P. Hibeh 154: Export of Wine
Vassar College 251-0 B.C.(?)
The mutilation of this text is extensive, affecting the text of the papyrus
on both sides, and transcription would be impossible without the aid of the
similar text of P. Hib. 80. In addition to this fragment, there are also three clear
marks at the top of the same protective glass envelope on a second, irregularly
shaped bit of papyrus measuring 2.4 x 2.2 cm. These marks seem to be either
Demotic or Greek abbreviations of the most extreme sort. The hand makes it
appear that this section was not written by the same hand as the rest of the
papyrus. The absence of any fibrous connection of this piece to the remainder,
and the failure of Grenfell and Hunt to mention it or consider it in the measurement, lead one to believe that this is an extraneous bit of papyrus glassed in
improperly with P. Hib. 154.
The papyrus itself is a short notice from an Epichares to Chaeremon,
saying that a certain Pames is exporting two jars of wine from the Heracleopolite Nome to Hiera Nesus, and it adds that the tax of one twenty-fourth has not
yet been exacted on the wine. The date of P. Hib. 80 is given, in Demotic, as
"The thirty-fifth revenue year, which makes the thirty-fourth regnal year." The
date of P. Hib. 154 has been lost with the margin, only the mark for &ove remaining with two lines of faded Demotic, presumably with a date, below. We
are able, then, to say that our document must fall within the official life span
of a Ptolemaic internal customs officer at or on either side of the date of P. Hib.
80, since the officers are the same in both documents. In point of fact, the
similarity of the two documents would lead one to believe that they are quite
close in time, and probably in the same year, as Grenfell and Hunt say.
There are good reasons for using P. Hib. 80 as a model for transcription,
and for assuming that the wording is formulaic. First, the spacing of the words
in P. Hib. 80 fits the remains in this text. More important, P. Hib. 80 itself has
two receipts of this kind on which only the names of the transporters are different. Furthermore, both the papyri were found in the same casing (mummy
117), and the names in the first line are the same, demonstrating that both papyri came from the same office.
*I am grateful to the library of Vassar College for making this text available for study
during the summer of 1966.
0
