Greek Petition
This papyrus preserves a plea for help addressed to the authorities,
a type of texts called petitions in scholarship (not to be confused with modern
signature collections). Some priests working in the necropolises of Thebes are
harassed by local administrators: the latter have started to demand higher
payments from them, ignoring the privileges to which they have been entitled
since time immemorial. The priests have no choice but to write to the governor
of Thebes’s region, asking for his intervention. They obtain what they looked
for: Phommous, the governor, obliges the local administration to stop demanding
undue payments, because one should respect the old customs.
Graeco-Roman Period (332 BC-565 AD)
Ptolemaic Period (305-30 BC)
Ptolemy IX (Soter II) - 1st Reign
Thebes (?)
Acquisition: Drovetti, Bernardino
Acquisition Date: 1824
l.1-3 To Phommous, kinsman and epistrategos and strategos of the Thebaid, from Osoroeris and the other (pastophoroi) of Amenophis in the Memnoneia.
l.3-6 As we are offended in no proportionate way and are extorted by Isidoros, who is responsible for the oikonomia of the Pathyrite (nome), we have taken refuge with you in order to obtain help.
l.6-11 Indeed, considering that the abovementioned Isidoros attempts to exact from us as a punishment undue payments, transgressing what has already been ordered long ago by the most great kings, i.e. not to change anything, l.11-14 we ask you, if it seems right, to order to write to whomever appropriate that nothing is exacted from us and that we are not annoyed, so that being unhindered we can devote ourselves to our occupations.
l.14-15 And this having happened, we will have obtained justice.
l.16 Farewell.
l.17 To Hermocles.
l.17-19 Take care that those charged with the matters neither change something nor exact payment, against the old customs, from the abovementioned pastophoroi.
l.20 Year 6, Pauni 11.
Lavinia Ferretti (LF)
greek
Petition, Administrative text
document, choachyt
Pathyrite nome (Gebelein), Thebes (niw.t), Djeme (TAy-mAa)
Graeco-Roman Period (332 BC-565 AD)
Ptolemaic Period (305-30 BC)
Ptolemy IX (Soter II) - 1st Reign
No
---
A. Peyron, Papyri graeci Regii Taurinensis Musei Aegyptii, Turin 1927, num. 7
U. Wilcken, Urkunden der Ptolemäerzeit (ältere Funde). II. Papyri aus Oberägypten, Berlin 1937, num. 191
P. W. Pestman, Il Processo di Hermias e altri documenti dell'archivio dei choachiti. Papiri greci e demotici conservati a Torino e in altre collezioni d'Italia, Turin 1992, num. 4
P. W. Pestman, The Theban Archive of the Choachytes (Second Century B.C.). A Survey of the Demotic and Greek Papyri Contained in the Archive, Leuven 1993, num. 59
l.23 To Hermocles
Lavinia Ferretti (LF)
greek
Administrative text
address
Graeco-Roman Period (332 BC-565 AD)
Ptolemaic Period (305-30 BC)
Ptolemy IX (Soter II) - 1st Reign
No
---
P. W. Pestman, Il Processo di Hermias e altri documenti dell'archivio dei choachiti. Papiri greci e demotici conservati a Torino e in altre collezioni d'Italia, Turin 1992, num. 4
P. W. Pestman, The Theban Archive of the Choachytes (Second Century B.C.). A Survey of the Demotic and Greek Papyri Contained in the Archive, Leuven 1993, num. 59
(verso unpublished in older editions)
