The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part 66

Informal examples of this common style are difficult to date with any precision. Among objectively datable parallels, we may compare P. Flor II 108 and 259 (Roberts, GLH 22a, d), from the Heroninus Archive, mid-third century; VII 1016 (Turner, GMAW² 84), also mid or later third century (see LVII 3882 introd.); and P. Herm. 4 (Plate 3b = Cavallo-Maehler, GBEBP 2a), from the archive of Theophanes, c. AD 315/25. For 4499 a date in the late third century or early fourth seems likely.

The spelling shows some itacisms (αι for ε and οι for υ as well as ει for ι and ι for ει). A diaeresis appears regularly over initial iota and upsilon. Diastole a mark separating words must also have been regular and is still visible in exēl’|thon I went out (page 14, line 42), ag’gel|on angel (page 16, line 129), ag]’gelou of an angel (page 16, line 133) and apēl’|then he went away (page 18, line 181). Punctuation is by high point or by the use of a blank space. Usually, but not always, these mark the start of a verse (it is no doubt mere coincidence that all the spaces preserved precede kai and, since so many verses in Revelation begin with kai). Final nu occurring at the end of a line is often represented by a horizontal dash written over the letter. Some corrections are made by the scribe’s own hand. Others seem to be the hand of a corrector, in an ink which is now brown. Cardinal numbers are normally, though not always, written as figures, and the same may apply to some instances of ordinals. The following nomina sacra sacred names are attested: iēl Israel, thu of God, thn God, anōn of men, anou of man, pna spirit, ky Lord, ounou of heaven, ounō in heaven. Note R. C. Nevius, "Papyri Witnesses to the Text of the Nomina Sacra in the Apocalypse", Akten des 21. Int. Papyrologenkongresses II 750-755.

The extant fragments come from nine different leaves. By reckoning the number of letters to a page, one can estimate that the first surviving fragment would have come from page 3 if the quire began with the book of Revelation, with its title on the first page probably in larger letters. For convenience of reference this assumption has been made, but it must be stressed that no evidence survives from the codex itself that the pages were numbered and so there is no proof that the page referred to as "page 3" was indeed the third page and not a later page from a larger codex. The sheets of papyrus before folding were laid with the vertical fibres side uppermost. From pages 3 to 10 the sequence is recto on the odd pages and verso on the even. From page 13 onwards (there are no fragments from pages 11-12) the sequence is verso on the odd pages and recto on the even. This means that the folding of a quire of five or six sheets was done between pages 10-11 or 12-13. Considering that we have fragments from pages 23 and 24, it is easier to think that all the pages belonged to the same quire and that the folding was done between pages 12 and 13. It is not possible to know whether the codex contained only the book of Revelation or something more. The addition of a "binio" a gathering of two sheets, for example, after a "senio" a gathering of six sheets would be possible, for "biniones" occur mixed with larger gatherings (E. G. Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex, Philadelphia 1977, 61), but codices containing several books are also common.

On pages 15 and 16 the first and last lines of the page are preserved, and probably also on pages 13 and 14; possibly the first and last lines are also preserved on other pages. Assuming a normal text, the average number of lines to the page can be estimated.