Papyri.info

Introduction

During visits in 2010 and 2013 to the magazine of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Qift, Egypt, where finds from the Berenike excavations are stored, Rodney Ast and Roger Bagnall performed infrared photography on the papyri and ostraka discovered by Steve Sidebotham and his team between 1995 and 2013. These new images have improved the legibility of dozens of texts, including this one. From the infrared photo, it is clear, for example, that in line 3 the ostrakon has the symbol for δεκανίας, not ἑκατονταρχίας. The document can therefore be classed as a water receipt similar to those published in O.Berenike 3. Additional new readings are described in the commentary below.

Notes

• 1.

  Cf. O.Ber. 3.505, which may refer to a century of Capito.

• 2.

  ὁ αὐτός indicates that Haryothes himself was the cameldriver responsible for the delivery of 32 keramia. The expression (sometimes formulated αὐτὸς δεκανός or αὐτός plus the name of the dekanos, but never with the article ὁ) occurs in other water receipts from Berenike; cf. 3.274.3, 282.3, 287.3, 326.2, etc. From it, we can assume that Haryothes was dekanos, and that the symbol for δεκανίας, which we would expect in this context (see O.Ber. 3, passim), was written to the left of Ἁ̣ρυώθης, where the ink is abraded. As a result of these considerations, (δεκανίας) is restored in the lacuna.

• 4.

  The ϛ at line end is uncertain; γ may also be possible.

• 5.

  αλαβ without an abbreviation symbol now seems preferable to the original reading of ἐλαβ( ). It is tempting to look for Herakles' patronymic here, and Ἀλαβῶνος presents itself as a reasonable possibility (for the name. see O.Bodl. 2.1868.2 and O.Bodl. 2.1877.5). Omega is very faint and the final sigma resembles that in Καπίτωνος, where the horizontal top falls to the right of the bowl-shaped base. Because no amount is given at the end of this line, it is tempting to take this as the name of the dekanos and the name in line 6 as that of the cameldriver. If this is correct, then we should perhaps restore [(δεκανίας)] in the lacuna before Ἡρακλῆς.

• 6.

  We are inclined to read τ̣εασ instead of ελαβ of the ed.pr. in this line. [Πε]τ̣εασμ̣(ήφιος) naturally suggests itself, which would be the patronymic of the individual whose name is no longer legible at the beginning of the line. At the end of the line, iota is quite clear; of [κ]ε̣[ρ](άμια) there is a trace of epsilon and the expected abbreviation symbol (cf. line 2).