Mayi] SOCIETYOF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY. [1894.- Thespotis incorrectly placedin the facsimile.
PI. VII, 77. Slightlybroken.
PI. VIII, 97, Two groupsare badly copiedin the facsimile.
93-99. Thefragments at the edge are displaced : when cor
rectly arranged they give some new readings, as follows (cf.
Commentar,p. 45) :— - Omitjt; : the fragment showsy^,not -jJo, andhas to
be inserted in 99. - -JiL is the last to be seen ; the fragment with-^-^ (not
570)goesbelow. - ,^-j- is visible.
99- T5?r s visible as part of t^,.
These corrections are very slight,but are useful for close study
of the writing. Theremaybe a few other mistakesthat I have
overlooked. Severalof the red dots in the facsimile are guides to
the scribe in drawing the horizontal divisionlines.
The scribe himself often wrongly wrote or omitted the frac
tionaldot,but his rather frequentconfusionof 80 with 60 (occur
ringfourtimesin the divisions by 43 and 93) is less easy to account
for.
Theforegoingtable, givingthe values in simple i-fractionsof
the ratios between 2 and the odd numbersup to ioo, enabledthe
learner of arithmetic, after a long but very simple reduction, to
convertany fractional ratiowithdenominatorup to 100 into a series
of i-fractions. Fordivisors above 100 he could subdividethe
fractions accurately, if the divisor wasa multiple of those in the
table; if not, an approximate valuecouldbe found.
Thislongtablehas brought us to the end of the recto of 10,058.
6f inches are lost fromthe middle of the 6th leaf, between10,058
and 10,057, but about 3 more inchesare required at the end of
10,058to complete the eighth column(especially 2 -f- 97), andat
least 2 inches at the beginning of 10,057 for the commencement
of the calculation of "loaves," so that less than 2 inches are
unaccounted for —unless indeed a whole leaf, nowlost, was left
blankafterthe table.
Wemust now turnoverthe end of the papyrus in order to
examinethe added sectionon the division of fractions.
(To be continued.)
- Proceedings, XIII,p. 329.
208