Images courtesty of University of California, The Bancroft Library.
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June 26. 1907
Dear Mrs Hearst,
Dr Hunt and I have now
completed our edition of Part II of the
Tebtunis Papyri, and the book will be
issued by Mr Frowde1 of the Oxford
University Press in three weeks from
now. The volume consists of papyri of
the Roman period, together with a long
appendix on the geography of the
Fayûm, and though hardly as important
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as Part I, which consisted of Ptolemaic
texts, includes a number of very
interesting papyri. Apart from the
indices, there are 440 pages,2 and
the remuneration due to Dr Hunt
and myself jointly is therefore
£410 (four hundred and ten Pounds).3
We should be very much obliged if
you could kindly pay us this sum
as early as convinient. The work has
been spread over three years.
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There still remain to be published the
early Ptolemaic papyri from mummy
cartonnage, which will form Part III.
These have mostly been unrolled4 and
in part deciphered, but we do not
expect to have the volume ready
for two or three years.5
Our excavations at Oxyrhynchus are
now finished,6 and next winter we expect
to remain in England owing to lack of
funds for excavating, but hope to
return to Egypt in the winter following.7
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2. It actually came out to 424 pages.
3. Equal to £42,890.96 in Sep. 2025, according to the Bank of England inflation calculator.
4. An odd description for mummy cartonnage.
5. In the event, the first part of P.Tebt. III would not appear until 1933. Its editors were A.S. Hunt and J.G. Smyly, assisted by B.P. Grenfell (died 1926), E. Lobel and M. Rostovtzeff.
6. Grenfell had had a breakdown during the final 1906/7 season.
7. Grenfell would never excavate again and would not return to Egypt until the spring of 1920.
9. This seems not to have occurred.
10. An emergency survey conducted in the wake of the construction of the Aswan Low Dam; see further The archaeological survey of Nubia: Report for 1907-1908, Cairo 1910. The survey would last 4 seasons.
11. Hearst had departed Paris in May 1907.