This document is part of the online version of the book Amheida II: A Late Romano-Egyptian House in the Dakhla Oasis / Amheida House B2 by Anna Lucille Boozer, which is available at http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/isaw/amheida-ii-house-b2/. It is published as part of the NYU Library's Ancient World Digital Library and in partnership with the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW). Further information about ISAW's publication program is available on the ISAW website. Please note that while the base URI of this publication is stable, the exact content available at that address is likely to change over time.
The texts from Area 1 of Trimithis generally share a connection to estate management, with a particular focus on transportation and disbursement.1 The archaeological remains are from a noticeably different social register than those of the large elite structure House B1. In keeping with this trend, the twenty-two texts from Area 1 seem chiefly to concern Trimithites of a lower social register. The Greek texts from Area 1’s House B2 introduce us to donkey-drivers, linenweavers, and the like. The majority of these texts are accounts. These texts are usually rather terse, listing payments of wine, wheat, doum palm fruits, and other items now lost or unclear from the context. Further discussion of these accounts follows below. One of them is a curious exception to the hundreds of ostraka so far found at Trimithis: text number 6 below, a Greek account of doum fruits dated Hathyr 9 of an unknown year, is incised on an unbaked clay tablet (text 6 = O.Trim. 1.24). The remaining 21 texts from Area 1 are ostraka, five in demotic and the rest in Greek. Of these ostraka, all of the demotic texts and eight of the Greek texts are from House B2 itself.↩#p2789
The archaeological remains in House B2 indicate a third-century CE occupation, extending into the early fourth century. The texts described below support this picture, and may provide a few clues to a more specific range. Regnal year 1 appears in text 13 (O.Trim. 1.200); this does little to narrow the options, but it is unlikely that it is to be attributed to any regnal year later than that of Diocletian (284/5). The reference appears in an ostrakon set in a mud jar-stopper found in a level of occupational debris. (Text 11, also from Area 1, O.Trim. 1.101, mentions a year 4, but comes from surface cleaning and can be no help in this regard.) Text 8 below (O.Trim. 1.36), excavated from just outside the house, has a ratio (i.e., price) of 20 drachmas per artaba, which indicates a date prior to 275 CE. Text 9 below (O.Trim. 1.51), an account from the exterior courtyard (C2A), includes a number of references to the honorific month-name Hadrianos, which does not appear in the corpus of published papyri much after c. 244 CE.2↩#p2790
However, several of the texts from House B2 date to periods extending into the fourth century. The fourth-century material from House B1, elsewhere in Trimithis, produces a number of Christian names, including Ionas, Mouses, and Makarios, and attests to several deacons and priests. The apparent lack of biblical names from House B2 strongly suggests that its material predates that of House B1, reinforcing a sense that its fourth-century habitation did not extend too far into the century. Text 7 below (O.Trim. 1.26), an account from House B2, presents a complicating factor. Its reference to a Bêkis διάκων, or deacon, implies an ecclesiastical hierarchy at Trimithis while this house was still occupied. Such casual use of Christian titles is not found in documentary papyri before the early fourth century.3 The text in question comes from a secure context near the house floor, giving our most secure indication of the period of the house’s final occupation phase.↩#p2791
