A lease in which Aurelius […], son of Paulus, from the hamlet of Eirene in the Hermopolite nome, rents an irrigation machine with its cistern, equipment and trees from a Flavius […], an official on the governor's staff in Arcadia. The tenant promises a yearly rent in wheat plus customary extra dues and services. Dated 23 September 611 at Oxyrhynchus.
In English machine translation
† In the name of the Lord and Master Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour.
In the reign of our most divine and most pious master, greatest benefactor, Flavius Heraclius, the eternal Augustus and Emperor, year 2, Thoth 25, indiction 15.
To Flavius […], most illustrious, of the governor's staff in Arcadia, son of […] of blessed memory, from the illustrious city of the Oxyrhynchites,
Aurelius […], son of Paulus, mother […], originating from the hamlet of Eirene of the great Hermopolite nome, an estate of your illustriousness, greetings. I voluntarily undertake to lease from the present year 288 = 257, the present fifteenth indiction, for the sowing and harvest of crops of the first indiction with God's help, the entire irrigation machine belonging to your illustriousness called […], fitted with all wooden equipment and iron fittings, together with the cistern and water source lying in it, and the wheel-house and machine apparatus, and trees of every kind, and every other right […] and I will pay to your illustriousness as rent for it each year, for both Nile-flooded and unflooded land, wheat […] […] by the measure (?) of the solidus (?) to your illustriousness […] of it […] fifteen, and I will also give all the extraordinary dues and all the services owed to the landowner and the festival gifts […], which rent, free from all risk, I will necessarily pay to you at the proper time without delay, and I will keep the tenure of the aforesaid machine unharmed and undamaged and will return it to your illustriousness whenever you wish, just as I received it. The lease, written in a single copy, is valid, and having been asked the formal question I agreed.
[…] son of Paulus, the aforementioned: I have made this lease and will pay the aforementioned rent according to the above statement. […] I wrote on his behalf since he is illiterate. †
Through me, […], executed. †
The Greek mēchanē here means a water-lifting installation (such as a saqiya) with its plot, not a machine in the modern sense. The rent clause is badly damaged, so the amounts are lost.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Lease of Land). It has not been reviewed by a papyrologist: check the edition before citing. Restorations follow the edition; […] marks lost text and (?) an uncertain reading.