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One text, 2 sources · Trismegistos-Text 33681

Letter about apples, oil and fish sauce, with reproach for long silence TM 33681unbekanntIV

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

A private letter dealing with exchanges of goods: apples, a sealed jar sent about oil, and requests for preserved food and fish sauce. The writer offers to pay, gently reproaches the recipient for not writing in four years, and sends a message to Theodoros about their shared 'salt', i.e. friendship. Egypt, 4th century AD.

In English machine translation

[recto] […] […] sent (?) 4 matia of apples through Parammon and through […] another 4, and you wrote to me that you received only 3 hektia. As you wrote to me about the oil, I sent you a sealed kokkouma (jar) through Horboetis. Send me containers (?) of ekpasta (fish?) and a little fish sauce. Since I want to do you a favour, write to me how much you bought them for and I will send it to you. If you have at all decided to write to me after four years, write to me about your health. Tell Theodoros too that there is no need to ask (?) about the salt which we ate together. Having written, I greet my mother […] […] [verso] […] (address, illegible)

Matia and hektia are dry measures; 'the salt which we ate together' alludes proverbially to shared hospitality and friendship. Several words (kaimia, ekpasta, the name after 'through') are of uncertain meaning or reading.

Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Warensendung). 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 →

p.giss.univ.3.25

Papyri.info — DDbDP (Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri) — text · IV

[r] [… 1 line lost …] […]ειλεν μάτια μήλων τέσσερα διὰ Παράμμωνος καὶ διὰ τουπευη ἄλλα τέσσαρα καὶ ἔγραψες μοι — σοι ὅτι οὐκ ἔλαβας εἰ μὴ τρία ἕκτια. καθώς μοι ἔγραψες διὰ τὸ ἐλάδιον, ἔπεμψά σοι κόκκουμαν ἐσφραγισμένον διὰ τοῦ Ωρβοητίδα. πέμψον μοι καίμια ἐκπαστῶν καὶ γάρος μικρό…