Area 1 produced two examples of the jar tags so common from elsewhere at Trimithis, giving a personal name, a date, and a place. The first of these tags, text 13 (O.Trim. 1.200), was found intact in a mud jar-stopper in House B2’s room 3, presumably serving as a label for the goods contained in the jar itself. Thus, its reference to Psais the donkey-driver and Magdola may indicate the jar’s geographic origin (perhaps a nearby or well-known watch-tower) and the person responsible for its delivery, or its ultimately intended recipient. This practice is by no means specific to Trimithis: ostraka serving a similar purpose have been found in abundance from third and fourth century Kellis, and outside of the oasis, in substantial number from first century CE Berenike. The jar stopper from room 3 was found underneath roof collapse on a floor layer, which indicates that it derives from a secure context. The other tag, text 11 (O.Trim. 1.101), is from elsewhere in Area 1. If correctly restored, it is similar to the well tags found in abundance in House B1 in pre-construction dumped debris. Those texts, published in O.Trim. 1, indicated the origin of goods, probably as a payment from a tenant farmer at a well or agricultural area near that well to someone in Trimithis, presumably the owner of the well or property. This second tag, which comes only from surface clearing of Area 1, is somewhat different: it records the name of a misthotês or contractor, perhaps in this case someone handling the well on behalf of a large-scale landowner.↩#p2792
The places named in the House B2 texts overlap with those from texts elsewhere at Trimithis. The ostraka from House B2 include several payments to and perhaps from outlying agricultural sites named after regional water-wells, indicated by the formula “pmoun (well) + place-name.” Two wells named in House B2 ostraka appear in other Trimithis texts. Pmoun Harau appears both in texts from the House B1 villa and the Area 4 temple site. Pmoun Osire appears as Pmoun Osirios in an ostrakon found under windblown sand at House B1. Ostraka 1.22 and 1.101 from Area 1 also name the well Εμβ(ωο), which is not attested so far in other Trimithite material, but may be the same as the well Enbo[ attested from House B1. Pmoun Osire/Osirios, which appears with Pmoun Emb( ) in 1.22, also appears in House B1 ostrakon 1.155 with Pmoun Pso, one of the most frequently attested well names in Trimithite texts. This may suggest that these two Pmouns were near Pso, itself in turn perhaps a major well close to Trimithis. In short, the texts from Area 1 not only add to our knowledge of Oasis toponyms, but also confirm that the inhabitants of this house had ties to sites appearing elsewhere in the city’s economic networks.↩#p2793
All evidence indicates that House B2 and the people of Area 1 more generally were connected to these sites through the transport and shipping of agricultural estate goods. The complete lack of any personal documents from the area, aside from the doodles in text 21, narrows our perspective considerably. We lack, for instance, any personal letters shedding light on the non-business affairs of the house inhabitants. What remains is loaded with accounting terminology, particularly units of measure, familiar from the Kellis Agricultural Account Book (KAB) and elsewhere. An account of loads (text 4 = O.Trim. 1.22) delivered from (?) the well of Pmoun Emb( ) and from Pmoun Osire lists loads of 4, 15 and 22 gomoi. Another house account (text 2 = O.Trim. 1.20) mention payments in maria, a unit attested in the ostraka from House B1 and from texts elsewhere in the Oasis, but hardly ever found in the Nile Valley. A surface find account from Area 1 (text 1 = O.Trim. 1.1) mentions payments in maria as well. Another account (text 6 = O.Trim. 1.26), the largest from the house itself, records payments from seven different people, six of whom pay more than once. The payments are varied, from a single keramion to 18 keramia and from 1 to 22 choes of oil.4↩#p2794
These figures are not inconsiderable. If the loads in account 1.22 were turnips, as the measure is used the Kellis account book, we do not know how large they may have been. If the loads were hay or chaff, they would have weighed 80, 300 and 440 kilograms respectively. No ostraka from House B1 use gomoi as a unit of measurement, but 440 kilograms of hay or chaff is a heavy load. The amounts recorded in the account from House B2 would have been one donkey-load, four donkey-loads and six donkey-loads respectively.5 The payments in maria in the surface find account 1 amount to a range from 10.8 to 540 liters of wine. These amounts are presumably business-related. The assumption must be that the transport of 440 kilograms of wheat was part of the business of the house, not for domestic consumption. House B2 was likely to have been in a neighborhood of people working in related fields; the 540 liters of wine referenced in the surface find are likewise not likely to have been intended for the private use of a house in this neighborhood. Indeed, the wide street layout complements this suggestion.↩#p2795
