4th century AD. A ceramic rectangular ostracon, Greek demotic inscription reading: '???? (couple) / ??? (??) MODIOY' (a modios of wine) '/ T???? ?? ???' (of three with)'... / ?E ?I ?I? ??N E' (with what the)'...ENE / ??' (greetings); mounted on a custom-made frame. See Tait, H., Greek Ostraca in the Bodleian Library at Oxford and various other Collections, London, 1930; La'da, C. and Rubinstein L., 'Greek Ostraca from Pselkis' in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 110, 1996, pp.135-155. 104 grams total, 10.2cm including stand (4"). Property of a French collector; previously with a central London gallery; formerly part of the Sir Thomas Phillips collection, 1860. Most ostraca of the Ptolemaic and Roman Period are receipts, and belong to the same local level of tax-collecting operation as the bulk of ostraca in demotic, the Egyptian script used for daily economic writing during these periods. Where a substantial group of ostraca is preserved from the same time and place, they provide invaluable primary evidence for the functioning of the economy and the changes in the government of Egypt across these centuries. A particularly colourful example is provided by the group of ostraca from the excavations of Petrie at Koptos, relating to funding and supplies for trading exhibitions to Berenike and Myos Hormos, the ports of the Red Sea for trade between the Roman world and both the Arabian peninsula and India. This particular Ostrakon refers to the purchase of wine. For this specific lot, 5% import VAT is applicable on the hammer price