It may need been mummy’s favourite bedtime story.
Archaeologists discovered a part of Homer’s “The Iliad” stuffed inside a 1,600-year-old mummy’s stomach — a shocking and first-of-its-kind discover, specialists mentioned.
Researchers from the College of Barcelona mentioned a papyrus fragment written in Greek was found throughout an excavation of a Roman Empire-era Egyptian tomb.
The fragment features a part of E book Two of the traditional epic, which particulars the legendary Trojan War, the college mentioned.
The fragment names the well-known catalog of ships used in opposition to town of Troy, possible positioned inside the mum’s stomach throughout embalming, college researchers detailed.
The invention, first introduced this month, was uncovered by college researchers between November and December 2025 — and is the primary time in recorded historical past {that a} Greek literary textual content has been discovered included right into a mummification ritual, scientists mentioned.
The College of Barcelona’s Oxyrhynchus Archaeological Mission had beforehand documented Greek papyri tucked inside mummies in related positions, however the textual content was all the time magical or ritualistic, in response to researchers.
“It’s price noting that, for the reason that late nineteenth century, an enormous variety of papyri have been found at Oxyrhynchus, together with Greek literary texts of nice significance,” mentioned Professor Ignasi-Xavier Adiego, who helped lead the analysis marketing campaign.
“However the true novelty is discovering a literary papyrus in a funerary context,” Adiego added.
The male mummy was found inside Tomb 65 on the Al-Bahnasa necropolis, the positioning of historical Oxyrhynchus, which sits roughly 190 miles south of Cairo.
The identical dig additionally turned up three gold tongues and one copper tongue — objects positioned within the mouths of the lifeless so they might communicate to the gods within the afterlife.
Earlier excavations on the cemetery had already recovered greater than a dozen mummies with gold tongues, however why one acquired copper as a substitute of gold stays unclear, in response to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
