April 24, 2026
Mummy, meet Homer
Iliad fragment found in Roman-era mummy
Gold tongues, Greek verses: awe, landfill lore, and Library laments flood the comments
TLDR: A fragment of Homer’s Iliad was found in a Roman‑era mummy’s wrappings at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. Commenters fought over why it was there (ancient recycled papyrus), mourned the lost Library of Alexandria, and demanded a date for the fragment—proof that old texts still spark very modern debates.
Archaeologists pulled a slice of Homer’s Iliad—the “Catalogue of Ships” from Book 2—out of a Roman‑era mummy’s wrappings in Egypt’s Oxyrhynchus, and the internet did what it does best: turned a dusty papyrus into a full‑blown culture war. The thread split fast. One camp swooned over the find and the eerie glamour of those mummies with gold and copper tongues, cats wrapped for the afterlife, and tiny statues of Harpocrates and Cupid. Another camp went straight to the grief: cue the chorus mourning the Library of Alexandria, insisting every scrap recovered today is a postcard from what was lost.
Then the pedants pounced. “So why bury a man with a book?” sparked a lesson in ancient recycling: Oxyrhynchus was famous for an old trash dump whose tossed papyrus got reused in mummy wrappings—think ancient papier‑mâché chic. Commenters demanded receipts, too, dragging the article for not dating the fragment and flexing that the earliest complete Iliad is the 10th‑century Venetus A. Meanwhile, the “boots‑on‑the‑ground” crowd imagined the grim reality of tunneling through centuries‑old landfill and looted tombs. Between gold‑tongue memes and “Book Club of the Dead” jokes, the mood was equal parts wonder, grief, and delightful nerd rage—a perfect storm of history meets internet energy.
Key Points
- •A papyrus fragment of Homer’s Iliad was found inside the wrappings of a Roman-era mummy at Oxyrhynchus (El-Bahnasa), Egypt.
- •The text is identified as the “Index of Ships” from Book 2 of the Iliad.
- •The joint Spanish-Egyptian team (University of Barcelona and Institute of the Ancient Near East) excavated multiple mummies with varied burial treatments, including gold and copper tongue inserts.
- •Additional finds include poorly preserved painted wooden coffins and, in an older cemetery section, limestone chambers with cremated adults, an infant, and wrapped animal remains (notably cats).
- •Terracotta and bronze statues, including Harpocrates and Cupid, were recovered; officials say the site illuminates burial traditions in Bahnasa during the Greek and Roman eras.