The physical remains of House B2 suggest inhabitants of lower-middle social strata, particularly compared to those of the large House B1. The occupations attested in the House B2 ostraka confirm that impression. Two texts in very similar hands from House B2 have linen-weavers in them (texts 2 and 3 = O.Trim. 1.20 and 1.21); those from House B1 have none. House B2 has two camel-drivers (texts 2 and 3); House B1 has only one, Syros, on an ostrakon found in backfill. House B2 appears to have two donkey-drivers (texts 4 and 13 = O.Trim. 1.22 and 1.200); House B1 has none. Whether the figure (Pse( )?) in House B2 is a tailor or a teamster (text 3), House B1 has neither. The prominence of what may be termed service-industry occupations in House B2 is all the more striking when we consider that excavations found an order of magnitude more ostraka in House B1 than in House B2.↩#p2796
The appearance of these texts in an essentially domestic context has interesting implications for use of space in late antique Egypt. It seems clear that to some degree, the residents of House B2 took their work home with them. The account of doum on an unbaked clay tablet (text 6 = O.Trim. 1.24) found in room 7 supports this interpretation: this unusual find was either meant to be too bulky — and thus too important — to misplace, or meant to provide an easy way to erase and restart work in progress. We also see a convergence between the textual and material remains. The presence in the house’s room 3 of archaeological material related to textile/clothing manufacture may be related to the textual evidence for linen-weavers. These finds include a loom-weight, a textile fragment, a hammerstone, a piece of wood with two holes that was probably used for linen-production, and a polishing stone. The top floor level of room 6 produced a palm-reed object proposed to be part of a basket for carrying loads of goods on a donkey.6 Room 1, which produced the plurality of the house’s Greek ostraka, contained several complete pots and jar stoppers. Its texts record payments in maria. This presumably indicated wine. But the jar stoppers themselves, belonging to the so-called Type F (see Davoli, this volume), were not pierced, and thus sealed liquids which were no longer fermenting. Taking all of this evidence together, we can see that both the written material documenting this house’s involvement in the transport business and physical remains potentially related to that business itself are attested in the archaeological record.↩#p2797
The presence of this written material implies that a certain level of literacy was needed for the business affairs of some of the residents. The ostraka from Area 1 attest to perhaps as many as 46 different people.7 Because the texts from the house itself generally record either payments going out to a range of different people or coming in from other areas, e.g., nearby wells, there is no way to associate any personal names with the residents of the house itself. Perhaps they are to be found in one of the anonymous camel- or donkey-drivers in the texts. (Camels, uncommon in earlier Egyptian history, are a standard part of Roman Egypt. Bagnall’s study of the introduction of the camel noted that “we find the camel already well-established in Egypt in the middle of the third century B.C.” Throughout this period, donkeys had “a more important role” in the Nile Valley, while the camel “was dominant in the cross-desert trade,” relevant to the business at stake in Trimithis.8) With the exception of texts 2 and 3, which come from similar hands, there is no obvious reason to identify any of the texts as being the work of the same scribe. If none of the residents of House B2 were themselves the authors of the texts, they must have either had reason to store these texts for future use or had several scribes in their home on a regular basis. Assuming the former more likely, we may picture the residents of this house as middle-men; written documentation accompanies the grain, wine, and other products they transport or handle. Strikingly, there is not a single woman recorded in the Greek-language material from Area 1. This is a sharp contrast to the House B1 ostraka, which mention a wife (O.Trim. 1.89), a lady (1.304) and a lady of the house five times (1.249, 1.250, 1.273, 1.314 and 1.324). This suggests that in the lower social register of House B2, women were less exposed to and less involved in the production of literate remains.↩#p2798
