Priests Petitioning the Police (P.Brit.Mus. EA 10650)

The article contains the edition and discussion of a rarely encountered form of petition (on-smy) from the Ptolemaic Fayum, which today is kept by the British Museum in London. The text was submitted by a lesonis of Soknebtunis to the chief of police in Mouchis. The document concerns a dispute between two priests from two different localities, Kerkeneith and Tebtunis, over agricultural lands and a harvest. The text is not only an addition to the small corpus of such petitions but also informs about juridical, economic, and religious life in the Fayum under the Ptolemies. It furthermore sheds light on business connections among members of various crocodile priesthoods in the Fayum.

Introduction P.Brit.Mus. EA 10650 (figure 1) is a Demotic petition or report (on-smy)1. At first glance, the papyrus appears to be a rather unassuming piece, but one should not be misled by its apparent inconspicuousness. The text is not only an addition to the slim corpus of such documents; it is also informative about juridical, economic, and religious life in the Fayum under the Ptolemies. It, furthermore, provides information about, for instance, the ancient settlements Mouchis and Kerkeneith and sheds light on business connections among members of various crocodile priesthoods in the Fayum in the Hellenistic period.
The document was submitted to the chief of police in Mouchis by a lesonis, serving the temple of Soknebtunis. The writer of the document has, according to the text, engaged in a business agreement with another individual, another priest (wob) from a nearby village, Kerkeneith. They had entered into the arrangement by the beginning 1 E. g., G. Baetens, 'Demotic Petitioning', JJP 44 (2014), 47-49. of the year in order to cultivate some fields together, which the accused party had let before deciding to enter the partnership with the complainant. No request for action is present (see below), but it appears as if the associate from Kerkeneith was accused of having acted duplicitously, since it seems that he claimed the crops from the mentioned lands instead of allocating the rightful share to his companion, the priest of Soknebtunis. Although the text is partially lacunose, it appears that the lesonis informed the chief of police about the events so that he later on would take the appropriate action.

Physical description
The papyrus is, as expected from a document of this kind, a rather narrow piece containing seventeen lines of text in addition to a date at its very bottom. It measures ca. 10.5 cm in width and 32 cm in height2. The writing is for the most part clear, though not particularly carefully executed. It is a typical "administrative hand", and the scribe seems to have used a medium-thick brush. The papyrus is of intermediate quality and is only inscribed on the recto (along the fibres). It can be noted that a thin strip with the fibres running vertically is glued to the recto side of the piece. It is clearly not a kollesis; the strip runs down from line three until the beginning of line sixteen. The thin strip does not seem to be a mending of any kind and thus it appears to be a production error; the verso does not show any traces of a crack, crease, or ridge.
Though the piece is preserved in its full length and the extant surface only contains a few minor wormholes, part of the edges of the papyrus are broken off. On the right side, the beginnings of lines four to eight and ten to eleven are missing. But it is only in lines seven and eight that the damage impedes the reading. On the left side, however, a far more substantial piece is missing from line eight down to line fifteen. The damage unfortunately hinders a completely satisfactory reconstruction of the text.

Provenance
No clear archaeological provenance can be attributed to the papyrus in question; no find spot has been recorded. But there is both internal and external evidence that could indicate its place of origin. There are two main sites from which the current piece may come, either the site of ancient Tebtunis or Mouchis. Internal evidence suggests that it was most likely drawn up in the former settlement; the plaintiff serves the god associated with the mentioned site3, but the text is addressed to an official in Mouchis. If the text indeed was dispatched to that settlement, the present papyrus may have been found there, but it is more probable that we are dealing with a copy of the original text or possibly, but less plausibly, a draft upon the basis of which a Greek text was supposed to be written and sent off4. In that case, it would have been found at Tebtunis. P.Brit.Mus. EA 10650 was registered in the museum collection in 1931, as indicated by the registration number 1931.0509.33 written on the frame in which the papyrus is kept. The piece belongs to a lot of texts acquired from Maurice Nahman, a well-known antiquities dealer5. The greater part of the items in the lot to which the papyrus belongs come from Tebtunis6. This fact also suggests that the papyrus was found at the same locality as the other texts. The provenance can therefore be regarded as virtually secure.

Date
The papyrus dates to year 20 of an unmentioned Ptolemaic ruler. Though the script is mostly rather undistinguished, it resembles a second-century BC hand, but it cannot be excluded that the text in fact dates to the previous century. The early first century BC is a possible date but unlikely. If one accepts the second century or the early first century, the most probable dates are thus either regnal year 20 of Ptolemy V Epiphanes (186/185 BC), Ptolemy VI Philometor (162/161 BC), or possibly, but less likely, of Ptolemy X Alexander I (95/94 BC). The lot of papyri to which P.Brit.Mus. EA 10650 belongs date principally to the period between the reigns of Epiphanes and Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II7. Since there are far more documents known from the reign of Philometor among those papyri, it is also more probable to date the present piece to his reign. Yet, if the third century were preferred (cf., e. g., P.

