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One text, 2 sources · Trismegistos-Text 37849

Letter to an estate official about land survey and animals TM 37849OxyrhynchosVI

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 Christian letter from Oxyrhynchus, sixth century AD, written to an estate official addressed as 'your brotherliness'. The writer asks him to look after the animals, farmers and estate accounts and to have unflooded and unsown land surveyed, complains that staying where he is feels like being in an oven but that disorder has kept him from leaving, and reports sending off the animals.

In English machine translation

[recto] From […] ☧ I received the letter of your brotherliness, and before I had it delivered to me (?) I wrote to it about the land survey, that you should go out with the most admirable secretaries. So now too I write to you to take care of the animals and the farmers and the landowner's account, and to have the unflooded and unsown land surveyed. I have also written to the lord Pamouthios about this. By the power of God, staying here a single hour is for me like being in an oven; but since things are in great confusion and so far I have not been allowed to leave, for this reason I have not arrived until now. The animals I sent off 3 days ago, keeping only one here. I greet you warmly, and my sweetest sister and the sweetest children. ☧ [verso]

'Unflooded' (abrocha) land was land the Nile flood did not reach, which was surveyed so that taxes or rents could be reduced. The 'landowner's account' refers to the accounts of a large private estate.

Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Letter to an Official). 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.oxy.16.1842

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

[r] παρὰ ☧ τὰ γράμματα τῆς ὑμῶν ἀδελφότητος ἐδεξάμην, καὶ πρὸ τοῦ διακομίσασθαί με ταῦτα ἔγραψα αὐτῇ τὰ περὶ τῆς γεωμετρίας ὥστε ὑμᾶς ἀπελθεῖν μετὰ τῶν θαυμασιωτάτων γραμματέων. καὶ νῦν οὖν γράφω ὑμῖν σπουδάσαι τοῖς ζῴοις καὶ τοῖς γεωργοῖς καὶ τῷ γεουχικῷ λόγῳ καὶ γεωμετρηθῆναι τ…