Muzuris Papyrus (verso side)

The verso side of the document fragment spells out details of the valuable merchandize involved in the shipment and how it was to be conveyed from Alexandria to other markets in the Middle East and beyond. According to the Princeton scholar L. Casson, “One of the great contributions of the papyrus is the concrete evidence it furnishes of the huge amounts of money that trade with India required. The six parcels of the shipment recorded on the verso had a value of just short of 1155 talents (col. 2, line 29) almost as much as it cost to build the aqueduct at Alexandria Troas (7,000,000 drachmas). Loaded with cargoes of the likes of that recorded in this papyrus, there were veritable treasure ships” (Casson, L, New Light on Maritime Loans: P. Vindob G40822). In modern terms the shipment included: 60 containers of Gangetic nard, 7478 pounds of ivory, and 1214 pounds of fabric. Nard (spikenard) was an essential ingredient of perfumes and unguents, and was extracted from the medicinal plant Nardostachys jatamansi. Its oils were believed to have medicinal properties as a sedative.