The Kellis Agricultural Account Book

The report from Kellis by the Dakhleh Oasis team documents a collection of wooden tablets found alongside the Isocrates codex. The tablets contain the most extensive and well-preserved set of accounts for an agricultural entity to survive from the 4th century AD. The accounts probably date from the 360s and document the daily life of an agricultural estate over a period of five years. Information on crops, measures, prices and valuation, tenants and religious institutions can be gleaned from the account book which is here transcribed in full, with a facing-page translation and line-by-line commentary on the text. There is also discussion of the significance of the accounts and the context in which the tablets were found.