Κροι, σ τα, and κ βοι in P.Mur. 97

Michaël Girardin

► To cite this version:

Michaël Girardin. Κροι, σ τα, and κ βοι in P.Mur. 97. Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, 2018, 55, pp.294-296. hal-03545034

HAL Id: hal-03545034

https://normandie-univ.hal.science/hal-03545034

Submitted on 27 Jan 2022

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

Κόροι, σάτα, and κάβοι in P.Mur. 97

Author(s): Michaël Girardin

Source: *The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists*, Vol. 55 (2018), pp. 294-296

Published by: American Society of Papyrologists

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44972251

Accessed: 27-01-2022 08:17 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

JSTOR

*American Society of Papyrologists* is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to *The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists*
Κόροι, σάτα, and κάβοι in P.Mur. 97¹

*P.Mur.* 97 was found in the caves of Murabba’at, in Israel, and published in 1961. It is probably a fiscal record of the end of the first or the beginning of the second century CE, as are some other parchments in the same archive (*P.Mur.* 89-107). The editors did not give a translation and only made some brief comments.<fnref n="2" />

The measures used in the archive are the *kab* (κάβος), the *seah* (σάτον), and the *kor* (κόρος). One *kor* equals thirty *seahs*, and one *seah* equals six *kabs*. The content of the *seah* is unknown: it may be 7 or 15 liters.<fnref n="3" /> So, one *kor* would be 210 or 450 liters, and one *kab* would be 1.16 or 2.5 liters. Among the 171 fiscal payments in the archive, three stand out:

(1) κάβον ὕστερα [ (P.Mur. 97, frag. A-B, col. II, l. 2) interpreted by the editors as a payment of 16 *kabs* (18.8 or 40 liters), the scribe having committed a grammatical mistake by writing the singular κάβον. The same mistake appears in frag. A-B, col. I, l. 4, with the plural σάτα followed by the figure α.

(2) ὕστερα [ (P.Mur. 97, frag. E, l. 2). The underlined δ indicates that it is a number, but the measure is unknown.

(3) ὕστερα σὰς [ (P.Mur. 97, frag. E, l. 7). If the first term is a measure, κόρ]ος or κάβ]ος, this could be another mistake of singular for plural.

*P.Mur.* 97 is a fiscal record, since there are numbers in every line in various measures<fnref n="4" /> and one finds barley (κριθῆς, frag. C, ll. 2 and 7 and frag. E, l. 5) and perhaps mustard (σινη, interpreted by the editors as an abbreviation of σίναπι). It is the only text in the archive with measures written out in whole words, κόρος, σάτον, and κάβος.<fnref n="5" /> The usual format

<footnote n="1">¹ I am grateful to Chr.-G. Schwentzel, E. Nantet, and J.-B. Rey for their support and A. Jördens for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. All remaining errors are mine.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² R.P. Benoit., J.T. Milik, and R. De Vaux (eds.), *Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, II: Les grottes de Murabba'ât* (Oxford 1961) 229-230.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ For a *seah* of seven liters, see A. Lemaire, *Nouvelles inscriptions araméennes d'Idumée* (Paris 1996) 131. For a fifteen-liter *seah*, see Benoit, Milik, et De Vaux (n. 2) 214; J. Pastor, *Land and Economy in Ancient Palestine* (London and New York 1997) 171; F. Deist, *Material Culture of the Bible: An Introduction* (London 2000) 224. For a brief discussion, see G.W. Bromiley, *The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia* 4 (Grand Rapids 1995) 1051.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ As in the entire archive, the *seah* is the most frequently used measure: frag. A-B, col. I, ll. 4 and 8; col. II, ll. 5, 8, and 9. One finds the *kab* twice: frag. A-B, col. II, l. 2 and frag. E, l. 8; and perhaps the *kor* in frag. E, l. 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ The *seah* is listed three times with a number: σάτα α (frag. A-B, col. I, l. 4) and σάτα β (frag. A-B, col. I, l. 9 and col. II, l. 5) and two times without a number (frag. A-B, col. I, l. 8 and col. II, l. 8).</footnote>
of entries in the archive is: the name of the taxpayer, the producer, and
the payed sum, as follows:

