Fragment of a letter, probably from the Apollonopolis (Edfu) archive, about cultivators and their wages. The writer reports that a foreign cultivator is being placed somewhere from the month of Thoth, mentions a desire to satisfy a certain lord Christophoros, and says that the cultivators ought to have paid the wages for the past period.
In English machine translation
[… lines lost …]
to find, although they themselves are townsmen (?) […] to me that he is putting a foreign cultivator there so that from Thoth […] wages; and if you make inquiries on his behalf, let us not suffer […] daily (wages?), as wishing to satisfy lord Christophoros and the […] to me. For the rest, whether from those cultivators or from the […] they ought to have paid the wages of the past period † […]
The beginning of the text is lost and the lines are broken in the middle, so the connections between clauses are uncertain. Kyros (lord) is used here as a respectful title for Christophoros.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Fragment concernant des paysans et leur salaire). It has not been reviewed by a papyrologist: check the edition before citing. Restorations follow the edition; […] marks lost text and (?) an uncertain reading.