Archaeologists have found a papyrus copy of Homer’s Iliad on an ancient Egyptian mummy. This was the first time that a Greek literary text had been found used in the preservation process.
The discovery has implications for our knowledge of funerary practices and religious life in ancient Egypt. The papyrus was placed on the abdomen as part of the embalming ritual. That's not unusual. Egyptian mummies from this period have previously been found to carry papyri written in Greek. Those earlier papyri discoveries had text of magical or ritualistic content. This fragment was discovered in the abdomen of a mummy buried in a Roman-era tomb in Oxyrhynchus around 1,600 years ago.
This is the second major discovery involving an ancient poetic text in recent weeks. I wrote earlier about the discovery of the oldest English copy of a poem.
The identified Iliad text found is from the catalogue of ships in Book II of the epic poem, which contains a famous passage listing the Greek forces massing before Troy.
Why was this text chosen to be included with the mummification? Researchers say they are unsure why this particular Greek text was chosen for the mummification process.
Roman-era mummification in Oxyrhynchus combined traditional Egyptian, Greek, and Roman customs. Ancient Egyptian priests preserved bodies using natron salt to dehydrate them and wrapping them up in linen for about 40 days. Instead of using traditional canopic jars to preserve organs, they preferred to pack the body with preserved materials along with papyri containing Greek literature sealed with clay inside the chest or pelvic cavity.
Was it something to read in the afterlife?
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