Francesca Hickin
Head of Department
Lot 207*
Two Egyptian fragmentary papyri from Oxyrhynchus
2
28 November 2018, 10:30 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £43,750 inc. premium
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Two Egyptian fragmentary papyri from Oxyrhynchus
Roman Period, one dated to 3 November 182 A.D. and the other circa Late 2nd-3rd Century A.D.
Comprising a fragment of Greek text composed of thirty-four lines, recording a report of an accident and requesting a coroner's report, reading: 'To Hierax, strategos, from Leonides also called Serenus...from the village of Senepta. At a late hour of yesterday, 6 Hathyr [2 November], while a festival was taking place at Senepta and the castanet-dancers were giving their usual performance at the house of my son-in-law Ploution...his slave Epaphroditos, about eight years old, intending to lean out from an upper room of the aforesaid house to see the castanet dancers, fell and was killed. Accordingly I present this application and ask you, if it so please, to appoint one of your assistants to come to Senepta, in order that the body of Apaphroditos may receive the proper preparation and interment', ref. Oxy. P. 475, 28.2cm x 8.8cm, and a small fragment composed of three lines of Greek text, recording an invitation to a feast given by a cavalry officer, ref. Oxy. P. 747, 5cm x 7cm (2)
Roman Period, one dated to 3 November 182 A.D. and the other circa Late 2nd-3rd Century A.D.
Comprising a fragment of Greek text composed of thirty-four lines, recording a report of an accident and requesting a coroner's report, reading: 'To Hierax, strategos, from Leonides also called Serenus...from the village of Senepta. At a late hour of yesterday, 6 Hathyr [2 November], while a festival was taking place at Senepta and the castanet-dancers were giving their usual performance at the house of my son-in-law Ploution...his slave Epaphroditos, about eight years old, intending to lean out from an upper room of the aforesaid house to see the castanet dancers, fell and was killed. Accordingly I present this application and ask you, if it so please, to appoint one of your assistants to come to Senepta, in order that the body of Apaphroditos may receive the proper preparation and interment', ref. Oxy. P. 475, 28.2cm x 8.8cm, and a small fragment composed of three lines of Greek text, recording an invitation to a feast given by a cavalry officer, ref. Oxy. P. 747, 5cm x 7cm (2)
Footnotes
Provenance:
The Charterhouse collection, UK, excavated by Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt at Oxyrhynchus in 1897 and presented to Charterhouse by the Egyptian Exploration Fund in November 1906.
The Charterhouse Collection; Sotheby's, London, 5 November 2002, lot 121.
Private collection.
Published:
Large fragment:
B.P. Grenfell and A.S. Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. 3, London, 1903, no. 475.
U. Wilcken, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde, vol. 1, part 2:Chrestomathie, Leipzig, Berlin, 1912, no 494.
A. Hunt, Select Papyri, London, Cambridge, vol. 2, no. 337.
R. Coles, Location list of the Oxyrhynchus papyri and of other Greek papyri published by the Egypt Exploration Society, London, 1974.
J. Hengstl (ed.), Griechische Papyri aus Ägypten als Zeugnisse des öffentlichen und privaten Lebens, Munich, 1978, no. 95.
S. Walker and M. Bierbrier, Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt, London, 1997, pp 185-187, no. 249.
Small fragment:
B.P. Grenfell and A.S. Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. 4, London, 1904, no. 747.