Two Loan Repayments from Second-Century Tebtunis

The type of document commonly referred to as the repayment, or return of a loan has been recently discussed in the introduction to P. Yale 63. The editors there conclude (p. 198) that "written repayments of loans were not given for repayment itself, but to cover peculiar circumstances" (spaced by me), such as the decease of the original creditor or debtor, or occasions when repayment was made in a place different from that in which the loan was taken out. The two papyri presented below lend confirmation to this conclusion: No. 1 is the repayment in Tebtunis of a loan originally drawn up in the record office (grapheion) of Thegonis: in No. 2 repayment is made in behalf of a deceased debtor by his sister. For further discussion and details, see P. Yale 63 introduction, with the list of repayments given, pp. 196-97. To this may be added P. Teb. 596 descr. (in RASP 6 [1969] pp. 31ff.).