Introduction
Somethings never change, no matter how far into the past you look. Children (even adult children) need to be bailed out by their parents, and in turn, parents will send the needed support along with some "advice." This familiar (pun intended) drama is how I interpret P. Lille 17 (also catalogued as P.Sob.3.100).
This papyrus, dating to 246-222 BCE, was preserved as cartonnage, and as such, is rather fragmented. The name of the sender (presumably the recipients' father) is lost. The middle lines of the letter are too fragmentary for me to venture a translation. I originally translated the text found in the Logos module of the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri, but in the course of my research, I found an more recent edition of the text with a different reading of the final lines. In my translation, I have retained elements of both translations.
Translation
... to Aristarchos my son and Mikkala my daughter, greetings. While Philon is carrying a letter concerning the bits of corn, I have removed for you eight artabas, which he leaves behind to Gorginios for my daughter; for Philon sails back to Alexandria. Since you would like to work well, give him a token of your ... [4 fragmentary lines]; and the bits of corn are for one manger ... for you to have (?) dispatch to him a certain ..., so that the corn which is near you might be salvaged.
To Aristarchos
Textual Comments
An artaba was an Egyptian unit of measure for corn and wheat (akin to a bushel).
Gorginios is a male name yet is referred to as "my daughter." The greek word for daughter can also mean a maidservant or slave.
συνβολον appears in this text instead of the standardized spelling of συμβολον. The confusion of n/m sounds is common, and is a routine issue for the Hebrew/Aramaic transliterations in the Septuagint.
Additional Resources
One of my favourite things about my excursion into papyrology is the discovery of really neat online tools and resources. Trismegistos allows for searches of people's names that occur in the papyri and will generate a list of the texts that attest to the name in your search. Currently Trismegistos has close to 20,000 inscriptions and papyri in their database, so it is an incredibly useful and powerful resource.
Showing posts with label ancient letter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ancient letter. Show all posts
Monday, 15 April 2013
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
A Roman soldier's letter to his pregnant sister
Introduction
This letter, O.Flor. 14, was written by a Roman soldier stationed in Egypt at some point in the 2nd century CE. It was written on a piece of ostracon (pottery) and is owned by the university of Florida. You can view the full text in Greek here.
In case you are curious, about 28% of recovered documents from ancient Egypt were written on ostracon compared to 65% on papyrus.
The text is largely intact with only one small hole on line 13, which I will mark by "..." in my translation, and another hole at the conclusion, so I did not bother trying to translate the final couple of lines.
Notes
The text contains one Latin word transliterated into Greek, cibariator, which was a merchant boat. In my translation, I attempted to Anglicise it.
A mation (plural matia) was an Egyptian unit of weight.
Translation
Maximus to Tinarsiegeta his sister, greetings and salutations through everything. If you come into the days for you to give birth, write me so that I may come and preform your child-birth since I do not know your month. I proscribed the favour of this to you, so that you may anticipate and write me to enter on the cibariators' ship, and when I stay with you, I will perform your child-birth. For I offer to you that I will stay with you to give birth. If you do not send for me, you will do me no gift. I was going to send you containers for your child-birth; I did not send this favour so that when I come, I can carry two matia of gifts. The man who carries ostracon to you rolls up ... to me. Through him, do not be neglectful to write concerning the deposition against your house. They spoke your name and they did not address.* So formerly I wrote to your brother so that he may give your name sinesoeistas**. We kindly welcome you, Kelleas, and all the men in the house according to your name. Send me leaves as many as to fill a little bucket and I will make it ...
*The Greek of this line is uncertain. Seriously. I consulted a professional translation, and they only had an educated guess about a household census.
**Despite my best efforts, this word escapes me and my dictionaries. In the Greek text, the word is without an accent, which usually indicates that the editor didn't know what it was either.
Comments
By the sounds of things, Maximus was not only a soldier but also a medical doctor and quite keen on presiding over his sister's pregnancy. This would have been unusual because at that time, the practice was to have three midwives presiding over the labour not a male doctor.
"[C]ontainers for your child-birth" could also be translated "containers for your after-birth" which makes me feel weird, so I opted for the other version. In searching the ancient medical texts, the Hippocratic writings and Soranus' work on childbirth, I couldn't find any direct references to "child-birth containers," but Soranus talks about needing several jars of olive oil to aid in the birthing process. Perhaps this is what Maximus was referring to.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments on this text. I'll try my best to answer any questions either in a comment or as a full post, if the question is juicy enough!
This letter, O.Flor. 14, was written by a Roman soldier stationed in Egypt at some point in the 2nd century CE. It was written on a piece of ostracon (pottery) and is owned by the university of Florida. You can view the full text in Greek here.
In case you are curious, about 28% of recovered documents from ancient Egypt were written on ostracon compared to 65% on papyrus.
The text is largely intact with only one small hole on line 13, which I will mark by "..." in my translation, and another hole at the conclusion, so I did not bother trying to translate the final couple of lines.
Notes
The text contains one Latin word transliterated into Greek, cibariator, which was a merchant boat. In my translation, I attempted to Anglicise it.
A mation (plural matia) was an Egyptian unit of weight.