Most of the names found in these texts are based on Amoun, Horus, and Shai, popular gods in the Oasis in the Roman period. At least 18 of the names from Area 1 are of this variety.9 This pattern holds for the Trimithites in ostraka found elsewhere on site as well. Names based on Thoth, the central Trimithite deity, are more popular here than in House B1, appearing at least three times in the form of Pathotes and twice as Hermes or a related form. The rest of the onomastic corpus includes variants for other Egyptian deities (Sarapas and Sarapion) and more standard Greek names (Korax,10 Syros). The demotic texts include a proper name with the element Ws|i, for Osiris, and a daughter of Tephnachthis (DNB 1232).↩#p2799
Akula, for the Latin Aquila (“eagle”), is the most unusual name in the ostraka from Area 1, appearing at the end of text 1, an account found during surface clearing. As a Roman proper name, Aquila would seem to more at home with Valerius or Claudia, names attested in House B1. Here, the name appears in an account of wine payments, the longest text from Area 1, which ends with the phrase ἔσχονἀπὸἈκύλα, “I got from Aquila.” The entry is followed immediately by a single line with a date different from the other entries in the account, which may mean that Aquila is unrelated to the rest of the text. Alternatively, we may propose that the author is an estate manager making payments of wine on behalf of a large estate owner, and Aquila himself is the ultimate source of the wine he pays out.↩#p2800
The sums in this account suggest a large-estate context. 50 maria of wine, the largest amount listed here, is an outlier by Oasis standards. No amount of maria higher than 19 appears in the Trimithis ostraka from House B1 and none higher than 33 appears in the KAB.11 This entry shows that someone associated with Aquila was paying 540 liters of wine to Geron son of Pamoun, and listing the payment as only one, albeit the largest by far, among three others that day. An Aquila also appears as the father of the estate owner in the KAB. The KAB dates to the third quarter of the fourth century (at which time Aquila is only a patronymic and may not have been alive) and our text from an undatable surface find. On this basis alone we cannot hazard an identification between the two men named Aquila or connect the Kellis account book directly to House B2.↩#p2801
However, the other large account from Area 1 (text 7 = O.Trim. 1.26) was found just inside the entrance to that house, and clearly suggests connections between the house and a large estate of some kind. This text is the account argued above to be from the house’s final layer of occupation, perhaps in the early fourth century CE. Its seven payments – all presumably of oil, although specified as such in only one entry – in keramia and choes include six people who make additional payments. These payments appear in entries typically recorded as “for extra” (ὑπ(ὲρ) προσθήκ(ης)), a formula particularly rare in the documentary records of Greco-Roman Egypt. The first two entries are typical:↩#p2802
In the first entry, Samos makes two payments hyper prosthêkês amounting to 1/9th the size of his original payment (two payments of one keramion each versus an original payment of 18 keramia). In the second entry, Bekis makes one payment hyper prosthêkês the same size as his original payment, 32 choes. From entries this sparse, it is not easy to tell what the “extra” payment is for.↩#p2803
Prosthêkê generally refers to an addition or increase, but parallels to its usage in this ostrakon are elusive. A fourth century Hermopolite tax receipt records a tenant of Aurelia Charite in arrears for the kanonika commuting the amount in cash with an extra 25% described as prosthêkê.12 Johnson and West took this to refer to a tax supercharge, “probably a superindiction,” and provided further parallels in sixth century Hermopolis and Aphrodito.13 The closest parallel to our text seems to be P.Prag. II 139 (V), a Hermopolite tax document in which the phrase records what the editor took to be a series of rent increases.14Lines 4 and 5 of that text may refer to the same farmer. In that case, the prosthêkê would be 75 artabas of grain, one-third an initial payment of 225 artaba of grain. The precision of those figures would seem to support the interpretation of the term as a rent increase. Nonetheless, the context is not entirely clear, and the editor’s commentary on prosthêkê notes the unusual presence of a term better suited for a tax account.↩#p2804
