Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 70 is a petition, written in Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

. 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 sheet. 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 document was written between 212-213. Currently it is housed in the Bolton Art Gallery and Museum

Bolton Museum

Bolton Museum is a public museum and art gallery in the town of Bolton, Greater Manchester, northern England, owned by Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council....

 in Bolton

Bolton

Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...

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

The letter was addressed to Aurelius Herapion, epistrategus, and concerns a debt owed to the author by Agathodaemon. It was written by Ptolemaeus, former agoranomus. The measurements of the fragment are 184 by 148 mm.