Unpublished Demotic Receipts Concerning Land

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Faculty of Archaeology, Ain Shams University, Department of Egyptology, Egypt

Abstract

 
The present study contains the publication of four demotic ostraca with receipts concerning land. These texts, which are now kept in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, were discovered in the Oriental Institute's 1929/30 season of excavation at Medinet Habu, (MH 4071, MH 4076, MH 196, and MH 4318 R&V). Their date can be determined from some interior evidences such as known persons. The first ostracon is dated to the late Ptolemaic period, while the other ones are dated to Roman; one of them belongs to the reign of Augustus. Three receipts of them were issued in money while one text concerns a payment in kind. These receipts concern the delivery of grain, which was always paid in kind and delivered to the granary, and sometimes when the harvest was decreased, the farmer would not be able to deliver the amount of wheat to the granary, so he had to pay its cash value to the bank. He could pay either in the year following the year in which the grain was due or even in the same year.

Keywords

References

  • Dictionaries:

    • Erichsen, W. Demotisches Glossar. Kopenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1954. 
    • Johnson,  J.H.   (ed.). The Demotic Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Chicago-Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2014.

    References:

    • Höschler, U.   Medinet Habu Reports vol. 2 The Architectural Survey. Chicago-Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1929-1930.
    • Lichtheim, M. Demotic Ostraca from Medinet Habu. Chicago-Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1957.
    • Mattha, G. Demotic Ostraca from the Collections at Oxford, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Cairo. Le Caire: Publications de la Société Fouad I de Papyrologie 6, 1945.
    • Nur El-Din,  M.A.A. The Demotic Ostraca in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974.
    • Wallace, S.L. Taxation in Egypt from Augustus to Diocletion. Princeton and London: Princeton University Studies in Papyrology 2, 1938.

    Dissertations:

    • Akeel, Maha, "Taxes in Egypt During the Ptolemaic Rule, Through the Texts and Some Demotic Documents (ostraca) from the Collections of the Egyptian Museum – Cairo", MA diss., University of Cairo, 2003.
    • Nabil, Sara,"Unpublished Demotic Ostraca from Medinet Habu in the Egyptian Museum",PhD diss., University of Ain Shams, 2011.
    • Wahid El-Din, Sohair, "Demotic Ostraca from Thebes in the Egyptian Museum", PhD diss., University of Zagazig, 2005.

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