During excavations in the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus (modern-day El-Bahnasa), a 1600-year-old mummy was discovered with a fragment of Homer’s epic poem “The Iliad” glued to its stomach.
elchi reports that experts from the University of Barcelona announced that this is the first time a literary text has been used instead of religious ritual texts in the mummification process, marking a world first.
It was discovered that the papyrus on the Roman-era mummy, located approximately 200 kilometers south of Cairo, contains fragments from the “Catalogue of Ships” section of the second book of the Iliad.
Due to the fragility of the papyrus, the work is being carried out carefully, and the full content of the text will be clarified using high-tech X-ray methods.
A mysterious ritual or the embalmer’s signature?
Classical philologist Ignasi-Xavier Adiego stated that they have not yet reached a definitive conclusion as to why the literary text was used in this way. While previously discovered ritual texts were thought to have been placed there for protective purposes, researchers are investigating whether a fragment of an epic poem served the same function or if it was a kind of “signature” of the embalmer.
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