In our Trimithis account, there is no reason to think that either a rent increase or taxes of any kind are at stake. The primary payments may well be for rent, but the supplemental payments are less likely to be for rent increases than rent arrears or future payments. The most suggestive example in this regard is the payment noted above by Bêkis son of Psais, in which the extra payment (ὑπ(ὲρ) προσθήκ(ης)) is the same size as the original payment itself, 32 choes. The possibility that a rent increase is at stake would seem to be eliminated by the inconsistency in the size of the prosthêkê from one entry to the next. No apparent pattern in the ratio between payments and supplements can be seen to clarify the matter; the prosthêkê payments are 1/9th, one whole, 1/5th, 1/10th and 2/15ths the size of the initial payments respectively. We can only conclude that the house served as a collection point for payments from locals who were being charged some sort of additional levy, perhaps at varying rates depending on circumstance.↩#p2805
As already noted, neither this account nor any of the other texts can help with the exact identity of the owner of the house. No names repeat or receive specific address in any of the ostraka. Nonetheless, two hypotheses emerge regarding the identity of the house owner. Given the nature of the texts, property management is clearly at stake. Perhaps we are dealing with an estate manager. The likelihood that someone in this house could read and/or write supports this possibility. But the KAB alone suggests that an estate manager would produce more written material than we find here. Perhaps we are dealing with some sort of sub-manager or assistant (boêthos) instead. Alternatively, and more probably, given the archaeological context, we may be dealing with someone in the transportation industry. We might then suppose that the house served as a social intersection of sorts, with an estate manager or assistant in contact with or perhaps even visiting the house residents to ensure continued delivery and correct accounting of the items listed in these accounts.↩#p2806
The house’s location on the widest street that has been identified in Trimithis, and apparently the only street in the city wide enough for the easy use of transportation carts, reinforces the impression of its role as a collection point and transportation destination. The reference in one text to delivered shipments (the items παραδοθ(έντα) in text 4) and reference to oil, the classic estate product, in the text mentioning additional charges (text 7), again suggests that property management is at stake. If these texts are contemporary – and stratigraphy suggests they are – then the presence of multiple toponyms suggests that we are dealing with an estate of some size, or at least one divided into multiple parcels. For agriculture in the Oasis to have been profitable, levels of production must have been high. A large percentage of the population of Trimithis was likely given over to producing goods and transporting them, from the pmouns to the city and then from the city on to the Nile Valley. House B2 may thus represent what we can expect to find throughout the city in structures of comparable social register.↩#p2807
To summarize, the texts from Area 1 highlight one segment of Trimithite society in the third and early fourth centuries CE. The names of the people attested in Area 1 are similar in etymology and frequency to those of people attested in House B1 and throughout the Oasis. We have little reason to imagine that the residents of our house were atypical or different from other Trimithites. Their economic trademarks are texts summarizing payments and deliveries related to manual labor, transportation, and the manufacture of clothing. This presumably indicates that the inhabitants of House B2 were among the lower social strata of Trimithis, active in one or more of these industries. At the very least, their day-to-day business put them in frequent contact with the donkey-drivers and camel-drivers of Trimithis. But the amount of goods appearing in Area 1 accounts suggests that the house inhabitants and others in their neighborhood were involved in rather large transactions, perhaps receiving shipments and making payments from those shipments on behalf of local large estates. Indeed, the house’s uniformity with respect to nearby structures – all built of a piece at roughly the same time – suggests that this house was typical for its neighborhood.↩#p2808
