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ARTEFACT IDENTIFIERS

Artefact ID1366
TM IDTM 702484
Findspot (DEChriM ID)35   (Qarāra)
ClassTextual
MaterialPapyrus
Writing mediumSheet/roll
Text contentDocumentary
LanguageGreek
Description

P.Gascou 26: Receipt for wine  

The papyrus is complete on all sides and contains 10 lines, written across the fibres in a practised cursive.  The back is blank.  

In this receipt, Herakleios, an “Elder” (presbyteros) in the village of Pselemachis, makes a payment of 100 xestai of wine to Alexander, epimeletes of wine for Babylon, in the name of Aspidas son of Kollouthos. The payment is made for the 6th indiction.  

About the presbyteros, the ed. notes that in the first half of the 4th c. Herakleios could either be one of the last “elders of the village” or an early attestation of a Christian priest at village level; but the fact that it is not completely clear that the institution of the “elders of the village” even survived into the 4th c. inclines one to see Herakleios as a Christian presbyter. See further discussion in ed. with mentions of priests in Hipponon at the same period (e.g. P.Lond. VI 1913).  

Belong to the Aspidas Archive: Aspidas son of Kollouthos, resident of the village of Hipponon (modern Qarara) in the Herakleopolite nome in the first half of the 4th c.

Selection criteriaMention of Christian cult officials/institutions
Date from332
Date to333
Dating criteria-
Absolute/relative dateRelative date
Archaeological context

The Macquarie section of the archive was acquired from the papyrus dealer Michael Fackelmann in two purchases in 1981 and 1983. The exact provenance of the archive is unknown but it was presumably in the south of the Herakleopolite nome.

Accession number

Sydney, Macquarie University, P.Macq. inv. 359.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Editio princeps

• Choat, Malcolm. 2016. In Mélanges Jean Gascou. Textes et études papyrologiques (P.Gascou), ed. J.-L. Fournet, A. Papaconstantinou. Paris, no. 26 with pl.  

Authors
Valérie Schram, 2021
Suggested citation
Valérie Schram, 2021, "Artefact ID 1366", 4CARE database - Fourth-Century Christian Archaeological Record of Egypt, https://4care-skos.mf.no/artefacts/1366
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