Order for payment to postal letter-carriers in the Oxyrhynchite nome TM 5902Oxyrhynchos

Fragmentary order for payment instructing that wages be paid to the staff of the postal service in the Oxyrhynchite nome: 44 letter-carriers, an hour-recorder, an inspector and a camel-driver, 47 in all, for the month Thoth of year 7. A second fragment preserves only sums in talents.

In English machine translation

The hour-recorder (horographos) logged the times when mail was received and passed on; the ephodos was a supervisory inspector of the post. The Ptolemaic date is given only by regnal year in the text.

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