As almost always with texts of this kind, Area 1’s ostraka raise more questions than they answer. It is striking that the house’s activities seem to cease in the fourth century, while the house excavated at Area 2 was built only well into that century. The number of well-tags found in fill in Area 2 implies a considerable need for the sorts of shipping activities we image taking place in House B2. We can only assume that many people in the city must have been engaged in these activities. Further excavations in Area 1 will undoubtedly uncover more texts similar to those presented here. If the entire neighborhood proves to have fallen empty early in the fourth century, as surface survey suggests, we would have to suppose that other neighborhoods in Trimithis were full of households active in the fields of transport and crafts. The fact that the house at Area 1 shows signs of quick abandonment suggests that the factors depressing the neighborhood took rather sudden effect.↩#p2809
Why one such neighborhood should fail while another should survive is for now only a matter for sheer speculation. Textual finds from future excavations may give us hints. Toponyms may prove a fruitful harvest, particularly if a larger sample size of well-names from Area 1 produces toponyms substantially different from those mentioned in Area 2. With so much of the local economy dependent on well-driven agricultural produce, the failure of one or two major wells in the outlying areas of Trimithis could well affect the fortunes of neighborhoods in the city itself. The apparent abandonment of one such neighborhood is at the least a reminder that cities are constantly in the process of change. On the one hand, in the case of House B2 this change came in roughly the same period when Trimithis was being elevated from the legal status of a village to a full-fledged city.15 On the other hand, the time was not too far distant when the entire city would fall abandoned and its population would relocate elsewhere in the Oasis.↩#p2810
Locations
All ostraka are currently stored in the Supreme Council of Antiquities magazine at Kellis.↩#p2811
Dating: Roman; ed.pr. dates the text to IV. A 4th century date is supported by the appearance in this text of Aquila, a rare name attested in the Kellis Agricultural Account Book as a patronymic in the 360s. However, the ceramics from this locus are all 3rd century.↩#p2818
Description: 11 line Greek wine account on concave side. Names include Sarapion son of Horos (twice), Horos son of Pathotes, Geron son of Pamoun, Horos son of Akysis, Horos the donkey-driver, Herak( ), Ammonios son of Philiskos, Psenamounis son of Pathotes, and Aquila.↩#p2820
Dating: The ed.pr. assigns a date of ca. 300–350. Since this text comes from the same room and is in a similar hand as text no. 3 below, perhaps the more generous range of Ca. 240–340 indicated there should be preferred here as well. The archaeological context of the text is secure.↩#p2827
Description: Two lines of Greek on the convex side recording payments to a camel-driver and Hermesias the linenweaver. The latter appears in O.Trim. 1.388, no. 15 below.↩#p2829
Parallels: The hand is very similar to that of inv. 3406 (=O.Trim. 1.21, no. 3 below), but they do not belong to the same sherd.↩#p2830
Dating: The ed.pr. assigns a date of ca. 240–340. This adopts termini from what appear to be the latest and earliest texts from the area, nos. 7 and 9 respectively (although at text no. 7, 350 is given as the outer range rather than 340). The archaeological context of this text is windblown sand, and therefore not secure.↩#p2837
Description: 8 lines of Greek on convex side. An account of disbursements records, under the heading of Pmoun (Well) Harau, payments to three men, including a camel-driver, and one place. Cf. no. 15.2 above.↩#p2839
Parallels: Cf. no. 15.2 above, a similar type of account.↩#p2840
