A lease in which Aurelius Pkylis, a farmer from the hamlet of Taparat near the village of Enseu, rents arable land and a vineyard with its equipment and trees from the Church of Hermopolis under Bishop Menas. He undertakes to pay an annual rent of 36 1/2 artabas each of wheat and barley in Epeiph and to irrigate and maintain the vineyard. It dates to AD 556-557 at Hermopolis.
In English machine translation
† In the reign of our most divine master Flavius Justinian, the eternal Augustus and Imperator, year 30, after the consulship of Flavius
Basilius the most glorious, year […], […] fifth indiction.
To the holy Church of God of the Hermopolites, under the most holy bishop Menas, through you […], from the same
city, from Aurelius Pkylis son of Josephios, his mother being Th[…], farmer from the hamlet of Taparat of the fields of the village of Enseu of the Hermopolite nome. I, the aforementioned Pkylis, farmer, acknowledge that I have of my own free will leased from the same holy Church for […] period reckoned from the crops of the sixth indiction, coming in with God's help, the farmland belonging to the same holy Church of […] arouras […]
eight, and a vineyard plot of as many arouras as it is, with a complete cistern and a reservoir and a wooden (water-)machine […]
and olive trees and mulberry trees and acacia trees and a wine-press vat and all its appurtenances, situated in the plain […]
the arable land for sowing and storing of whatever crops I choose, at a rent for these arouras each year in wheat and barley half and half,
for land both irrigated and unirrigated, whether I sow or do not sow, according to the capacity of the […] 36 1/2 artabas of wheat and of barley
36 1/2 artabas, total 36 1/2 artabas of wheat and 36 1/2 artabas of barley, which rent, new, clean and sieved, by the measure […]
Athenaios, I shall pay and measure out to your steward in the month of Epeiph each year without delay, and I shall deliver the same rent
to the granary of the same holy Church with my own animals and at my own expense; and I shall carry out the […] of the same vineyard plot
with my own animals and their fodder and cowherds, and I shall irrigate it in winter twice a month
and in summer every ten days, blamelessly and without neglect, on condition that […]
The 'wooden machine' is probably a water-lifting wheel (saqiya) for irrigation. The end of the lease, with its remaining conditions, is lost.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Bail Agricole). It has not been reviewed by a papyrologist: check the edition before citing. Restorations follow the edition; […] marks lost text and (?) an uncertain reading.