Among the hundreds of papyri concerning the fifth century BCE Aramaic-speaking Jewish community from Elephantine Island in Upper Egypt (or nearby) is an archive of eleven documents concerning Mibtahiah (also read as Miptahiah). The complete Elephantine archive consists of letters and legal texts (e.g., marriage and divorce documents, slave manumission forms, and business transactions) from family and other archives. Egypt was ruled by the Achaemenid Dynasty of the Persian Empire during this period; these documents reveal the existence of a Jewish military colony under Persian rule. They also describe a Jewish temple that was built at Elephantine, which was evidently destroyed by local Egyptians and Persian rulers in 410 BCE. The many letters and contracts betray the significant role that Jewish women played in Elephantine society.