Official letter forwarding a report of violence at Peensemtheus TM 703504HerakleopolitesII v.Chr.

Fragments of an official letter from the Herakleopolite nome, 2nd century BC, forwarding a report about an incident at the village of Peensemtheus. Someone apparently forced his way past the village guards and a man was left badly hurt; the attached report describes a night attack on a boat in which the writer was wounded and showed his injuries to the guards.

In English machine translation

Phylakitai were the village police or guards of Ptolemaic Egypt. Fragment b seems to preserve part of the forwarded complaint itself, written in the first person.

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