Deep inside a 1,600-year-old mummy at the Al Bahnasa necropolis in Egypt, researchers have uncovered something extraordinary: a fragment of Homer's Iliad, deliberately placed inside the tomb as part of the mummification ritual. The discovery, made by the Oxyrhynchus Archaeological Mission, marks the first time in archaeological history that a Greek literary text has been found incorporated into the embalming process—a finding that challenges everything scholars thought they knew about ancient Egyptian burial customs.
The mission, run by the Institute of Ancient Near East Studies at the University of Barcelona, has been excavating the site—identified with ancient Oxyrhynchus, one of the most important cities of Greco-Roman Egypt—since 1992. Located roughly 190 kilometers south of Cairo along the Bahr Yussef branch of the Nile, the necropolis has long been a treasure trove of papyri, but previous discoveries had yielded mainly magical or ritualistic texts when Greek writings appeared in burial contexts.
In November and December 2025, a team led by Núria Castellano discovered a Roman-era mummy in Tomb 65 of Sector 22 with an unusual feature: a papyrus resting on the abdomen, placed there as part of the embalming ritual. When conservator Margalida Munar, papyrologist Leah Mascia, and classical philologist Ignasi-Xavier Adiego analyzed the fragment in January and February 2026, they identified it as the famous catalog of ships from Book II of the Iliad—the sweeping passage that lists the Greek forces sailing toward Troy, one of the most iconic texts in Western literature.
"This is not the first time we have found Greek papyri bundled, sealed, and incorporated into the mummification process, but until now, their content was mainly magical," said Professor Adiego, director of the Oxyrhynchus project. "The real novelty is finding a literary papyrus in a funerary context."
The excavation has revealed a complex of three limestone chambers containing Roman-era mummies and decorated wooden sarcophagi, many damaged by centuries of looting. Yet amid the disruption, this single fragment survived—offering a glimpse into how ancient Egyptians may have understood and valued Greek literature not merely as scholarship, but as something meaningful enough to accompany the dead.
The mission, led by Maite Mascort and Esther Pons, continues to analyze the find, and scholars say the discovery opens new questions about cultural exchange between Greek and Egyptian traditions in the Roman era. For a text that has traveled through millennia, resting finally inside a tomb, Homer's words have found yet another chapter in their long journey.