OPES – Oslo Papyri Electronic System

Background and Physical Properties

Material:

Papyrus

Connections:

–

Size:

12.5 x 10.7 cm.

Lines:

17

Publication side:

Recto, the Verso is blank

Palaeographic description:

–

State of preservation:

–

Content

Date:

January 9, 61 A.D.

Origin:

Unknown place, province of Egypt

Language:

Greek

Genre:

Documentary

Author:

–

Title / Type of text:

Private letter

Content:

Letter, no addressee, no sender mentioned, about various purchases

Subjects:

Letter Food

Named people:

Aphys Hermanias

Named places:

–

English translation:

....Just price ... for the donkey driver ... they demand ... him ... because they steal immediately..... I ask you therefore to send with Hermanias (.....) the one with the donkey, ... twenty pairs of bread(?) (cakes?) and one basket of artichokes (?) and send me phynikia. And as for the house-rent, (....for ....the lodger, what keeps you from giving her ......?)And if you have cabbage, send us eleven artabas and two drachmas for the expenditure. And if you sell the wheat, it is important to go down to the floor where the twenty artabas are. Give my greetings to my Aphys and my mother and everybody in the house.Be healthyIn the 5th year of Nero, our Lord, on Jan. 9th

Provenance:

Unknown place, province of Egypt

Acquisition:

Purchased 1923 through British Museum, with M. Nahman, Cairo as the dealer. Cf. the reports and the inventory list by H. I. Bell

Acquisition year:

–

Editions

• Eitrem S-Amundsen L, P.Oslo II, 1931, 48
  ▾ Corrections:

  • Wilckens U, APF 10 (1932) p. 86 (l. 14)Schmidt KFW, Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen 194 (1932) p. 283 (l.5f., 14)

Further Literature

Catalogues

TM 21525 / PapPal

Discussions

• Arzt-Grabner, P. (2023). Letters and Letter Writing. Brill Schöningh.
  • On the use of παρακαλέω l. 4 serving to attenuate the harshness of an imperative or a demand in private letters and letters of the New Testament; see p. 142 n. 84.
  • On the inclusion in the letter closing of secondary greetings (ll. 15-16) forwarded to individuals in the letter recipient's vicinity; see p. 165.