In late 2025, archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt found something nobody had ever seen before. A Roman-era mummy with a papyrus placed directly on its abdomen as part of the embalming ritual — but instead of the magical or ritualistic text that's always been found in this position before, this one contained a fragment of Homer's Iliad. Specifically the Catalogue of Ships from Book II — one of the most famous passages in the ancient world, listing the Greek forces that sailed to Troy. This is the first time in the history of archaeology that a Greek literary text has been found deliberately incorporated into the mummification process. Homer wrote the Iliad about 2,700 years ago. By the time it ended up in this mummy, the poem had already been circulating for over a thousand years. Whether it was chosen for meaning, or just repurposed as expensive scrap, researchers genuinely don't know.
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