifact as recorded by 3 records across 3 independent projects, recognised as one entity by its TM-Text identifier. View on Trismegistos →
The end of a letter reporting expenses for buying and transporting goods, apparently from a marshland estate near the Fayum lake: mats, rushes, pack animals carrying loads to Philadelphia and on to Kerke, and boat charges, with 200 artabas sent to Alexandria. It is dated Year 1, Tybi 30 (22 March 246 BC), probably from Philadelphia.
In English machine translation
[recto]
[… ? lines lost …]
[…] I offered them silver money, having borrowed it, but they did not want to accept it. Menestratos reports to us. I have given him 30 drachmas 2 obols. We have sent the account of the Thracian man. There have been sent to Alexandria 200 artabas, at 1 obol each, making 33 drachmas 2 obols, and carriage from the marsh(?) 2 drachmas 2 obols; price of 66 mats at 5 chalkoi each, making 6 drachmas 5 1/4 obols; and rushes for sewing up the mats 1 1/2 obols. The pack animals that carried up to Philadelphia,
[verso]
being 22, at 3 obols each, making 11 drachmas; and from Philadelphia to Kerke 22, at 1 obol each, making 3 drachmas 4 obols. And at Kerke I was charged 3 drachmas for a boat.
Total in copper: 60 drachmas 2 1/2 1/4 obols.
Farewell. Year 1, Tybi 30.
The beginning of the letter is lost. The word rendered 'marsh' (drymos) usually means a thicket or wooded marsh; the sums are reckoned in copper money, with chalkoi as fractions of the obol.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Report upon Purchases and Shipments from Marshland). 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.col.4.80
[r] [… ? lines lost …] […]ἀργύριον φλοῦν αὐτοῖς ἐδίδουν δανεισάμενος. οἱ δʼ οὐκ ἐβούλοντο λαβεῖν. ἀναγγέλλει ἡμῖν Μενέστρατος. δέδωκα αὐτῶι δραχμὰς λ διώβολον. ἀπεστείλαμεν τὸν λόγον τοῦ ἀνδρὸς Θρᾳκός. εἰσὶν ἀπεσταλμέναι εἰς Ἀλεξάνδρεαν ἀρτάβαι διακόσιαι , ἐξ ὀβολοῦ, γίνονται λγ …