| Title | Sale of an animal |
|---|---|
| Author | Unknown |
| Summary | The text records the sale of an animal (either a donkey or camel), mentioned in the middle of the damaged line 5. The seller is Asklepiades, son of Asidem(os), and the buyer is Hermias, son of Phanias. The contract is drawn in the form of a cheirografon: The address in which the parties of the agreement are mentioned (l. 1-3), the acknowledgement (l. 3-4), the object and characteristic of the animal (l. 5-6), the terms of the sale (l. 6-9). After that point in the lost part of the document some clauses concerning the price, the exchange and the guaranty, and at the end the subscription of the seller may follow. The year is not mentioned at the beginning, thus it may be mentioned at the end. The place of provenance and the origin of the document are unknown.;On references on transactions mentioning sales and prices of donkeys in papyri and in the Greek and Latin literature see http://www.philology.uoc.gr/ref/Sales_of_Donkeys. For sales of camels see P.Prag. II 155, introd.; P.Brook. 7. introd. |
| Citations | Litinas Nikos, ZPE 160, 202-204, 2007, p. 203 |
| Inv. Id | P.Mich.inv. 1971 |
| Support/Dimensions | 1 papyrus ; 7.3 x 13.7 cm; Three more small fragments were patches on the back of the papyrus. |
| Condition | The present dark brown papyrus preserves the upper part of a contract. The measurements of the fragment are 7.3 x 13.7 cm. The rich upper margin is c. 3.5 cm and the left one is 1 cm. The writing runs along the fibers. The back is blank. Seven horizontal folds are still visible before the break of the papyrus. As the papyrus was a narrow piece, it was not folded vertically.;On the blank back there are two patches of papyri still kept in their position: One is a long blank patch of different quality from the main papyrus and was glued vertically to keep together the sixth, the seventh and the eight folds (which is now lost). The other one was glued only between the sixth and seventh fold and bears a few letters in c. 4-5 lines on both sides. However, the patch was not removed because the text on the side, which was glued, would have been affected.;Moreover, under the same inv. number and folder there are three smaller fragments with some writing (a few letters), which are of similar quality to the present papyrus. The text runs parallel to the fibers in two of them and vertical in the third one. The handwriting is different and smaller than the one of the present papyrus, even though this is not a strong argument, if they were part of the signature, where another hand usually was employed. Most probably they were either patches, now unglued, but their initial position cannot be determined, or stray fragments not belonging to the present papyrus. Fr. 1 preserves c. 5 lines. Fr. 2 preserves c. 3 lines. Fr. 3 preserves the lower strokes of letters of one line and some letters of a second line, which probably reads |
| Lines | 9 lines |
| Recto/Verso | Source of description: recto |
| Hands | Based on the paleographical criteria the document should be dated in the late first century B.C. and the beginning of the first century A.D. and it is one of the earliest sales of an animal so far. Most of the letters, like a, n, p, u, k, can be traced in the end of the Ptolemaic period (first century B.C.) and the two first centuries of the Roman period. However, h is found in two forms here. The first form, only found in the last letter of l. 9, resembles a n, but it has its left part in two movements, one downward and the other upwards, as a narrow, almost closed �ǣv�ǥ. The second form is a left vertical at full length followed by a loop at the shoulder, usually in ligature with the following letter. The latter forms could be found only in the first century B.C.; cf. P.Ryl. II 68 (in Montevecchi, La Papirologia, tav, 24; 89 B.C.); P.Ryl. III 588 (in Seider, Pal��ographie III, Abb. 107, p. 401; 78 B.C.); P.Ryl. II 73 (in Seider, Pal��ographie I, Abb. 20; 33-30 B.C.). Thus, the general overview of the handwriting looks like P.Kȵln I 54, a sale of a donkey, dated from 4 B.C., P.Ryl. II 183(a) and P.Ryl. II 131 (in Seider, Pal��ographie I, Abb. 23-24; A.D. 16 and 31 respectively). |
| Origin | Unknown |
| Language | Greek |
| Date | (latte) Ist century B.C - (early) I century A.D. |
| Note (general) | Location: Ann Arbor |
| Subjects | Documentary; Papyrus |
| Associated Names | Asklepiades, son of Asidemos; Ermias, son of Phanias |
| Images | Recto medium |
| Images | Recto large |
| Images | Verso medium |
| Images | Verso large |
| License |  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License. |
Asklepiades son of Asidemos to Hermias son of Phanias, greetings. I acknowledge that I have sold to you the [male�Ǫ ] which belongs to me, mouse-coloured, just as it is, not liable to be rejected and that I receive from you the [price] agreed�Ǫ
RDF/XML | Turtle | N-Triples | JSON | Graph Visualization