Textual Notes
i. The Demotic term on-smy, "report" (Erichsen, Glossar, 32;P.Sorb. IV 148 comm.;Baetens, JJP 44, 47-49;M. Depauw, The Demotic Letter: A Study of Epistolographic Scribal Traditions against their Intra-and Intercultural Background [Dem.Stud. 14;Sommerhausen, 2006], 330), describes a writing, which is often directed to authorities, in particular police officials. The Egyptian collocation on-smy is believed to correspond to the Greek προσάγγελμα (e. g., P. . This type of text usually contains a statement about an event in which the writer claims to have been wronged. In the text of this kind from the third century BC, there is rarely any request for action, however (see note xxxv below).
ii. The Demotic spelling By#n is not attested in the NB Dem., but the name is undoubtedly a rendering of the Greek Βίων (Foraboschi, Onomasticon, 1:81; Preisigke, NB, 76).
iii. The Demotic term ṯs-rsy, lit. "Commander of the Watch", could be the Egyptian equivalent of the Greek title ἀρχιφυλακίτης, "Chief of the Police" (see J. Bauschatz, Law and Enforcement in Ptolemaic Egypt [Cambridge, 2013], 68-78; id., 'Archiphylakitai in Ptolemaic Egypt: A Hierarchy of Equals?', Syllecta Classica 18 [2007], 181-211). In the documentation, both titles appear to be associated with the same kind of duties and they often have the same type of local qualification; both titles are connected to villages.
The Egyptian title is attested in, for instance, P. Bürgsch. 22 (244/243 BC) and 23 (243 BC) and already K. Sethe and J. Partsch, Demotische Urkunden zum ägyptischen Bürgschaftsrechte vorzüglich der Ptolemäerzeit (ASAW 32;Leipzig, 1920), 469-479,70, recognised its meaning, though without suggesting a Greek equivalent. It is possible that o#-n-rsy is another variant in Demotic of the same title (cf. Baetens,JJP 44,[59][60]. The present individual seems not to be attested in any other source. iv. P#-m©y, "Mouchis", is literally to be translated as "The Barn" or "The Storehouse", which explains the penultimate sign, a house determinative. A similar writing is found in, e. g., P.Haw. 14.6 (98 BC), but the house determinative has been misread as a final s, i. e. *mwḫys, by the editor.
It is probable that the masculine definite article in the beginning was not pronounced despite being written out in Egyptian. If it were, one would assume that it would have been carried over into the Greek rendering of the village name, as it was in some other cases of the same toponym denoting other places throughout Egypt. In, for instance, the Coptite and Panopolite nomes, where similarly named localities are attested, π is written out in the Greek rendering of the toponym (Πμοῦχις). The letter can also survive as such in Coptic, as settlements based on the same noun are referred to as ⲡⲙⲟⲩϣⲉ or ⲡⲙⲟϣ (e. g., A. Calderini, Dizionario dei nomi geografici e topografici dell'Egitto greco-romano [Milan, 1983], 4:163; S. Timm, Das christlich-koptische Ägypten in arabischer Zeit [TAVO Beih. 41;Wiesbaden, 1988Wiesbaden, ] 4:1986Wiesbaden, -1987 instead of the simple Μοῦχις as in the Fayum. v. P(a)-ḫy (Gr. Παχόις), "Pachois" (NB Dem.,(404)(405) is the most probable reading of the personal name in question. It is well known that the first element Pa-, "He of", can occasionally be rendered as a simple p. The writing p for pa seems, however, by and large to be confined to Hawara, e. g., P⟨a⟩-n-Ês.t (Gr. Φανῆσις [vel sim.] P⟨a⟩-sy(ꜣ) (Gr. Πᾶσις), "Pasis" (NB Dem.,412;P.Haw. 3.3;6.7 [233 BC]). Whether the shape of p -the more expansive form with two half loops on the left upper part -not used elsewhere in the text opposes such a reading is unclear, but it should be noted that this is the variant used in Hawara. If this is the correct rendering of the name, perhaps the scribe was associated with the same scribal school as the clerks at Hawara. A less plausible reading would be to take the name as a variant of oS#-(|)ḫy (Gr. Ἄσουχις), "Asouchis"  [OLA 194;Leuven, 2010], 475). It is generally recognised that the village mentioned in the two Loeb papyri is situated near Akoris, in the vicinity of Tehne, in the Hermopolitan nome, while the locality found in the other texts was located in the meris of Polemon, near Ghoran and Magdola. In P.Lüddeckens 13, the village is designated as belonging to Souchos (dmy cbk; see below). Since Inaros, son of Thoteus, was priest of Souchos in Kerkeneith (see above), an identification of the two instances as referring to the same locality is plausible, though it is not entirely clear whether the designation indicates that there was an established crocodile cult in each such vicinity (see below). xi. The house determinative assures the reading of this group as w#H, "establishment", "region", "settlement", "area" (H.-J. Thissen, 'Zu P#-Hr-n-Êmn = Ποανεμοῦνις', Enchoria 1 [1970], 75-78), rather than Hr, "side" (Erichsen,Glossar,318); the latter is commonly written with the flesh determinative. , and as such should have been equipped with this edifice. It is thus not imprudent to assume that the agricultural grounds in question were contiguous to such an institution or building, at least with lands that were bordering such a structure and, therefore, were named after it (see below). It cannot be excluded, however, that the area in question was simply a flat surface, which had borrowed its name from a gymnasium's levelled ground, because of physical resemblance. xiii. The beginning of this line is damaged, which hampers the reading of the first signs. The preserved traces suggest a house determinative, which would fit with ẖn, "in(side)" (vel sim.). The suggestion is also appropriate from a syntactical point of view. The rendering of ẖn as "part of" is an extension of the above translation. xiv. Htp-nṯr: "sacred revenues". In other texts from  [OLA 231;Leuven, 2014], 357-386), the word is usually written slightly differently; the divine standard read as nṯr, "god", is followed by a divine determinative, unlike the present instance. But since the word is qualified as belonging to Souchos (cbk) no other analysis appears suitable. The same orthography is also present in, for instance, P.Berlin 13637.10 from 262/261 BC (see n. 8 above).
