TM numbers for p.oxy 9 1212 and p.tebt. 2 340

[enury]

I have been wondering about the TM numbers for those two papyri: as I understand, texts from a single writing surface receive one TM number (unless there are good reasons otherwise).

In that case, shouldn't both columns of p.tebt. 2 340 have a single TM number? And vice-versa, the warrant and list of vegetables on both sides of p.oxy. 9 1212 get two different TM numbers?

I'm not sure if this is an issue exactly, or that I should post it here but I did not know the best place for this sort of question!

[jcowey]

https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.tebt;2;340_1 = TM 20818; https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.tebt;2;340_2 = TM 20818. Yes they are on the same papyrus, but because it is a tomos sunkollesimos (roll of separate texts glued together) there has been a tendency to give each separate document a separate TM number (in this case the texts were written on two different days).

In the case of P.Oxy. 9 1212 it would indeed make more sense to have two different numbers for two different texts, which happen to be on one piece of papyrus. One written on the front, one written on the back. This is the sort of case which might change in the future, but there will be many cases like this.

[enury]

Thank you for the explanation.

As for TM 20818/20819, I think it my curiosity was about the rationale behind TM numbers. From the how to cite page, I just added the bold:

in principle all texts written on what was in antiquity a single writing surface belong together and form one document receiving a single Trismegistos number, unless there are good reasons to believe that the only (and unintended) relation between the two texts is the writing surface itself

I thought that for TM 20818/20819, as they are the same sort of document about payement of grain and addressed to the same person, the texts are not only related by the writing surface, their pasting together is not completely random. But I understand that it may be hard to draw the line.