G 42359 verso: Dimensions: 13.1 x 13 cm. Date: mid- to late III century BC. Provenance: meris of Polemon, Arsinoites. The text was written by a professional scribe using a sharp kalamos. The hand is very similar – possibly identical – to that which wrote G 42360 verso. The special feature of this fast documentary hand tending towards cursiveness is that it writes with very small characters, slightly smaller than those found in G 42360 verso. The palaeographical parallels and the probable date of the other texts on the two fragments (G 42359 recto, G 42360 recto and G 42360 verso) make a date in the middle or in the second half of the third century BC most likely for this fragment also. The fact that all the surviving place names in this text are from the meris of Polemon in the Arsinoite nome strongly suggests this administrative unit as the provenance of the text, which agrees well with the geographical information supplied by 42359 recto and G 42360 verso. In spite of the uncertainty over whether or not the hands which wrote this fragment and G 42360 verso are identical, these two texts appear to be closely related thematically to the extent that it is highly likely that they originate from the same document or, at least, from two closely associated documents. Both G 42359 verso and G 42360 verso appear to preserve a portion (these two parts are separate from each other) of a running account concerning the payment of certain occupational taxes by a number of individuals in a variety of settlements in the meris of Polemon of the Arsinoite nome. These two texts together suggest that in most lines the structure of this account was the following: the name (in the nominative) and the patronymic (in the genitive) of the individual by whom the payment was made, the name of the particular tax for which payment was made by him and the name of the settlement (in the genitive) from which the tax was paid. At the end of such lines stood, preceded by a blank space, a figure representing the amount of money paid in tax. In some lines, instead of a patronymic the conjunction kai and the name (in the nominative) of another individual could stand. An occasional element between the place name and the amount of money at the end was the preposition eis followed by a month name, probably meaning a payment made late or, alternatively, in advance for that particular month. Some lines were apparently preceded by the name of the month in which the payments in that particular section of the text were made or by numbers designating the specific days of that month on which the payments listed against and below them were made (cf. the relatively close parallel P.Petr. III 117h). It appears, therefore, that this account was structured chronologically in the order in which the tax payments by various individuals for different types of tax from different settlements of the meris of Polemon flowed in. The list contained payments for a variety of different taxes (sitopoion, skyteon, perhaps kreopolon and possibly also further, unpreserved types of tax; a word for tax, e.g. tetarte, is to be understood in connection with these occupational terms in the plural genitive). A common feature of those which have been preserved is that they all appear to be occupational taxes levied by the Ptolemaic administration on specific trades. At least one of these taxes (sitopoion) certainly, and the others perhaps, fell under the Ptolemaic system of 25% tax (tetarte) on particular trades. This account was, then, a list of various taxes, arranged in chronological order rather than by type of tax, which, as far as we can see, probably recorded the tax payments as they flowed in without further classification. This suggests a certain preliminary nature to the account. The preliminary and running character of this account agrees well with the fact that it was written on the back of another document (or, possibly, other documents) in rapid hands with cursive tendencies. The structure of the text further suggests that payments for the taxes included in this account were made on a monthly basis. Because it is well known that the collection of occupational taxes, as with other types of tax, was contracted out by the Ptolemaic state to tax-farmers, it is most likely that this account (or, possibly, accounts) was owned by one or more tax-farmers who, at the same time, collected a variety of different occupational taxes rather than just one particular type. It is also documented that some such tax-farmers could collect taxes from more than one settlement within a particular administrative unit. In addition, it is well evidenced that at least some payments for the tetarte sitopoion and other, similar occupational taxes were made on a monthly basis. In summary, we may therefore conclude that the document (or, possibly, documents) of which two fragments have survived in 42359 verso and G 42360 verso was most probably a running list of tax payments kept by a tax-farmer or tax-farmers who leased a variety of occupational taxes in at least some of the settlements of the meris of Polemon of the Arsinoite nome. A further important feature of these texts is that the taxpayers in this list bear predominantly good Egyptian names and patronymics, some of which are characteristic of the Arsinoite nome (e.g. Manres and Sisouchos). Only one Greek name, Pyrrhias, occurs in the two texts. In the middle and the second half of the third century BC, when personal names still fairly reliably reflect the ethnic background of their bearers, this fact suggests that those individuals who in the meris of Polemon of the Arsinoites had occupations such as miller, shoemaker and perhaps meat seller and presumably other, similar trades were predominantly Egyptians. Hardly any trace of foreign penetration into these important occupational and social groups in the Arsinoite nome is detectable in this text in spite of the fact that by the end of the third century BC this region was probably one of the most hellenised parts of Egypt. The papyrus was published by C. A. La’da as CPR XXVIII 5.