xv. The second part of this short word, which begins with s, is lost in a lacuna; only traces remain. The best restoration is to interpret it as the verb sHn, which typically is to be translated as "to lease (out)" but can also mean "to entrust" (see, e. g., Winkler, in Broux and Depauw [eds.], Acts, 381 n. 81). Usually the lessee is introduced by the preposition n, e. g., sHn-k n-y, "You have leased to me", or sHn-y n-k, "I have leased to you". Alternatively, the combination |r sHn is used, e. g., |r-f n-y sHn r-r-f, "He made a lease for me concerning it" (e. g., G. R. Hughes, 'Notes on Demotic Egyptian Leases of Property', JNES 32 [1973], 154-160). The use of the preposition |.|r-Hr-(n), "before" (vel sim.), with this verb is unknown to me from other texts. The traces following the preposition are not easy to decipher: just a short horizontal stroke belonging to a now lost group. It is plausible that the ink traces represent a masculine definite article. In any case, whatever is written after it must indicate either the place where the lease was made or the entity, a person or institution, before which the transaction was completed.
xvi. The only clear part of the almost completely obliterated word is a striking-arm determinative, which is followed by a vertical stroke with curved lower end. The latter may be the third person plural suffix pronoun -w, or a plural stroke. Above the extreme right corner of the lacuna there is a stroke slanting down to the right, which must be part of the word that follows |.|r-Hr-(n) on the foregoing line.
xvii. sn.nw, "second", "inferior", seems to suggest that the leased lands were divided into two main parts, a first one that was not mentioned and a second one to which the document refers.
xviii. tn t# dny.t pSy.t n n# #H.w n rn-w r-⌈r-f⌉ | tn t# dny.t r-Hr-y, lit. "at the rate of the half of the fields in question ⌈to him⌉ (and) at the rate of the (other) half share to me". The construction appears to have a parallel in, for instance, P.Dem.Memphis 9.8 (= UPZ I 126) from 256 BC in which the following can be read: n.mtw-tn [t# dny.t 2 / 3 ] … r tn t# dny.t 1 / 3 1 / 12 r PN …: "Yours are the 2 / 3 part … while the 1 / 3 1 / 12 part is allocated to PN". Similar constructions are found in, e. g., P. Assoc 18-19, for the translation of tn as "allocate" instead of its usual rendering "at the rate of" or "each" (Erichsen,Glossar,635). Note, however, that the suggested translation does not change the grammatical category of tn. The passage implies that the business partners had divided equally the responsibility for the plots in question.
xix. See the writing of n# #H.w, "the fields", in ll. 6 and 13 for the reconstruction in the lacunae after dny.t pSy(.t).
xx. Only traces of the left ear of -f survive. What remains is not sufficient to justify the proposed reading, which instead depends on the context; the third person masculine pronoun is the only element that would suit the passage referring to the accused party receiving the other part of the field. See Erichsen, Glossar, 237, for potentially similar writings of r-r-f. xxi. The last signs before the left line break cannot be deciphered with certainty. It is possible to read the first group as mtw-n (nty-|w-n) followed by mH, "fill", "pay", or "furnish". The reading of mH is only a conjecture but would make sense in the present context (see note below). The writing of the word would thus differ slightly from the one found in the line below. The interpretation of the latter sign is paleographically difficult, but considering the context, i. e. the payment of agricultural levies, no other reading seems more satisfactory. xxvii. sk#: "plough" or "cultivate". The term must be part of a collocation, e. g., "equipment for ploughing/cultivating" or similar, and is thus the last article in the list of items provided by the writer to the accused.
xxviii. The reconstruction of rd, "growth" (see Sethe and Partsch,Bürgschaftsrechte,[14][15], or similar, after pH is a mere conjecture made on contextual grounds, but the passage can perhaps be compared to Canopus K 19/T 68: |.|r ḫrp p# rd pH …, "when the first growth arrives …".
xxix. See Depauw,Demotic Letter,[231][232][233][234][235], for the suggested emendation p# sHn nfr st |r-rḫ-s in l. 13. The phrase is apparently common in the closing clauses of petitions or memoranda, in so-called mqmq-documents. The supplemented words also seem to fit the space of the lacuna.
