Many papyrus documents are official. Examples of a registration of birth, an arrangement for overdue instalments and a receipt for payment in money and kind.

Registration of birth of three-year old boy. Arsinoite nome, 11 July 72 AD

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The Romans introduced the civil registration for fiscal purposes. Each fifteen years the entire population would be counted. Registration of birth, however, was not mandatory. The ages of the children mentioned in the extant records vary between 0 and 8 years.

Click here for Greek text and translation in DDbDP.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Payment of overdue rent in instalments. Philadelphia, 21 December 86 AD

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Click here for Greek text and translation in DDbDP.

Two Egyptian brothers, Aunes and Papontos, state that they will pay the overdue rent in five annual instalments for the land that they lease from the 23-year old Roman Marcus Antonius Aper (apermeans ‘wild boar’). The two farmers are unable to write in Greek (nor in Demotic probably). Their signature was therefore written by the Greek Dioskoros son of Kephalion. Marcus Antonius Aper, a Roman from the elite class, also wrote his own signature in Greek.

This papyrus is in mint condition. The text was written twice, using more or less the same clauses, meaning that we can reconstruct the damaged passages with certainty.

Part of a receipt. 7th cent. AD

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Click here for Greek text and translation in DDbDP.

Receipt acknowledging a payment in money and commodities, signed by the scribe and two witnesses. The upper part of the papyrus is missing.