Description: Rock-cut tomb, inscribed on the façade with inscriptions
P.262, P.263,
P.264, P.265,
P.266.
Text: Inscribed below P.265, in a sunk panel, approxiamately rectangular
(w:
0.73 x h:
0.40)
Letters: 0.025; lunate epsilon and sigma, cursive omega and alpha; rough and like but not identical with those of P.265
Date: Second century CE
Findspot:
Ptolemais:
Quarry I.c, north wall;
first recorded in 1911.
Original location: Findspot.
Last recorded location:
Findspot.
Apparatus
2: Δ was never completed3: The first o is written as θ, the second, whose interior surface is lost, may have had a stroke cut slantwise through it
4: ΤWNWTOIXW Robinson, 1913; δπλο/τωμοιτο/ οὗ Sammelbuch M is fairly clear, but only the tops of the next two letters survive - y might be χ, H might be N: the draughtsman must have intended a verb with passive sense and in the optative
5: Θ : O Robinson, 1913 ; Unless the cutter has written θ for o, as once in line 3, this should be θ(εο)ῦ, implying a Christian writer. Otherwise perhaps οὗ; line 6 The second letter is fairly clear, the fourth very obscure, but possibly y or an uncompleted α, the seventh again obscure, partly because the cutter seems to have been uncertain and partly because of damage - an uncompleted χ or Λ would have been possible; another verb in the optative is needed.
6: ΤΑC \ ΘΕ[.]ΟΙ Robinson, 1913; -τα [ἀσ]Θε[ν]οῖ Sammelbuch The second letter is fairly clear, the fourth very obscure, but possibly y or an uncompleted α, the seventh again obscure, partly because the cutter seems to have been uncertain and partly because of damage - an uncompleted χ or Λ would have been possible; another verb in the optative is needed.
7: καὶ [τ]ῆ[ι] Τύχαι τὸ ? Robinson, 1913
English translation
Translation by: Editors
. . . ] whosoever does anything evil here . . . wall . . . ?of God . . . and all the . . . and may he not gain . . .
Commentary
For another injunction against reuse of the tomb see P.295 and discussion there.
Bibliography: Robinson, 1913, 90, whence Sammelbuch, I.5925 (quoting a comment of Keil - see apparatus)
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds).
Images
None available (2020).