xxx. The dependent pronoun -s is written with two extra strokes. Occasionally a short vertical stroke is added before the sign that can be read on its own as -s; two strokes are more unusual, however, and makes the group resemble an early writing of |w=s (Erichsen,Glossar,20 and 399 xxxii. The supplement after on-smy is a conjecture, but it is required in order to make sense of the mutilated passage. It also fits the available space. xxxiii. The reading of n-dr.ṱ-w is tentative. The fact that another preposition would be expected to follow hn, "agreement", at least in the case of the current reading, complicates the suggested analysis. Nevertheless, no other reading appears more palatable. It is virtually certain that the vertical stroke following the group is to be read as the third person plural suffix pronoun -w. Whether this lexeme was the intended one is unclear but may be suggested by the fact that it seems to function as an antecedent to the following possessive pronoun p#y-w, "their". It should be noted, however, that a horizontal stroke is written across the sign read as dr.t and extends to the left below the flesh determinative. This would suggest the scribe wrote n-dr.ṱ-k. If this is not a mistake, which was corrected into dr.ṱ-w, another understanding of the passage is required. Perhaps it should be read along the lines of "I am submitting this report to you | (15) while the agreement is (already) with you (lit. in your hand)". This would imply that the agreement between the two priests had already reached Bion, the chief of police at Mouchis (see n. iii above), at an earlier stage. xxxiv. wtH: "fruit" (Erichsen,Glossar,107). It is tempting to understand the term as denoting a "crop" in the more general sense. The use of the term here may refer back to a clause occasionally found in Fayumic land leases (e. g., P.Cairo II 30631.11 and 31079. [16][17]P.Mil.Vogl.Dem. III 1.7). Although the documents refer to grain-bearing lands, the following clause is found: mtw-k/tn ṯ#y p# Sn p# wtH (|w-f ḫpr ẖn-w) (vel sim.), "To you belong the (their) plant(s) and the (their) fruit(s) (which will grow in them [viz. the fields])" (see Felber,Ackerpachtverträge,[155][156]. But in light of the fact that the document is issued in Pharmuthi (l. 18), and the produce of the field must have ripened and been harvested earlier, as suggested by l. 13, we may in fact be dealing with some other crop than wheat or barley.
xxxv. Too little is preserved of the end of the line to suggest any reading. A speculative suggestion would be that the petitioner was admonishing the chief of police not to allow, or to prevent, the exercise of control by Inaros, the accused business partner, over the harvest (|r-f sḫy n.|m-f). That is, something along the lines of "[Do not allow/Prevent that] | (16) he have control over it" can perhaps be expected. However, if the piece is rather better dated to the third century BC, it is not sure that it would have contained a request for action (see, e. g., Baetens,JJP 44,47).
xxxvi. |r-f should be taken as a subjunctive in case the suggestion in the note above is correct.

Agreement and complaint
The situation as reconstructed from the papyrus seems to be that Inaros, son of Thoteus, a Souchos priest from Kerkeneith, had access to agricultural lands on the sacred revenues of this god in the village of Mouchis through a lease (l. 7). These lands were later part of an agreement (l. 15) between him and the petitioner, who was a lesonis9 of Soknebtunis, most likely in Tebtunis. These arrangements ended up generating the conflict described in the text.
Even if the document states that the priest from Kerkeneith leased the lands, it is not clearly indicated in what capacity he had access to them. Since the lands belonged to the god he was serving, it is reasonable to assume that he, as a priest of the main god of the nome, was remunerated for his duties, at least partially, by being granted access to temple land. Usually, however, one would assume that such lands were assigned in the vicinity of the locality where a priest was serving or at least not far outside that settlement. The text seems to suggest that both priests were supposed to pay rent (Smw) for the let lands (see below). If that indeed were the case, it could indicate that it was a regular lease rather than part of a sacerdotal prebend; priests who were remunerated by the temple were not expected to pay rent to the temple, only to remit tax payments. Nevertheless, we are left uninformed whether the lands were let directly by a temple or another priest. There is evidence for both practices in the documentation from Ptolemaic Egypt10.
Having access to the fields, Inaros, the accused party, would be able to choose to cultivate the fields himself, sublet them to someone else, or share the cultivation with 10 P.Cairo II 30631 attests the leasing of land by temples to individuals, but the lease is internal, which means that a cleric was able to take over part of another priest's prebend. From Upper Egypt, there are a handful of texts that concern what seems to be institutional leases to individuals (e. g., Felber, Ackerpachtverträge, 104-106). another person. From the phrasing of the current text, it seems that he chose the last option. That is, he shared the responsibility for, and thus also the gains of, the leased fields with the author of P.Brit.Mus. EA 10650. The latter individual may have not been mentioned in the original lease between the entity that had the title to the land and Inaros. Through the phrasing on line 15 of the document, we are informed that the two priests had their business recorded in a hn-agreement11 rather than a lease (sHn) or similar.
As mentioned already, this implied that both were accountable for paying taxes and other fees for the land (see below), which would have been stipulated in the agreement drawn up between the two parties. The text suggests that each involved party was assigned an equal part of the responsibilities for the fields. The litigant of the current document furthermore claims to have furnished Inaros his half of the joint responsibility for the equipment (ll. 10-11), which suggests that the priest from Kerkeneith was in fact to do, or be directly responsible for, most if not all of the farm labour. This may be seen as in line with the most common type of lease agreement, which stipulates that it was the obligation of the leaseholder to provide for the equipment for cultivating the fields12. Therefore, it is virtually certain that the agreement between Inaros and the proprietor of the fields contained the standard clauses of such a document13.