Dating: The ed.pr. assigns a date of ca. 300–350. This text employs the redundant hydreuma pmoun formula found frequently in ostraka from Area 2 and typically dating to the fourth century rather than the third. However, the more generous range of ca. 240–350 given in, e.g., no. 15.3 above may be appropriate here as well. The ceramic fragments from this text’s context tend to be third century; the deposition is occupational debris, and of variable security.↩#p2847
Description: 4 line Greek account on convex side. Mentions loads to or from the well of Pmoun Emb(ôou) and of Pmoun Osire, and perhaps mentions a donkey-driver.↩#p2849
Parallels: Contrast no. 15.3 above, where the account explicitly states that payments are heading to the Pmoun in question.↩#p2850
Dating: The ed.pr. assigns a date of ca. 300–350; for this range, see the notes on dating for text no. 15.4 above. Since DSU 48 is wall and ceiling collapse, and the object itself is an unfired tablet, the text likely belongs later in the datable range.↩#p2867
Description: Five incised lines of a Greek account of doum. Names include Syros son of Herma(mmon?), Psenamounis son of Nilos and Psenamounis son of Ammonios.↩#p2869
Parallels: As a text written on unbaked clay, this object has very few parallels. One, O.Trim. 1.62, comes from elsewhere in Trimithis. Two others come from nearby Kellis, including P.Bingen 116, the only text on unbaked clay from Greco-Roman Egypt published before this find. No examples of this phenomenon are known from the Roman period in the Nile Valley, yet parallels closer to home, in the Dakhla Oasis itself, go back as far as the Old Kingdom finds at Balat. This text thus seems to represent some sort of local phenomenon of writing on unbaked clay. Why one would choose to do this is not obvious, given the sheer number of ostraka ready to use throughout the site. Perhaps clay tablets were attractive for their reusability once smoothed out and the previous text erased. Alternatively, given their bulkiness, maybe they were reserved for texts somehow seen as more important, not to be misplaced. All four known examples are accounts. O.Trim. 1.62, the other example from Trimithis, records expenses “to the god… to the president… [and] for the festival,” which may suggest that the text was important enough to avoid misplacing. ↩#p2870
Dating: Ca. 315–350; see commentary to ed.pr., where it is stated, “the appearance of the term [diakôn] here provides an indication for the date of the texts from House B2.”↩#p2877
Dating: Ca. 240–275. A wheat price of 20 dr. per art. indicates a date before 275 CE but later than the price rises of the later second century. For a proposed terminus post quem of ca. 240 for these texts, see the note on dating for the text no. 9 below.↩#p2886
Condition: Incomplete. Broken at upper left and bottom (convex surface), but uncertain if elsewhere. Convex surface turning to powder; concave surface cracking.↩#p2887
Description: A Greek account written with three lines on both sides. Account names Serenos, Myron, and a donkey-driver.↩#p2888
Dating: Ed.pr. dates the text to ca. 200–250; the text employs the honorific month name “Hadrianos,” which has not been attested with certainty after 244 CE. This date supplies the terminus (ca. 240) used as the earliest likely point for the bulk of the texts catalogued herein for Area 1.↩#p2895
“... Philom( ): Hathyr 29, 2 art. of wheat, 2 mat. of barley. Hadrianos 6, 5 art. of wheat... 4 mat. of barley. (Hadrianos) 15, 3 art. of wheat, 8 mat. (Hadrianos) 20, 5 art. of wheat, ... of barley... (margin: Philom( )): (Hadrianos) 29, 2 art. of wheat. Tybi 5, 2 art. of wheat... likewise, 3 matia. Petosiris gn( ? ): Hathyr 25, 2 art. of barley, likewise 1 art. Hadrianos 3 . . . [Hadrianos?] 9, 5 art. of wheat. (Hadrianos) 18, 6 art. of wheat, 2 mat. Tybi 3, 5 art. of wheat... ↩#p2899
“Psenamounis son of Harpaesis: Hadrianos 10, 4 art. of wheat, 1 mat. (Hadrianos) 16, ... art. of wheat... 4 art. of wheat. Tybi 11, 4 ½ art. of barley.↩#p2900
“Petosiris son of Pe( ). Hadrianos 12, 7 art. of wheat, 2 mat., 3 mat. of barley... (Hadrianos?) 23, 4 art. of wheat, 3 mat. of barley. (Month?) 16, 10 art. of wheat, 4 mat., 4 ½ art. of barley... Pt( ): 13 ½ art. of wheat.”↩#p2901
“Hathyr 26, 6 art. of wheat. Hadrianos 12, 6 art. of wheat. (Hadrianos?) 26, 2 art. of wheat, 4 ½ art. of barley. [Month] 15, 3 art. of wheat. Horos son of Petech( ), 4 art. of wheat, 2 ½ art. of barley... 2 ½ art. of barley... likewise 4 mat. of barley... 1 mat.”↩#p2903
