Egyptian mummy buried with fragment of Homer's Iliad

A 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy was found buried with a fragment of Homer’s work, perhaps as a passport to the afterlife.

I was somewhat taken aback by the ritualistic interpretations of that find of a fragment of the Iliad on a piece of papyrus packed up with a mummy. More mundane explanations are always likely to be closer to the truth, and to me, it sounded like someone had just grabbed a scrap of paper to use. 1/4

"Archaeologists working in Egypt have discovered a remarkable combination of Homeric epic and Egyptian ritual: a 2,000-year-old mummy with a papyrus fragment of the “Iliad” sealed in a clay packet outside its wrappings." 🗃️ www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/s...

Gift link. 🗃️ Archaeologists Find Egyptian Mummy Buried With the ‘Iliad’ www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/s...

This is neat! The mummy was buried about eight hundred years after the Iliad was written down, so this is like being buried with a passage of Dante’s Divine Comedy to help you through the afterlife. 🎁 link

The archaeologists are from the University of Barcelona which has had a project at Oxyrhynchus for three decades, now led by Esther Pons Mellado and Maite Mascort i Roca. The headline teased with "the Iliad": the fragment was from...the Catalog of the Ships. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/s...

Why was an Egyptian mummy buried with the Iliad? | National Geographic www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...

Text from the Iliad …sealed within mummy tummy! In the passage, **the narrator calls on the muses, asking them to name the leaders of the Greek forces that sailed to Troy: “For you are goddesses and are in all places so that you see all things.”** -Smithsonian Magazine 🙏 @docjanicel.bsky.social

I'll get around to reading The Iliad when I'm dead, too. Seriously cool find. 15May, nyt 🎁.

"Archaeologists Find Egyptian Mummy Buried With the ‘Iliad’" Apparently your TBR is forever! (and always has been) #booksky

wow @charlayn.eurosky.social, so a mummy was found buried with a fragment of the Iliad... the catalogue of ships: " For a bed-bound patient shivering with malaria, the prescription was simple: Brace your head against a papyrus scroll of Book 4 to break the fever." www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/s...

This is just so cool! “The Oxyrhynchus Archaeological Mission, run by the Institute of Ancient Near East Studies (IPOA) at the University of Barcelona has identified a papyrus containing a fragment of Homer’s Iliad inside a Roman-era tomb dating 1,600 years ago” web.ub.edu/ca/web/actua...

Heading to the great beyond with a copy of Homer. Way to go. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/s...

Archaeologists Find Egyptian Mummy Buried With the ‘Iliad’-- For the deceased of Roman-era Egypt, Greek lit may have offered a code to a better afterlife-- a 2,000-year-old mummy with a papyrus frag of the “Iliad” sealed in a clay packet outside its wrappings. It is the

The mummy, the Iliad, and a mysterious death ritual. Archaeologists in Egypt unearthed a sealed packet of the epic poem resting atop a Roman-era mummy, suggesting they may have been used as a magical ward for the afterlife. archive.ph/FeMfs #archaeology #globalmuseum