Davar Akher

Housed in the museum archives of Cairo University is a small collection of letters that were discovered in Hermopolis, an ancient island fortress in the Nile. The letters were all discovered together, in a sack, and were presumably unsent. Penned on behalf of Aramean soldiers who were garrisoned in the fortress, the letters are reasonably domestic in their tone and are addressed to the soldiers’ families on the mainland. One in particular, however, is of curious import. Written in Egyptian Aramaic, Hermopolis V (as this letter is known) is composed on behalf of two otherwise-unknown soldiers named Nabusha and Makkibanit. Like the other letters within this collection, the author spends most of his time requesting products that were unavailable in Hermopolis and enquiring after the welfare of his relatives and friends. Unlike the others, however, Hermopolis V takes a curious turn. The following is the transcribed text of the letter in question:

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