Dating: Ed.pr. assigns the text’s date as 285/286 (?), taking the “year 2” mentioned in the text to be Diocletian’s second regnal year. Since the text comes from the same SU as O.Trim. 1.51, no. 9 above, which probably dates no later than the 240s, it is possible that this text could date to the mid-third century. However, no well tags from Trimithis have to date been conclusively shown to predate Diocletian.↩#p2910
Dating: Ed.pr. assigns a date of 287/288 (?), taking the “year 4” mentioned in the text to be Diocletian’s fourth regnal year. As a surface find, this text has no archaeological context to support such precision. The date is assigned by (a) the argument adduced in Text 10 above, that no well tags from Trimithis demonstrably predate Diocletian, and (b) the absence of any palaeographical signs of an earlier date.↩#p2919
Description: A four-line Greek well tag written on the concave side. Reads: “Pmoun of Emboo( ), Ammonios son of Pathotes, misthotês, 4th year.” The misthotês is probably a large-scale contractor, perhaps of the well in question, rather than a retail-level lessee.↩#p2921
Dating: Ed.pr. gives a date of ca. 240–350. This is based on the upper and lower dates of the texts found in Area 1 more generally; see the dating notes to text no. 15.7 and no. 15.9 above. The only other text from Area 1.2 more specifically can be dated to ca. 240–275; see text no. 15.8 above.↩#p2928
Dating: Ed.pr. assigns a date of “284/5? Or 357/8?” The former possibility takes the “year 1” mentioned in the text to be Diocletian’s first regnal year; the latter possibility is one option were an indictional year meant instead of a regnal year. While the text could predate Diocletian, there is no emperor between Diocletian and the 350s whose regnal “year 1” came when he was senior emperor.↩#p2937
Description: A two-line Greek tag set in a mud jar-stopper, reading “1st year, Magdola, Psais the donkey-driver.” Magdola is presumably a watch-tower.↩#p2939
Condition: Broken at left, right and bottom.↩#p2965
Description: 2 lines Demotic and part of a third, contents unidentifiable; line 2 is crossed out. On the concave side, a couple of letters, perhaps Greek. On the convex side, the remains of the upper line read Wsir, “Osiris”, probably preceded by r or perhaps s3 (“son of”). In the latter case, “Osiris” must be the beginning of a proper name.↩#p2966
Condition: Broken at top and left, perhaps at right.↩#p2974
Description: On concave side, one line of Demotic. On convex side, apparently Greek letters scattered over the surface in no evident lines or continuous text; perhaps a writing exercise.↩#p2975
Description: 4 lines of Demotic. The second line reads ] Sr.t(?) v#j=f-nXt.ß.t which means “daughter of Tephnachthis” or else it forms part of a compound name such as *P#-Sr-t#-Sr.t- t#j=f-nXt.ß.t *Psensentephnachthis. The second half of the first line can hardly be anything else but p3j=f, “his”, but if so it is strange that the scribe left the rest of the line blank and continued in the second line (now lost). The last line is still completely mysterious.↩#p2984
Description: Convex side: parts of 3 lines of Demotic. Concave side: 2 unidentified lines (Greek ?). Convex: In the second line, read perhaps … |w=f xr-Dr.t … “he is (or circumstantial: he being) under the supervision of”. Although this is a reasonable reading and translation, the lacunae do not permit any certainty about this.↩#p3002
7 This count includes patronyms. The Bekis listed without a patronymic may be one of the others appearing herein. Likewise for the Psais and Horos appearing without patronymics. Pse[ may be a Psenamounis from elsewhere in these texts. Psenamounis son of Pa[ may be Psenamounis son of Pathotes.
8 Bagnall 1985:1-6, with quotes from page 3, 4 and 6. See Kuhrt 1999 for an argument in favor of a much earlier introduction of the camel into Egypt, perhaps even before the seventh century BCE.
10 This may be a translation of the Egyptian name Ἀβωκ (DNB 96), but this name has not to date appeared in any documents from the Great Oasis.
11 Most of the entries in the Kellis account book are for a single marion. The two largest, for 33 maria and 20 maria, appear in lines 916 and 1700 respectively.
13 Johnson and West 241–242, discussing SPP 20.94 = P.Charite 14 (326–327 CE?). Worp’s commentary to the re-edition in P.Charite follows Johnson and West on prosthêkê.
14 The phrase also appears a series of eighth-century tax receipt ostraka, O.Petr. 464, 465, and 467.
