Numerals appear frequently in this papyrus, as they often do in documentary texts that were used to record transactions or other monetary matters. The Greek system of numerals uses letters in place of numbers. To read the Greek numbers, add the value of each individual letter to produce a total. The values of the Greek letters are given in this table
The larger number was typically written first, followed by the smaller number (although this is not the case in line 9 because of a copying error). Below is an example of a numeral (in this case, the day of the month Hathor on which the contract was made). Here, the number 12 is written as ιβ with a horizontal line above the two letters. The line indicates that the two letters should be read as number.
