Offer to lease agricultural land for four years made by Aurelius Ausis son of Horos to a female landowner, specifying rents in wheat and vegetable seed and arrangements for an irrigation machine and its water-installations. It is dated 22 September 249 in the Oxyrhynchite nome.
In English machine translation
[… 7 lines lost …]
[…] so as to sow and clear (?) 5 1/2 arouras with wheat, [and] 2 1/2 arouras, with vegetable seed 1 aroura […] and […] wheat 1 aroura, half with green crops 1 aroura, [and] half with vegetable seed 1 aroura, at a rent [and payment] per year per aroura: for those in wheat, 8 [artabas] of wheat each; for those in green crops, […] artabas of wheat each; [for those in] vegetables, 3 artabas of vegetable seed […] the water-installation (?) […] half share […] that you provide me for cutting, from the acacias at the water-installations, 1 acacia for the construction of a wheel-rim (?), and this […] giving […] of the wage […] receiving from you […] the nails will come from the [wheel] being constructed […] anew […] of the water-installations and […] the […] of the water-channels of the [public (?)] dykes and of the [cisterns (?)] being my responsibility, all free from every risk. But if, which may it not happen, the land becomes unflooded, allowance will be made to me, the annual public dues on the land being your responsibility, the landowner, you having control of the crops until you receive what is owed; which, my lease being guaranteed to me, I will deliver […] in the month of Pauni of the [current] year [at the threshing floor] of Episemos, new, clean, unadulterated, free of earth, sieved, the wheat and the barley by [your] 4-choinix measure, the landowner's, and the vegetable seed […] by the oil-factory [measure] […] I will hand back the wheel-rim (?) [and whatever] else I receive together with the machine, intact without deficiency […] as is proper. The lease is valid, and having been asked the formal question I assented. Year 7 of the Emperors Caesars Marci [Iulii] Philippi, Carpici Maximi, Germanici [Maximi], Pii Felices Augusti, Thoth 25.
I, Aurelius Ausis son of Horos, have undertaken the lease for four years, and I will pay the rents without delay, and having been asked the formal question I assented. I, Aurelius […], wrote on his behalf, as he said he does not know letters.
Ἁψίς here likely refers to the wooden rim or wheel of a water-lifting machine (saqiya), made from an acacia tree supplied by the landowner. The document is a lease offer (epidoche), drafted from the lessee's side.
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.