The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part 73

4932. AMULET: PSALM LXXII 21–3

63 6B.62/c(1–3)c

Fifth century

On one side of this fragment there are line-ends from an account of goods, written along the fibres in a semi-cursive hand assignable to the fourth/fifth centuries (3 ] for the completion of the price of mea[t, 6 ] roasted and vegetables, 7 pri]ce of pitch, 10 lettuce original: "θρυδρακ( )" — corrected to "θριδακ( )"). A piece was then cut from the account, turned over and rotated ninety degrees to the left, so that the writing on the back also runs with the fibres. Here a different hand has copied three verses of Psalm 72, of which the line-beginnings survive, with a preserved left-hand margin of 1.3 cm, upper margin of 1 cm, and lower margin of 1.7 cm. Since the upper margin is approximately as wide as the interlinear space, we cannot rule out that other lines of writing preceded. More likely, however, these three verses were written out alone, as a self-contained unit. In that case, assuming that the text was copied in full, without omitting any half-verses, we can reconstruct the original dimensions as 30 × 6 cm, a long strip with unusually long lines. Such dimensions suggest that 4932 was made to be used as an amulet protective charm, rolled up and hung round the neck; in fact two folds can be distinguished on the preserved fragment, one roughly in the middle, the other about 2.5 cm further to the right. The format is paralleled by three other psalm amulets: see Rahlfs–Fraenkel nos. 2069 (6th c.), 2098 (7th c.), and 2200 (5th/6th c.). Amulets of this type were often suspended in small capsules; for a picture of such containers, see W. M. Flinders Petrie, Amulets (Warminster repr. 1972), plate xix no. 133. For frequent use of psalm texts in amulets see: G. Schmelz, ZPE 116 (1997) 61–5; C. La’da, A. Papathomas, Aegyptus 81 (2001) 37–46; P. Köln X 405; C. La’da, A. Papathomas, BASP 41 (2004) 93–113; A. Delattre, BASP 43 (2006) 59–61. Other psalm amulets made up from recycled writing material previously used to write documents are Rahlfs–Fraenkel 2106 (5th/6th c.), which contains the entire Psalm 90 written on the back of a Byzantine protocol, and Rahlfs–Fraenkel 2075 (6th c.; see Anal. Pap. 2 (1990) 27), including extracts from Gospels, Pater Noster, and Psalm 90 written on the back of a dating protocol.

4932 is written in a not fully skilled hand of the ‘sloping majuscule’ type, probably to be assigned to the fifth century. Compare GBEBP 14b, assigned to the first half of the fifth century on the basis of its similarity with a document of AD 423 (GBEBP 14a). The scribe has difficulty in holding a consistent baseline (the last third of line 1 is written higher). Notable letter-forms include: alpha usually triangular, but an instance of round alpha with loop open on top is to be found in 3; eta with central stroke consisting of an oblique ascending from left to right (but the last eta in 2 has a central stroke approaching a horizontal); omicron rather small, lying sometimes in the upper part of the writing space, sometimes at mid-height, sometimes approaching the baseline.