One must assume that the reported party expected to be rewarded in one way or another for carrying out most of the work even if he shared the responsibility for the field with the lesonis from Tebtunis. The circumstance in which he would be carrying out most of the work would also explain why Inaros reaped the field during the harvest without the participation of the complainant (l. 13).
At first, it might appear as if the priest from Kerkeneith was not satisfied with the outcome; instead of splitting the harvest or similar, he impugned the agreement. From what is preserved of the text, it seems that Inaros had laid claim to the crops and that the author of the document could only accept such an outcome after he himself had assigned the yield to the accused party (l. 17). Nevertheless, given that the writing under consideration contains a report of an event rather than a request for action, it is conceivable that the last episode described in the papyrus refers to common legal practice. It is possible that Inaros' last deed -taking control of the crop (sḫy n.|m-f) -conformed 11 S.L. Lippert, Einführung in die altägyptische Rechtsgeschichte (EQÄ 5;Berlin, 2008), 174. 12 Felber, Ackerpachtverträge, 133-135;Martin, JEA 72, 171. 13 See Felber, Ackerpachtverträge, passim. to a clause safeguarding the rights of lessors found in a number of Greek land leases from the third century BC until the fourth century AD14. If that is the case, it could suggest that he viewed himself in this role vis à vis Pachois. In these texts, the following clause, or a variant thereof, can be found: κυριεύειν τῶν καρπῶν ἕως ἂν τὰ κατ᾿ ἔτος ὀφειλόμενα κομίσηται, "… that (the lessor) have possession of the crops until he receives the amount owed per year" (vel sim.) 15. It implies that the lessor of the land had a claim on the yield as long as the rent and other fees were not paid by the lessee16. It seems logical to assume that this act caused the litigant to compose the report, but this is not entirely clear.

The localities and the sacred revenues of Souchos
The text mentions two specific localities, Mouchis and Kerkeneith. Both were located in the meris of Polemon, in the southeast corner of the Fayum Oasis. The first one was the destination for the papyrus, whereas the second was the home of the business partner of the plaintiff. Mouchis was a village situated near the mouth of the Fayum where the Baḥr Yūsuf diverges into two canals17. Under the Ptolemies, it was one of the principal settlements in the meris of Polemon, functioning as the main locality in its toparchy and hosting a number of state administrative functions. These institutions include a scribal office, a bank18, a granary, an ergasterion19, a tax office20, a brewing business, and a police station21.
The fact that the report is submitted to the police authority in Mouchis suggests that the fields concerned must have been situated in the administrative realm of this settlement and thus under the authority of its local police chief. It would thus be more natural for the lesonis of Soknebtunis to submit his writing to the appropriate local official rather than for the authorities at Mouchis to have been responsible for police matters in the nome or the meris as a whole.
The precise location of Kerkeneith is unknown, but it has been suggested that the locality was near Magdola and Ghoran, i. e. in the south-western part of the meris of Polemon. Because both the two other localities concerned, Mouchis and Tebtunis, can be located on the canal that today is known as Baḥr Ġaraq, roughly equivalent to the "Desert Canal of Polemon" (ὀρεινὴ διῶρυξ Πολέμωνος) in the Greek papyri22, it would be reasonable to assume that Kerkeneith was also adjacent to said waterway. The canals were the main transportation routes in the Fayum and efficiently connected seemingly distant villages with one another. Some villages that were closer to one another over land required more travel time to reach than those that were connected through water conduits. In addition, it has been suggested that the main land routes would have followed the waterways23. Thus, Mouchis could have been relatively easy to reach from Kerkeneith, and this would explain why people from one settlement chose to conduct business in the other.
Kerkeneith is furthermore, similarly to Mouchis, mentioned as a so-called Souchos village in P.Lüddeckens 13. Fittingly enough, it hosted a cult of Souchos. In line five, the accused party is described as "among the priests of Souchos of Kerkeneith" (ẖ n n# wob.w n cbk (n) Pr-grg-N.t). It is probable that the god he was serving was identified with the one who was also worshipped in the main temple of Crocodilopolis and not only a local apparition of this deity24. It is not entirely clear what the designation "Souchos village" implies, whether it was an appellation given to any settlement in the Fayum, signifies that the village housed a cult of the main god of Crocodilopolis or any other of his local hypostases, or just that there were "sacred revenues", i. e. lands, belonging to a Souchos temple within the confines of such localities25. In the Fayum, it seems that most villages could go by this designation, and it appears to be the only one connected to a specific god that existed in this area. For instance, Tebtunis is never called the "Soknebtunis village", but always "Souchos village", even if Soknebtunis seems to have been more religiously prominent at the site26.