Translation
Maximus to Tinarsiegeta his sister, greetings and salutations through everything. If you come into the days for you to give birth, write me so that I may come and preform your child-birth since I do not know your month. I proscribed the favour of this to you, so that you may anticipate and write me to enter on the cibariators' ship, and when I stay with you, I will perform your child-birth. For I offer to you that I will stay with you to give birth. If you do not send for me, you will do me no gift. I was going to send you containers for your child-birth; I did not send this favour so that when I come, I can carry two matia of gifts. The man who carries ostracon to you rolls up ... to me. Through him, do not be neglectful to write concerning the deposition against your house. They spoke your name and they did not address.* So formerly I wrote to your brother so that he may give your name sinesoeistas**. We kindly welcome you, Kelleas, and all the men in the house according to your name. Send me leaves as many as to fill a little bucket and I will make it ...
*The Greek of this line is uncertain. Seriously. I consulted a professional translation, and they only had an educated guess about a household census.
**Despite my best efforts, this word escapes me and my dictionaries. In the Greek text, the word is without an accent, which usually indicates that the editor didn't know what it was either.
Comments
By the sounds of things, Maximus was not only a soldier but also a medical doctor and quite keen on presiding over his sister's pregnancy. This would have been unusual because at that time, the practice was to have three midwives presiding over the labour not a male doctor.
"[C]ontainers for your child-birth" could also be translated "containers for your after-birth" which makes me feel weird, so I opted for the other version. In searching the ancient medical texts, the Hippocratic writings and Soranus' work on childbirth, I couldn't find any direct references to "child-birth containers," but Soranus talks about needing several jars of olive oil to aid in the birthing process. Perhaps this is what Maximus was referring to.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments on this text. I'll try my best to answer any questions either in a comment or as a full post, if the question is juicy enough!
Friday, 15 March 2013
A letter from 114 BC
In my last post, I gave my favourite anecdote about one papyri discovery in the ancient town of Tebtunis, so it seemed fitting to follow it with a translation of one of the Tebtunis papyri.
An explanation of the official naming scheme:
P.Tebt. 17 -- The first letter of the official name gives the type of material the document is on (P for papyrus, O for ostraca). Next comes an abbreviation for either the place it was found, the individual or institution that first owned it, or the archive to which it belongs. Finally is the numeric document number.
So, P.Tebt. 17 is the 17th papyrus found in Tebtunis.
An image of P.Tebt. 17 (accessed from papyri.info)
My translation:
Polemon to Menchis, greetings. Since it has been determined that the manager come at daybreak on the 15th into Berenikis then on the 16th to pass by your kome into Theogonis, endeavour that all the things owing around your kome will be in order lest you detain him so you may not be thrown into further expenses. Farewell. Year 3 Pauni 11.
To the kome scribe, Menchis
Notes:
Berenikis and Theogonis are both towns in south eastern Egypt.
Pauni is the Egyptian month corresponding to May 26 - June 24.
"kome" was the smallest administrative unit in Ptolemaic Egypt, an unwalled village.
"manager" is left untranslated in the APIS Translation where it is simply rendered as "epimeletes".
Whenever I do a translation, I like to consult and compare my work with a more professional translation. This time, along with one fairly hilarious misreading of the word δαπάνας as δα πάνας (a particle and the word for an Egyptian fish), my mind was turned to the question of translating versus transliterating. For example, I decided to translate the word for "manager" but transliterated "kome" whereas the professional translation did just the opposite, translating "kome" as a village and transliterating "epimeletes".
In my next post, I want to discuss the possible reasons why certain words are transliterated instead of translated and the effect that choice can have on the reader.
An explanation of the official naming scheme:
P.Tebt. 17 -- The first letter of the official name gives the type of material the document is on (P for papyrus, O for ostraca). Next comes an abbreviation for either the place it was found, the individual or institution that first owned it, or the archive to which it belongs. Finally is the numeric document number.
So, P.Tebt. 17 is the 17th papyrus found in Tebtunis.
An image of P.Tebt. 17 (accessed from papyri.info)
My translation:
Polemon to Menchis, greetings. Since it has been determined that the manager come at daybreak on the 15th into Berenikis then on the 16th to pass by your kome into Theogonis, endeavour that all the things owing around your kome will be in order lest you detain him so you may not be thrown into further expenses. Farewell. Year 3 Pauni 11.
To the kome scribe, Menchis
Notes:
Berenikis and Theogonis are both towns in south eastern Egypt.
Pauni is the Egyptian month corresponding to May 26 - June 24.
"kome" was the smallest administrative unit in Ptolemaic Egypt, an unwalled village.
"manager" is left untranslated in the APIS Translation where it is simply rendered as "epimeletes".
Whenever I do a translation, I like to consult and compare my work with a more professional translation. This time, along with one fairly hilarious misreading of the word δαπάνας as δα πάνας (a particle and the word for an Egyptian fish), my mind was turned to the question of translating versus transliterating. For example, I decided to translate the word for "manager" but transliterated "kome" whereas the professional translation did just the opposite, translating "kome" as a village and transliterating "epimeletes".
In my next post, I want to discuss the possible reasons why certain words are transliterated instead of translated and the effect that choice can have on the reader.
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