Fragment of the Iliad found in the abdomen of an Egyptian mummy

A papyrus containing part of Homer’s “Iliad” was discovered inside the abdomen of a mummy in Egypt. Other mummies in the same cemetery had golden tongues.

A team of Egyptian archaeologists has discovered a Roman-era mummy with a copy of Homer’s epic poem the “Iliad” inside its abdomen — a unique find that archaeologists classify as “exceptional“.

Written on papyrus, in Greek, the text records part of Book 2 of the “Iliad”which describes the legendary Trojan War.

According to one from the University of Barcelona, ​​the text found in the mummy lists the ships used against the city of Troy. The papyrus was placed inside the abdomen during the embalming ritual.

The mummy, which dates from a time when Romans controlled Egyptwas found in a tomb within a cemetery in the current location of Al-Bahnasa, in Egypt, known in ancient times as Oxyrhynchus.

The Romans controlled Egypt from 30 BC, after , until 641 AD, when the Rashidun Caliphate took control of Egypt.

The archaeological site of Oxirrinco has been excavated intermittently for more than a century. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, archaeologists found about 500,000 papyrus fragments no local.

“The papyrus was placed on the abdomen to protect the deceased in the afterlife,” he said. Esther Pons Melladoco-director of the archaeological mission in Oxirrinco, at .

As explained by Pons Mellado and Maite Mascortalso co-director of the mission, during the period when the Romans controlled Egypt, it was common to place themselves papyrus inside mummies, in the chest or abdomen. However, it is unclear why ancient Egyptians believed papyri would help protect the deceased.

This is the first time a copy of Homer’s “Iliad” has been found inside a mummy.

“The discovery is exceptional: This is the first time in the history of archeology that a Greek literary text has been found deliberately incorporated into the mummification process”, highlights the statement from the University of Barcelona.

Although other Greek literary texts have been unearthed at Oxyrhynchus, “the real news” of this newly discovered literary papyrus is its “funeral context,” he said in the statement Ignasi-Xavier Adiegoprofessor of linguistics at the University of Barcelona, ​​who analyzed the papyrus.

The researcher explains that the papyri found inside mummies are often magical texts.

So far, archaeologists know little about the mummy containing the “Iliad” papyrus. “We know that it was a mummified male individualbut it is still under research”, explained Pons and Mascort. The researchers emphasize that it was an adult.

Previous excavations by the team in the same cemetery revealed more than a dozen mummies with golden tongueswhich ancient Egyptians believed helped mummies communicate in the afterlife.

According to one from Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the team found three more tongues of gold and one tongue of copper during an excavation at the end of last year.

For the ancient Egyptians, gold symbolized the flesh of the godsand it was believed that having a golden tongue would help communicate with them. It is unclear why copper was used in one of the languages.