[ . ] . ρ . ακου κρε(ιθης) κ(όρος) α α κ(άβοι) γ (P.Mur. 91, col. I, l. 2)
"[---] son of [---]akos, barley, 1 kor, 1 seah, 3 kabs"

At Murabba'at, as in other comparable documents from the Dead Sea,<fnref n="6" /> the underlined figures are seahs. For *P.Mur.* 97 the same can be assumed, since not all the figures are underlined. In that case, the interpretation by the editors is no longer possible: in example (1) above, κάβον 1ς [ does not mean 16 *kabs* (that would probably have been written as 2 *seahs* and 4 *kabs*). Also, in example (2) ]ζ δ̄ [ does not have to be a grammatical mistake, but δ̄ is just 4 *seahs*. And in example (3), ]ος 1ς σα[ cannot refer to the improbable sum of 16 *kors*, i.e. 2 1/2 tons or more than 6 tons of wheat or barley. The most substantial sum in the archive is 3 *kors* and 15 *seahs* (*P.Mur.* 96, col. I, ll. 5 and 6); only fifteen sums exceed one *kor*,<fnref n="7" /> and the average sum is 64 *kabs*, i.e. 10 *seahs* and 4 *kabs*.

A comparison of examples (1) κάβον 1ς [ and (2) ]ος 1ς σα[ is instruc-
tive: the scribe must have written the figure 1ς after the smaller unit (κάβον
and, as we may now read, κάβ]ος) and before the larger unit ([σάτα and
σά[τα), according to the Semitic order. Both lines list the seahs after the
kabs. It is the same in P.Mur. 94, a summary of tax installments:

Γ κε Ἀαζάηλος Φελείου γ γ β δ κ(άβος) α (ήμισυς) γ κ(άβοι) δ (ήμισυς)

"(Total paid): 25 [seahs]: Aazaelos son of Pheleios: 3 [seahs], 3 [seahs], 2 [seahs], 4 [seahs] 1 1/2 k(abs), 3 [seahs], 4 1/2 k(abs)" (P.Mur. 94, frag. A, l. 12)

Aazaelos son of Pheleios paid 16 seahs in five installments. The κε in
the margin is, perhaps, the total due (25 seahs), and the Γ may indicate
that the total due has been fully paid; maybe not all the installments are
listed.<fnref n="8" />

<footnote n="6">⁶ For the publication of all other documents, see N. Lewis, *The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Greek Papyri* (Jerusalem 1989); H. Cotton and A. Yardeni (eds.), *Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, XXVII: Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek Documentary Texts from Nahal Hever and Other Sites* (Oxford 1997); Y. Yadin, J.C. Greenfield, and A. Yardeni, *The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Hebrew, Aramaic and Nabatean-Aramaic Papyri* (Jerusalem 2002).</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ *P.Mur.* 90, frag. C, ll. 1 and 2; *P.Mur.* 91, col. I, ll. 2 and 6; *P.Mur.* 92, col. I, l. 7 and col. II, l. 6; *P.Mur.* 94, frag. B, l. 3; *P.Mur.* 96, col. I, ll. 2, 3, 5, and 6 and col. II, ll. 2 and 3; *P.Mur.* 97, frag. E, ll. 1 and 7.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ Benoit, Milik, and De Vaux (n. 2) 226.</footnote>
I propose to interpret *P.Mur. 97* also as a summary of tax installments.
The three examples above can be read as follows:

(1) κάβον ἰζ [σάτα = 1 *kab* and 16 *seahs* (frag. A-B, col. II, l. 2)

(2) κάβο]ζ δ [σάτα = 1 *kab* and 4 *seahs* (frag. E, l. 2); perhaps: κόρο]ζ,
δ [σάτα, one installment of 1 *kor*, another of 4 *seahs*; less likely
κρειθῆ]ζ δ [σάτα or σῖτο]ζ δ [σάτα or πυρό]ζ δ [σάτα = 4 *seahs* of
barley or wheat

(3) κάβ]οσ ἰζ σά[τα) = 1 *kab* and 16 *seahs* (frag. E, l. 7); perhaps: κόρ]ος,
ιζ σά[τα, one installment of 1 *kor*, another of 16 *seahs*; less likely
σῖτ]ος ἰζ σά[τα or πυρ]ός ἰζ σά[τα = 16 *seahs* of wheat

Université de Lorraine (Metz)

Michaël Girardin