Archaeologists Unearth a Papyrus Fragment From the ‘Iliad’ Tucked Inside the Wrappings of a 1,600-Year-Old Egyptian Mummy

The excerpt from Homer’s epic poem features his catalog of ships, a famous passage listing the Greek forces that sailed to Troy. It may be the first Greek literary text found in the context of mummification

Ellen Wexler

Papyrus fragment of the Iliad
The papyrus fragment with a passage from Homer's Iliad Ignasi-Xavier Adiego

In the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, archaeologists recently discovered a 1,600-year-old tomb with several mummies inside. Some of them were decorated with gold leaf or geometric patterns—features commonly found in burials of this kind.

But one of the mummies was unearthed alongside a particularly unusual artifact: a papyrus fragment from Homer’s Iliad, the epic poem set during the Trojan War. The ancient Greek text had been tucked beneath the wrappings on the mummy’s abdomen during the embalming process.

“The fact that in this case the text, in Greek, refers to a literary text is truly novel,” say Maite Mascort and Esther Pons, who lead the Oxyrhynchus Archaeological Mission, in a statement to Smithsonian magazine. “We are currently studying and proposing various hypotheses.”

The passage in question comes from a famous section of the Iliad that’s known as the catalog of ships. In Book II of the more than 2,700-year-old text, the narrator calls on the muses, asking them to name the leaders of the Greek forces that sailed to the city of Troy: “For you are goddesses and are in all places so that you see all things.” The remainder of the passage provides a lengthy list of these warriors. A man named Guneus arrived with “two and twenty ships from Cyphus.” Tlepolemus, “son of Hercules, a man both brave and of great stature,” brought nine ships from Rhodes. And so on.

Necropolis
The necropolis where the mummies were found Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

The researchers found the unusual artifact in Tomb 65 of Sector 22 during excavations in late 2025. According to a statement, it’s the first known evidence of a Greek literary text that was “deliberately incorporated into the mummification process.”

“Since the late 19th century, a huge number of papyri have been discovered at Oxyrhynchus,” Ignasi-Xavier Adiego, a philologist at the University of Barcelona who studied the fragment, says in the statement. “But the real novelty is finding a literary papyrus in a funerary context.”

The ruins of Oxyrhynchus were initially documented by Vivant Denon, a French scholar traveling with Napoleon, who invaded Egypt in 1798. A century later, when British archaeologists excavated the site, located some 100 miles south of Cairo, they unearthed tens of thousands of ancient papyri in the city’s garbage dump.

The trove included literary texts, government records, religious documents, leases, wills, horoscopes and private correspondence. In the words of Atlas Obscura’s Romie Stott, “It’s basically the closest thing we have to discovering the Library of Alexandria in a landfill.”

Archaeologists have also found papyrus texts in other Roman-era mummies—but in most cases, their contents were magical or ritualistic. “We believe they were elements related to the protection of the individual,” Mascort and Pons say. “Generally, these papyri are folded, tied and sealed.”

In antiquity, Egyptian culture was heavily influenced by Greek and Roman traditions. When Egypt came under the rule of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.E., Greek became the primary language used in government documents. Egypt became a Roman province in 30 B.C.E., after the Roman emperor Octavian defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

“The discovery of a copy of the Iliad in an Egyptian city like Oxyrhynchus is certainly not unusual,” Leah Mascia, a papyrologist who analyzed the fragment, tells Smithsonian. “In the Greco-Roman period, texts such as the Iliad circulated across all Egypt; they were used in educational settings, and copies were even owned by private citizens.”

Hisham El-Leithy, the acting secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, says in a statement that the new discovery provides fresh insights into the city’s evolving funerary practices during the Greek and Roman eras.

Gold tongue
One of the gold tongues found at Oxyrhynchus Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

Other discoveries from Tomb 65 include mummies with golden and copper tongues. In antiquity, golden tongues were sometimes incorporated into the mummification process so that the deceased could speak to the god Osiris in the afterlife. Other examples of the practice have been found elsewhere in Egypt.

But the Iliad fragment is the first discovery of its kind. Because the text was found in poor condition, researchers studied it carefully in a lab using noninvasive techniques.

“Many other papyri are still undergoing restoration,” Mascort tells Sílvia Marimon of Ara, a Catalan newspaper. “We cannot rule out that some other literary text may also appear.”