Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 28 consists of fragments of the third book of Hellenica

Hellenica (Xenophon)

Hellenica simply means writings on Greek— Hellenic— subjects. Several histories of fourth-century Greece, written in the mold of Thucydides or straying from it, have borne the conventional Latin title Hellenica...

(chapter 1) by Xenophon

Xenophon

Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...

, 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;...

. 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 second century. It is housed in the library of the University of St Andrews

University of St Andrews

The University of St Andrews, informally referred to as "St Andrews", is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge. The university is situated in the town of St Andrews, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It was founded between...

 (Haskell Oriental Institute). 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 scroll. Three consecutive columns have survived. The measurements of a single column are 122 by 125 mm. The text is written in a nearly upright square uncial hand. In the upper margin are some semi-cursive scholia, written in a more formal hand than the text. Iota adscript

Iota adscript

In Greek polytonic orthography, the iota adscript is a iota written after a long vowel in a long diphthong, as opposed to below the vowel as a small vertical stroke ....

is commonly written. Grenfell and Hunt collated the text of the manuscript on the basis of Keller's edition (1890).