Csaba A. La'da

A Ptolemaic Petition by a Royal Farmer Concerning the Postponement of Legal Proceedings before the Laokritai

P.Vindob. G 60499 consists of three fragments of varying size. Fragment l is a medium brown, square-shaped papyrus fragment with numerous holes across its surface. The original document had a narrow and long shape. The papyrus, the quality of which is somewhat coarse, has been extracted from cartonage. The text is written along the fibres and the verso is blank. The ink is black and its thickness varies considerably. The scribe obviously dipped his kalamos numerous times in the process of writing the text. The surface is abraded in places and the ink slightly smudged. The dimensions of fragment l are 12.8 x 11.4 cm. The right, bottom and left margins have been preserved intact, while the top of the document with an uncertain number of lines has been lost. The width of the left margin varies between 1.5 and 1.3 cm. The lines end at an irregulär distance from the right edge. The bottom margin measures approximately 2.5 cm. On the right hand side, in some lines (11. 2, 4, 5, 7) the writing almost reaches the right edge of the papyrus. Under the same inventory number, two smaller papyrus fragments have also been catalogued, which we publish here äs fragments 2 and 3, together with fragment 1. Fragment 2 measures 0.8 x 7.2 cm and contains the left margin and the beginning of two lines of text in a poor state of preservation. Fragment 3 (0.3 x 3.2 cm) contains traces of approximately seven letters, which cannot be deciphered with certainty, from the middle of a line. It is unclear whether these two smaller fragments once formed part of the same document äs fragment 1. However, äs far äs fragment 2 is concerned, the different width of the left margin from that in fragment l strongly suggests that fragment 2 was originally part of a different document and merely became associated with fragment l in the papyrus cartonage. As for fragment 3, although one might feel tempted to place it in line