Mouchis too was such a Souchos village. It is possible that the divinity was venerated there alongside the local hypostasis of the crocodile god, Sokonporchnubis27. That two crocodiles could be worshipped side by side in several of the Fayumic villages in the Graeco-Roman period or that some settlements housed several temples dedicated to different reptile deities is well known28. The fact that the fields mentioned in P.Brit.Mus. EA 10650 are said to be on the "sacred revenues" of Souchos (l. 7) could suggest that the cult of this deity was present in Mouchis. Nevertheless, the village is very close to Crocodilopolis, and for comparison, it is known that the Soknebtunis temple in Tebtunis possessed lands in Kerkeosiris without there being any attestation of a cult of this god in the latter village29. The two localities were situated close to each other and the land in Kerkeosiris had been dedicated to Soknebtunis by a group of veterans30. Since the mentioned localities all housed a gymnasium, it is plausible to draw parallels between them.
Land in the possession of the temple that had been connected to a gymnasium is known from a number 25 Cf. Kockelmann,Herr der Seen, The claim that in at least two papyri the settlement is referred to as "Village of Soknebtunis" (e. g., Kockelmann, Herr der Seen, 1:255) is unfounded. The two instances quoted read: dmy cbk ‰#-nb.t-t#tny, "The Souchos Village Tebtunis". The theonym is never written as cbk-T#-nb.t-t#-tny, but rather cbk-nb-tny or cbk-nb-t#-tny and later on, in the Roman period, cbk-nb-Btnw (W. Cheshire, 'Demotic Writings of "Tebtunis"', Enchoria 14 [1986], 31-42). 27 Winkler, BASP 55, 241-247 and 250-251. The deity is referred to as twice great in I.Fayoum I 20 (see, e. g., Kockelmann, Herr der Seen, 1:59-60). Ch. Fischer-Bovet proposes that the above-mentioned inscriptions suggest that the gymnasium and the temple may have bordered one another and that this was one of the reasons for the donation34. But it is unclear whether such assumptions would be valid for the present case. It should be noted that the lots donated to the god in the first two inscriptions are all rather small, which suggests that they were not agricultural plots35. The Greek term τόπος in I.Fayoum III 202 is not provided with measurements, however, and due to the multivalence of the Greek word, it may refer to land or to, for instance, a sacred or civic edifice36. Assuming that the wrestling ground (palaistra) 31 The provenance of the two inscriptions is unclear. Both the localities Euhemeria and Crocodilopolis have been suggested as places of origin (M. Launey, Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques, 2nd ed. [BEFAR 169;Paris, 1987], 2:842; Fischer-Bovet, Army, 285 n. 224 and 348 n. 79). It should be noted that said localities are only hypothetical and any other place having both a Souchos sanctuary and a gymnasium would be a potential candidate. 32 Fischer-Bovet, Army, 282 n. 208; Launey, Recherches, 2:841. 33 The find spot of this inscription is not entirely certain either; the stele was acquired on the antiquities market (e. g., B. Legras, Néotês: recherches sur les jeunes grecs dans l'Égypte ptolemaïque et romaine [Hautes études du monde gréco-romain 26; Geneva, 1999], 136 n. 20). Tebtunis would seem to be the best suggestion, however, since the probability that it would come from any other site is minimal, though Crocodilopolis cannot be excluded (cf. n. 3 above). 34 Cf. Fischer-Bovet, Army, 348. 35 Fischer-Bovet, Army, 348. 36 It has been assumed that Tebtunis had a gymnasium, though this building has not been securely identified. Yet it can be assumed that the gymnasium in Tebtunis was situated next to the Soknebtunis temple. Hitherto all claims for the existence of a gymnasium in that locality have rested on I.Fayoum III 202. Willy Clarysse has with some reservation in a conversation suggested that there is potential additional evidence for a gymnasium and a palaistra in Tebtunis. Northwest of the Soknebtunis temple there is a Greek style building, which is referred to as the maison à peristyle (see, e. g., N. Grimal, 'Travaux de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale en 1994-1995', BIFAO 95 [1995, 590-591; G. Hadji-Minaglou, 'L'habitat à Tebtynis à la lumière des fouilles récentes: I er s. av. -I er s. apr. J.-C.', in S.L. Lippert and M. Schentuleit (eds.), Graeco-Roman Fayum -Texts and Archaeology (Wiesbaden, 2008), 126-127, 129, and 132). Though its function has not been described, its architecture strongly resembles that of a gymnasium; the building contains a peristyle court (hence its name), which is fronted by a colonnade to the east, i. e. facing the could indeed define the gymnasium, the current papyrus may support the suggestion, but only if the designation refers to an institution rather than pointing to physical resemblance between an agricultural area and a wrestling ground. One must further assume that this designation was given to the lands because they were adjoining the wrestling grounds of the gymnasium.
