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Egyptian Texts:  7.41


DEED OF 'NOT HINDERING'


Text:   Mallawi 602/9   [ TM 47584 ]
Provenance:   Hwt-nsw ( Sharunah )
Date:   100 B.C.
Script:   Demotic
Translated by:   O. El-Aguizy
Format:   see key to translations

This document is an appendage to a contract for the sale of property, provided perhaps because the property was known to need repair work.   The translation is taken from O. El-Aguizy, "A Demotic Deed of 'Not Hindering' from Sharunah" ( BIFAO 89 ).

About three months before the document was written, Ptolemy X had killed his mother Cleopatra III, and therefore he appears alone in the dating formula at the start, but ironically he retains the epithet 'mother-loving'.


Year 14, first month of the peret season {Tybi} day 11, of the King Ptolemy whom they call Alexander, the god who loves [his mother], together with those who are appointed in Rakoti.   The lector-priest and god's-sealer of the necropolis of Ḥwt-nsw Ḏd-ḥr-pa-ḥȝp son of Pȝ-tj-Wsir, his mother being Tȝ-tj-Wsir, said to the lector-priest and god's sealer of the necropolis of Ḥwt-nsw Ḥr-pa-iḥ.t son of Ḥr his mother being Tȝ-tj-Wsir:

The day on which you wish me (?) to build or demolish or do any repairs or any work on your house, your waste-plots, or your mill which forms its south, which is in the eastern district of Ḥwt-nsw,   I, nor any man belonging to me or any man belonging to you, will not hinder or stand in your face as not to allow you to build or do any repairs or any work which you wished to do on your house or your building lots above mentioned. All the boundaries of your house, your mill and your waste plots above mentioned, concerning which I made for you a deed of-not-hindering, according to that which is written above:   South, the street of Pharaoh;   North, the waste plots of ʿrʿr son of ṯȝj nʿj (?) which belong to his children together with the waste plots of Ḏd-ḥr son of Ḏd-ḥr-kll;   East, the house and the (?) waste plots of Tḥwtj-ir-rḫ.s son of Ḥr-mȝʿ-ḫrw, which belong to his children;   West the [house] . . .

[I shall not be able] to hinder or stand in your face, together with any man belonging to me or any man belonging to you, so as not to let you do any repairs or any work which you wished me to do on your house or your [waste plots] above mentioned . . . (?) they wrote aforesaid according to . . . (?) . . . If I hinder or stand in your face together with any man belonging [to me or any man] belonging to you, and if I do not let you build or not let you do any repairs or any work which you wished me to do on your house and your waste plots, I shall give [to you] . . . (?) for the burnt offerings and libations in one day within five days in the month in question. You still have a claim upon me, not to hinder them namely the house and the waste-plot above mentioned. And I shall give the burnt offerings and libations voluntarily and without delay. Any man on earth to whom you will give the deed of not hindering your house above mentioned and he brings it to me, I shall observe its rights for him at your bidding and his bidding, voluntarily and without delay. I shall not be able to say the deed of not hindering . . .

Written by Ḥr-... . . . Twtw

{ The names of seven witnesses are written on the reverse. }


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