Greek papyri in the British Museum : catalogue with texts PDF
Preview Greek papyri in the British Museum : catalogue with texts
BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henry W. Sage _ 1891 KiZJaZ* X^VvnIv^ 1357 PA 3304.BM1 U"iVerSi,y Ubrary 3 1924 022 695 104 DATE DUE ~IN^TEBUSEL&BY LO;^N GAYLORD PRINTEDINU.S.A. »'1«lM|Hf The book original of this is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924022695104 GREEK PAPYRI IN THE MUSEUM BRITISH CATALOGUE, WITH TEXTS EDITED BY KENYON, F. G. M.A., D.Litt. ASSISTANT KEEPER OF MANUSCRIPTS H. BELL, M.A. I. ASSISTANT IN THE DEPARTMENT OF MANUSCRIPTS VOL. PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES SOLD AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM And by Longmans and Co., 39 Paternoster Row B. Quaritch, 15 Piccadilly; Asher and Co., 13 Bedford Street, Covent Garden and Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press Warehouse, Ameji Corner London 1907 [All rights reserved] OXFORD HORACE HART : PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY — PREFACE PHE present volume of the Catalogue of Papyri deals with the acquisitions made by the * Department between the middle of 1895 and the end of 1903. During the greater part of this period, however, nearly all the documents acquired had been previously published Papp. 482-603 in Prof. Mahaffy's Flinders Petrie Papyri, Papp. 605-650, 654-680, and 688-731 by Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt in their Greek Papyri, parts i and ii, and Papp. 739-834 by the same editors in their Oxyrhynchus Papyri, parts i and ii, and Fayum Towns and their Papyri. It was not until the purchase of some large collections in 1901 and 1903 that sufficient materials A were in hand for the preparation of a third volume of the Catalogue. portion of these collections, consisting of documents belonging to the eighth century after Christ, discovered at Kom Ishgau (the ancient Aphrodito), is reserved for a separate volume, which it is hoped may be published before very long. The volume of texts is accompanied, as before, by an atlas of facsimiles, containing 100 plates. Of these, twelve represent the Ptolemaic period, fifty-two the Roman, sixteen the Early Byzantine, fifteen the Late Byzantine, and five the Aphrodito papyri of the eighth century. — CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ill INTRODUCTION v ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA vu TABLE OF PAPYRI IX ....•• TEXTS:— A. Ptolemaic Period l B. Roman Period: i. The Census 23 2. Taxation • 32 3. Registers and Miscellaneous Official Documents . 7° 4. Petitions I29 5. Sales and Leases z35 6. Receipts l67 4 7. Loans ............••••• 8. Accounts *77 9. Letters 205 10. Miscellaneous 214 — C. Early Byzantine Period: 1. Official Documents 224 2. Contracts ................. 230 Accounts 236 3. • 4. Letters. 241 — D. Late Byzantine Period: 1. Official Documents ... 245 2. Contracts 253 3. Receipts.....................272 4. Private Documents and Letters . . .278 5. Hymns 284 ............... INDICES:— 1. Index of Subjects 287 2. Index of Proper Names 288 3. Index of Kings and Emperors 329 4. Index of Officials 334 5. Index of Places 337 6. Index of Months 342 7. Index of Taxes 343 8. Index of Symbols and Abbreviations 344 9. Index of Words • • • 351 APPENDIX. CORRIGENDA TO VOL. II s8l INTRODUCTION THE plan of the present volume is on the same lines as that of its predecessor. The reasons for it were explained in the introduction to that volume but in one respect ; a further explanation is necessary. It is undoubtedly an inconvenience that the texts do not follow one another in numerical sequence and although practically the time taken in looking ; first at the numerical table and then turning at once to the precise page is not much greater than that taken in finding the required text among a numbered series of documents of very A unequal length, a numerical arrangement would certainly be preferable. more serious objec- tion arises with regard to the indices, in which it would be much more convenient to be able to give references to the lines of the papyrus than to the pages of the volume. The difficulty has hitherto been that before the appearance of each volume of the Catalogue the inventory of the papyri contained in it has appeared in the periodical catalogues of accessions to the Department of Manuscripts, and the papyri having been known and quoted by those numbers it would produce confusion if they were then republished under other numbers. This difficulty has not arisen in the case of other collections, since no other Museum has published its inventory, so that their papyri are known only by their numbers in the publications in which they are given to the world. It would appear, however, that the advantage of the publication of the inventory is more than counterbalanced by the disadvantages which it entails in the volumes of the Catalogue of Papyri, and it has been decided to make a change in future. In the new volume of the Catalogue ofAccessions to theDepartment ofManuscripts (1907), the inventory of papyri is given in a much abbreviated form, without descriptions of individual documents. On the other hand, the next volume of the Catalogue of Papyri will take up the numeration where the present volume leaves it, and the texts will be printed in numerical order, as in the similar publications of other collections. The texts printed in the present volume, 248 in number, are of the usual miscellaneous character. As in the preceding volume, they are classified first by periods and then by sub- jects. The Ptolemaic papyri include a considerable series of contracts from Pathyris (Gebelen), akin to those which have been published already. Among the documents of the Roman period, the most noticeable are the registers relating to customs-receipts (pp. 40-47), the two long land- registers of a.d. 47 (pp. 70-87), the list of persons assigned to the duty of furnishing various supplies for an impending visit of the Prefect (p. 112), the group of texts from Antinoopolis which give information as to the organization of that town in tribes and demes (pp. 154-167), the accounts of the commissioners of waterworks (pp. 180-190), the accounts of Heroninus (pp. 193-205), the short letter describing a voyage up the Nile (p. 205), and (the most novel of all) the diploma of membership in a famous athletic club, conferred at the great games at VI INTRODUCTION Naples and confirmed at Sardis (pp. 214-219). The Byzantine documents have no very special or unusual feature, but are of some legal and economic interest. With regard to the provenance of the various documents, internal evidence is the only guide. With the exception of a few papyri from Oxyrhynchus (presented by the Egypt Exploration Fund, but not printed in Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt's volumes), all came through the hands of dealers, and documents from the Fayum and Upper Egypt were indiscriminately mixed together. A large proportion comes from Hermopolis, including a considerable group of well-preserved papyri relating to a single family (see p. 29). The pressure of other official work has made it impossible to attempt to give any detailed commentary ; but this is perhaps not wholly a disadvantage. With the great increase of documents and of special knowledge it is becoming increasingly evident that each group of texts must be studied by the appro- — priate specialists the jurists, the economists, the linguists, and so on and that the duty of ; the first editor of a miscellaneous collection is to provide texts as sound as his skill and time allow him to make them, with such a minimum of commentary as may facilitate a first appreciation of them and call attention to their chief points of interest. The preparation of the present volume has been shared between Mr. Bell and myself. The sheets of it have been seen by Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt, who made many valuable suggestions and corrections, most of which (at their own request) are not separately acknow- ledged. In addition, Dr. Grenfell re-examined several of the papyri relating to taxation (in connexion with his forthcoming volume of Tebtunis papyri), and contributed some amended readings, which appear (with the initial G) among the ' Addenda et Corrigenda.' Further help on certain points has been received from Mr. F. LI. Griffith and Mr. W. E. Crum. For this assistance the thanks of the editors and the readers of these texts is due to the gentlemen named. F. G. K.
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