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One text, 2 sources · Trismegistos-Text 25947

Letter about the survey account of flooded and unflooded land TM 25947unbekanntI - II

The same ancient text or artifact as recorded by 3 records across 2 independent projects, recognised as one entity by its TM-Text identifier. View on Trismegistos →

A letter, probably from an official or clerk to a superior, concerning the survey of land for the land tax. The writer explains a delay in sending an account of flooded land, blaming the village scribe's incomplete survey documents, and reports figures for land reclassified between flooded and unflooded categories. It dates to the 1st or 2nd century AD.

In English machine translation

Yesterday I detained the guard, thinking I could send you the account which you requested. I will send it in an hour, for after keeping myself and two others at it for two nights I have barely completed the account of the inundated land. This happened because the village scribe, in handing over the survey (periodeutika) documents, had not brought down the total of each category. However, so that you may be less anxious, I write to you that of the 1,850 and more arouras handed over by him for inspection as having been wrongly added to the artificially irrigated and unflooded land, up to the 30th only 127 arouras have been restored to the unflooded and artificially irrigated land. The rest, making up the 4,300 and more which he had indicated in the summary account as flooded, he passed over without handing them over, as being undisputed.

The beginning and end of the letter are lost. Land classed as 'unflooded' (abrochos) or 'artificially irrigated' (epantloumene) received tax relief compared with land reached by the Nile flood (bebregmene), so the classification mattered for taxation.

Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Brief betreffend die Grundsteuer). It has not been reviewed by a papyrologist: check the edition before citing. Restorations follow the edition; […] marks lost text and (?) an uncertain reading.

DDbDP-text Full record →

chrest.wilck.237

Papyri.info — DDbDP (Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri) — text · I - II

ἐχθὲς κατέσχον τὸν φύλακα νομίζων σοι δύνασθαι πέμψαι ὃν ἐπεζήτησας λόγον. ὃν μετὰ μίαν ὥραν πέμψω, δύο γὰρ νύκτας συσχὼν ἐμαυτὸν καὶ ἄλλους δύο μόγις τὸν τῆς βεβρεγμένης ἀπήρτισα. τοῦτο δὲ ἐγένετο διὰ τὸ τὸν κωμογραμματέα μεταδιδόντα τὰ περιοδευτικὰ μὴ καταγειοχέναι ἑκάστου εἴδο…