The "sacred revenues" of Souchos found in this papyrus may also be mentioned in another Ptolemaic text from the locality. In P.Sorb. III 107 (219 BC), it is stated that five arourai of land were attached to a sanctuary of a crocodile burial ground. The identity of the mummified crocodiles is not made explicit, however. In most cases, the god who was the focus of attention of this sort of cultic activity was Souchos37, i. e. the place would thus be a so-called Soucheion38. Even if it is possible that the lands mentioned in the Greek papyrus were part of the fields belonging to the temple's revenues referred to in P.Brit.Mus. EA 10650, such an equation is not entirely without problems. In addition to the slight insecurity about the divinity's identity, P.Sorb. III 107 never refers to the land as "sacred revenues". Even if it is supposed that the same divinity was the owner of the fields, it is possible that the lands were parts of different estates, since we still do not know whether Mouchis only housed a temple of Sokonporchnubis (e. g., I.Fayoum I 20 [1 st cent. BC]; BGU XIII 2215 [AD 113/114]; P.Vindob. Barb. inv. 3441 [223 BC]) or whether there was another one as well, perhaps to Souchos or just a Soucheion. Neverthedromos leading up to the temple. To the north there are four rooms surrounding a central hall. There seem to be three exits from this part of the building, one to the east, one to the north, and one to the west, which leads to another area which was also connected to the peristyle court. This seems to have been an open area, but in the Roman period a tower building was erected there. It is thus plausible that the peristyle hall with adjoining structures was the Hellenistic village gymnasium in Tebtunis, which later on would have acquired another function. If this identification is correct, it does not seem that this edifice would have been located close to any agricultural lands. But that does not exclude that such could be the case in Mouchis. less, it should be noted that the person associated with the local god of Mouchis in P.Assoc. 7 ii 15 is mentioned as his "caller" (oyS). In a cultic setting, the title seems to be restricted to the sphere of religious associations, which often were associated with entombing mummified animals42. This fact enhances the chances that a local divinity was the proprietor of the lands connected with the crocodile burial sanctuary mentioned in P.Sorb. III 107 because of the close connection between the caller's title and the funerary cult. If that were the case, the lands mentioned in P.Brit.Mus. EA 10650 must belong to another estate.

Rent and taxes
As mentioned, the land that the two priests cultivated belonged to Souchos, and consequently it can be assumed that a religious institution of this god had the right to extract the levies that are mentioned in the document. P.Brit.Mus. EA 10650 shows that the two priests had to surrender payments for the lease, the rent (Smw) and what has been referred to as the temple tax (md.t-Hw.t-nṯr). The latter payment is hitherto only securely attested in a few documents from both Ptolemaic and Roman Tebtunis.
The present instance of the "Temple Tax" is clearly the oldest one, while the latest dates to the Roman period (P.Zauz. 61.4 [2 nd cent. AD]). Unfortunately, the latter text is a rather fragmentary receipt issued by the priesthood of Soknebtunis in which the term appears in a lacunose context. The receipt shows that the levy filled the coffers of the temple -still under the Nerva-Antonine dynastybut does not provide any additional specifics43. The two other texts in which the term appears relate to temple land in Tebtunis. In the oldest of these two texts, P.Cairo II 30630.14, an exchange agreement on sacerdotal land, it is said that the fields in the transaction should not be encumbered with other lease agreements (sHn), pledges (|wy.t), or unpaid taxes, among which the "Temple Tax" is mentioned along with the "State Tax" (md.t-pr-o#). The latter was an annual per aroura tax on agricultural lands paid to the state, ἀρταβ(ι)εία44. It may be noted that the  (2000), 174-175 and 197-199. exchange agreement stipulates that the two parties swapping lands were supposed to release the same payment as they had done before the exchange, but the text then only refers to the so-called State Tax for future payments. In P.Tebt.Botti 1.16 (AD 4)45, a lease on temple lands between two priests, it is likewise stated that the lessor should keep the fields unburdened by the same two taxes for the lessee.
It is clear from the cited instances that the remittance is a levy connected to agriculture, but whether it was an annual payment, a levy recurring each year, or a sort of initiation fee for beginning to cultivate temple land, remains unclear. Since the charge is not mentioned in the future obligations of the two parties in the exchange agreement, it is possible that it was not supposed to be paid regularly by any of the parties after the swap had taken place, or it was simply not mentioned in the further stipulations but still assumed to be paid as before. As mentioned above, in P.Brit.Mus. EA 10650 the "Temple Tax" accompanies the rent (Smw), which is equated with the Greek term ἐκφόριον, "rent (in kind)"46. This levy was usually paid on an annual basis, which at first glance would counterweigh the argument advanced above, but the text concerns a newly commenced lease. Therefore, nothing conclusive can be said about the tax in question47. He postulates that a separate agreement could have been entered between the temple and the lessee. Alternatively, it may be assumed that the "temple tax" was subsumed under one of the more general levies or fees often mentioned in said texts. It should furthermore be noted that the tax is not identified in the long-term leases on royal temple land (γῆ βασιλικὴ ἱερευτική) from Roman period Tebtunis (e. g., PSI X 1143 [AD 164] and P. ), but that may depend on the fact that these grounds were another category of land. As a side note, if it is correct that rights to long-term leases could be bought and sold, it is probable that inherited temple land in Tebtunis, as found in, e. g., P.Cairo III 50109, which is of Ptolemaic date, if so it is, was not in private ownership, but the right to cultivate the fields was passed down as inheritance (cf. Winkler, BASP 52, 255 n. 68).
