- 12
Letter of commendation to Hermione, in Greek, manuscript on papyrus [Egypt, third century AD.]
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 GBP
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Description
- Papyrus
single papyrus sheet, 176mm. by 92mm., with remains of a single column of 26 lines in literary script, loss of first few lines at top but three other margins visible, addressed horizontally on verso in larger script to Hermione, small holes and wear, else good condition, mounted in glass
Provenance
Excavated in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century at Oxyrhynchus (modern El-Bahnesa) by Grenfell and Hunt, and published by them in Oxyrhynchus Papyri XIV, 1920, p.184, as P.Oxy.XIV 1767; and recently republished online by the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri. Presented to Ampleforth Abbey in the 1920s by the Egyptian Exploration Society.
Catalogue Note
Oxyrhynchus was the capital of the 19th Nome and the third-largest city of Hellenistic Upper Egypt. Hermione was evidently an influential inhabitant, and this letter deferentially recommends a person (presumably its bearer) into her care (T.Y.Mullins, 'Greeting as a New Testament Form', Journal of Biblical Literature 87 (1968), p.420).