Account of Phoibammon for building expenses

Abstract

The papyrus is incomplete, the bottom is missing. Traces of a few faded letters of a previous text are recognizable e.g. in l. 2. The hand is a rather practiced semi-cursive, which can be compared to P.Prag. I 45 (522), P.Oxy. LXXII 4913 (462) and P.Oxy. LXVIII 4700 (504). These parallels support a date to the second half of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century. The Coptic l. 11 appears to have been written with slightly larger and heavier letters, yet the extant text does not offer adequate basis for telling whether a different scribe was involved, or whether the same scribe is using a different graphic style. Double oblique strokes are employed to divide units in the account. The back is blank. The papyrus preserves the account of Phoibammon for expenses paid to the carpenter(s) (l. 6–9), for a window (l. 11), and for unknown purposes in the months of Phamenoth and Pharmouthi. The scribe started with registering three keratia up to Phamenoth 28, followed by a fourth on an unknown day of Phamenoth (l. 9), which he indicated also by adding l. 5 to the title, and then he continued with three extra entries in Pharmouthi. The second line, which was also added subsequently, might sum up ll. 10–12, in which case the account is complete, or it might constitute an extra entry. The most remarkable feature of this account is the insertion of one item (ϩⲓ ϣⲱϣⲧ l. 11) in Coptic, which also breaks the organization principle of the lines (date fi rst). This unusual example of bilingualism within a text may result from the scribe not knowing the Greek word for window. A parallel case is P.Leid. Inst. XXV 79 (7th cent.) [...]