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sources, family archives and official archives.^25 Most of these documents
record settled agreements^26 for (1) the conveyance (sale, exchange, lease,
agreements for division of property, cessions) of private property, real
and movable; and (2) marriage arrangements, which were recorded
in order to establish the line of inheritance through the wife to any
children from the marriage and loans. Contracts involving the convey-
ance of property were important proof for legal title and all documents
made concerning a piece of property were conveyed to the new own-
ers at the time of sale.^27 Other instruments recording debt or other
obligations were valid as long as they were in possession of the cred-
itor, extinction of the obligation being achieved by the returning of
the instrument to the borrower.^28 In early Demotic texts, witnesses,
usually four in number, write their names on the recto of the papyrus.
The standard form in Ptolemaic Demotic texts is for the names of
witnesses—sixteen witnesses being the typical number for contracts—
to be written on the verso. A special sign marking the head of the
witness list written on the verso of a contract was placed exactly
behind the verb ≈d, “to say,” on the recto.^29 After 264 B.C.E.,
Demotic sales were required to have a receipt recording the payment
of the sale tax; after 146 B.C.E., it became a requirement that Demotic
contracts be registered at the local registration office.^30 The tax on≈d A n B(“party A declared to party B”), body of contract in subjective style, sig-
nature of scribe, witness names written on the verso. The “'.tform was more infor-
mal, being written as a letter, with an abbreviated dating formula and then: A p3
nt ≈d n B(“party A is the one who declares to party B”), contract in subjective
style, signature of scribe. Sales and marriage agreements were s§-documents; leases
could be either of these. See further Felber, Demotische Ackerpachtverträge.. ., 86–88;
Seidl, Ptolemäische Rechtsgeschichte, 11–16; Pestman, Pap.Tsenhor.. .; Vleeming, Gooseherds
of Hou, 255–60.(^25) On the distinction made between an “archive,” a collection of papers gathered
by an ancient person, and a “dossier,” a collection of texts relating to a person but
collected together by a modern scholar, see Pestman, “A Family Archive.. .,” 91.
(^26) The essentially verbal nature of the texts is highlighted by the opening verb
“so-and-so has saidto so-and-so...”
(^27) The importance of an “old document,” or “title deed,” is stressed in P. Greek
Amherst 30, (Wilcken in Mitteis and Wilcken, Chrestomathie.. ., 9). One such “old
document” is P. Berlin 3114 (= P. Survey 1, 182 B.C.E., Thebes), for which see
Pestman, Archive of the Theban Choachytes.. ., 46–47. In partial transfers of property,
the title deeds were kept by the original owner, hence the formula in contracts “to
you belongs its legal documents in every house where they are.” The first exam-
ple of the clause is found in a document dated to 510 B.C.E. (P. Louvre 7128).
See further Pestman, “Some Aspects.. .,” 291.
(^28) P. dem. Adler 22; Taubenschlag, Law.. ., 419; Vleeming, Gooseherds of Hou, 177.
(^29) See Nur el-Din, “Checking...”
(^30) Pestman, “Registration.. .,” and Archive of the Theban Choachytes.. ., 337–41.
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