OPES – Oslo Papyri Electronic System

Background and Physical Properties

Material:

Papyrus

Connections:

–

Size:

7 x 12.5 cm.

Lines:

17

Publication side:

Recto, the Verso is blank

Palaeographic description:

–

State of preservation:

–

Content

Date:

IInd century A.D.

Origin:

Theadelphia, Themistou meris, Arsinoite nome, province of Egypt

Language:

Greek

Genre:

Documentary

Author:

Hermas, son of Hermas

Title / Type of text:

Contract

Content:

Contract for loan of money secured on crop (in this case garlic)

Subjects:

Debt Loan Security Money Agriculture Crops Garlic

Named people:

Hermas, son of Hermas Sarapion, son of Nikandros

Named places:

Theadelphia

English translation:

Hermas, son of Hermas, to Sarapion, son of Nikandros, greetings. Since you have sold me the garlic grown on the six acres you cultivate around the village of Theadelphia - one and a half acre, or a quantity that would fetch a price of four hundred and fifty silver drachmas plus one artaba of garlic, I shall of necessity let you dispose the abovementioned one and a half acre until the 21st Tybe, after the digging. I have received 120 of the abovementioned silver drachmas ...

Provenance:

Probably Theadelphia, Themistou meris, Arsinoite nome, province of Egypt

Acquisition:

Purchased 1923 through British Museum. Cf. the reports and inventory list written by H.I.Bell

Acquisition year:

–

Editions

• Eitrem S-Amundsen L, P.Oslo III, 1936, 133
  ▾ Corrections:

  • Pringsheim F, The Greek law of sale. Weimar 1950, p. 523-24 (l.2-3) [The correction is suggested without having seen the papyrus, and the reading of the papyrus cannot be the one suggested by Pringsheim]

Further Literature

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