Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 31 contains two fragments of the first book of Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

's Aeneid

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

 (457-467 and 495-507) written in Latin. It was discovered by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897 in Oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus is a city in Upper Egypt, located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo, in the governorate of Al Minya. It is also an archaeological site, considered one of the most important ever discovered...

. The fragment is dated to the fifth century. It is housed in the Cambridge University Library

Cambridge University Library

The Cambridge University Library is the centrally-administered library of Cambridge University in England. It comprises five separate libraries:* the University Library main building * the Medical Library...

. The text was published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1898.

The manuscript was written on papyrus

Papyrus

Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....

 in the form of a codex. The measurements of the fragment are 66 by 54 mm. The original page was about 26 cm heigh. The text is written in a small upright semi-uncial hand. The ink is brown. Grenfell and Hunt collated the text of the fragment on the basis of the Ribbeck text (1860).