It is possible that the reference to "keeping the god away" (d|.t wy p# nṯ r r-Hr-y) from the lessee in P.Ackerpacht 1.7 (177 BC), a lease contract from Djeme, and the promise to pay the taxes to the king and the god, i. e. the state and the temple (mtw-n mH pr-o#.w.s. p# nṯ r) in P.Ryl.Dem. 34.9 (2nd century BC), a similar document from Pathyris, refer to this tax payment or a variant thereof48.
In addition, it may be noted that the text does not mention the "State Tax"49. By itself, the absence could suggest that the tax was not paid on these temple lands, that the mentioned tax was not paid on the crop that was cultivated in the fields, or that the petitioner did not bother to mention each obligation he shared with his felonious business partner; the gist would likely have been clear to the recipient of the missive anyway. The latter interpretation does not seem improbable in light of the fact that sacerdotal land belonging to the temple estate of Soknebtunis in Tebtunis was subject to the "State Tax". Ipso facto, by analogy, it would also be reasonable to assume that the same conditions applied to temple lands of Souchos in Mouchis. A related possibility exists, however, namely that this levy was not mentioned because it is occasionally the case in other Fayumic leases of agricultural lands that the lessor was supposed to take care of the "State Tax"50. If Inaros had let the land it would imply that his landlord was paying the state tax, ostensibly from the rent paid by the lessees51. Perhaps the same was frequently the case for the "Temple Tax", but not in the present case52.

Extra-local activities
That priests were engaged in agricultural business is a well attested fact, but we rarely find evidence of activities that reach beyond the locality in which they were active in their 51 It cannot be entirely excluded, however, though it must be deemed as tentative at best, that Smw in this case is in fact an abbreviation of Smw pr-o#, "State Harvest Tax", which is a local alternative form of md.t-pr-o# (see, e. g., Felber,Ackerpachtverträge,143;Wegner,in Broux and Depauw (eds.), Acts, 349). If that were the case, the phrase here may be regarded as parallel to the one found in the above-mentioned lease contracts from Tebtunis. That would also imply that the plaintiff is not mentioning any rental payments. 52 Based on the dating of the text, it is possible that this state levy had not yet been introduced, but see Vandorpe,CRIPEL 25,167. sacerdotal role. The text shows that a priest, who is designated as being among the "Souchos priests in Kerkeneith" (ẖn n# wob.w (n) Pr-grg-N.t), had access to agricultural land in another locality, Mouchis, which belonged to the same god that he was serving (Htp-nṯr (n) cbk). That is, the fields were in another part of the meris than he lived, assuming that he resided in the locality to whose temple he was assigned. Furthermore, another priest, a priest of Soknebtunis, joined him in the farming business. He was therefore also from a locality other than Mouchis. The text thus attests to what presumably can be regarded as the commercial expansion of these individuals, namely that they increased their economic portfolio by cultivating fields outside their home towns. In this case, it is unlikely that they were the people tending the fields themselves, at least on a daily basis. It is possible that Inaros was responsible for this, but since he presumably lived elsewhere, he may have engaged local labourers. But there is no such information in the present papyrus; likely there was no legal implication of such an action for the current case.
The fact that people in Graeco-Roman Egypt were engaged in agricultural activities outside their own place of residence is attested many times, where, for instance, the so-called Archive of the Descendants of Patron may serve as a prime example of people engaging in extra-local economic activities53. That priests were active in other localities than their own in various capacities can be seen from a number of documents. It is known, for instance, that one of the priests serving Soknebtunis at Tebtunis in the Ptolemaic period, Sokonoppmois, son of Sokonoppmois, was also connected to the priesthood in Soknopaiou Nesos; according to one text (P.Cairo II 30626 [93 BC]), he has the title nb wob Hry Sy W#ḏ-wr N#-nfr-|r-Sy54, which can be translated as: "Lord of Purity, Master of the Lake of Green of Nefersatis"55, in addition to the regular one associated with Soknebtunis in Ptolemaic Tebtunis: rpoy m-nṯ ry Hry Sy qm# Hry Sy rsy n Nb-|mnṱ , "Rpoy and M-nṯ ry and Chief of the Lake of Creation and Chief of the Southern Lake of the Lord of the West"56. Fayum priests also held offices outside the nome. Marsisouchos, son of Pakeb-kis, who during the second century AD was the prophet of Soknebtunis in Tebtunis, was also active in Akoris in a similar position serving, among other, both Souchos and Amun57. That the priests of Soknopaiou Nesos extended their affairs to other localities is also well attested for both the Ptolemaic and Roman periods58.
In conclusion, it can be said that P.Brit.Mus. EA 10650 provides another witness to the broad and often widespread financial networks of priests and farmers in the Fayum during the Graeco-Roman period. The papyrus is another piece of the great jigsaw puzzle that helps us to understand the dynamics of this period, the geography of individual economic portfolios, and how such business was carried out. Acknowledgment: I am grateful to the British Museum for technical assistance; Gert Baetens (Leuven), Marie-Pierre Chaufray (Bordeaux), and Michael Zellmann-Rohrer (Oxford) for having discussed the text and some readings with me and thereby saving me from errors. I owe a special thanks to Cary Martin (London), who has read through a draft of this paper and offered many useful comments on various points. Though I have gained much from discussions with colleagues, any mistake is my own responsibility.