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.

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

"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...

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...

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

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

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

Didn’t they just find a copy of the Iliad buried with an Egyptian mummy?

Archaeologists Make Stunning Discovery Inside Mummy’s Tomb.A Roman-era Egyptian Mummy has been found laid to rest with a fabled Greek text. Homer’s Iliad was discovered in a clay packet outside the wrappings of a 2,000-year-old mummy in the Oxyrhynchus necropolis, which may have been used to help gu

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...