On P.Oxy. XXVII 2479

P.Oxy. 2479 is an unusual document in that, while it concerns an ?vaixOYpacpoe yecopyo?, it does not fit into either of the two classes of documents to which mentions of evaTioypacpoi yecopyot are otherwise almost exclusively restricted ? sureties and receipts for parts of agricultural machinery. ' It is instead a petition to his landlord from an evajioypacpoQ yecopyo? who had absented himself from his farm for three years and who has now asked for re-instate ment. The body of the text is written, as the editor observes, "in a straggling sixth-century hand with a marked inclination to the right." It is a very difficult hand to read and the text that is printed is very well done indeed. Nevertheless, in reviewing a photograph of the papyrus as part of a more general concern with Byzantine Egyptian evaTioypacpoi, it seemed to me to be possible to make a few suggestions toward advancing the text, without (it is hoped) adding to whatever puzzles and problems remain.