How did a fragment of the “Iliad” end up inside an Egyptian mummy?

Source: French to English Tester   Published on: 2026-05-15

Source: The Conversation – in French– By Stephan Blum, Research Associate, Institute for Prehistory and Early History and Medieval Archaeology, University of Tübingen

In the Roman Empire, the Iliad was not just a great literary text: it structured education, power, and collective memory. Sometimes, it even ended up recycled as simple stuffing material in an Egyptian mummy.

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An unexpected discovery… While inspecting the interior of a 1,600-year-old Egyptian mummy dating from the Roman period, archaeologists found a fragment of theIliadof Homer. The text had not been placed next to the body, butInside the very abdomen of the mummy. Yet the real surprise does not lie only in the place where this fragment was found. It is above all linked to the way it ended up there. To understand it, one must go back to theIliadherself — and what she has become in the Roman world.
InThe Iliad, poem composed in the 8th century BC and attributed to Homer,Trojan Wardoes not end in triumph nor in renewal. It ends in devastation. The poem concludes at the brink of collapse, as Troy is nothing more than a landscape of heroic ruins. And yet, the story does not stop there.
According to later Roman tradition, however, a Trojan escaped the catastrophe. Aeneas — son of Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite — fled the burning city carrying his father on his shoulders and the household gods in his arms. He then crossed the Mediterranean westward to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans.
This suite does not appear in theIliaditself. It was developed several centuries later, notably in theAeneidfrom Virgil. But it profoundly transformed the meaning of the Trojan War. The past, in other words, was continuously reorganized through stories continuously rewritten, extended, and linked together across time and space.

Turning a defeat into a founding story
For the Romans, the Trojan War was much more than a distant Greek legend. It became a way of thinking about theorigins, identity and power.
Claiming a lineage from Troy did not simply consist in establishing a genealogy. It implied a genuine ongoing cultural work, nourished by stories, education, and a shared collective memory. TheIliadprovided the raw material: characters, events, and lineages that each generation could reshape and reinterpret.
Throughout the Roman Empire, educated elites learned Homer as part of their education. They quoted him in their speeches, analyzed him in classrooms, and used him forassert their cultural authority. Knowing theIliad, it was mastering a common language understood throughout the Empire.
A senator in Rome, a professor in Asia Minor, or a student in Egypt could thus refer to the same stories. The poem constituted a shared cultural framework allowing very different populations to situate themselves within a common history.

During the Roman imperial era, the site of ancient Troy — located in present-day Turkey — became a true cultural pilgrimage site. The emperors invested in its development, directly linking the city to the Trojan origins claimed by Rome. Under the reign of Emperor Augustus, Troy was integrated into the political discourse of the Empire. Then, under Hadrian, it became a central element of a culture of travel, memory, and heritage.
A visitor arriving in Troy in the 2nd century AD would discover a carefully staged landscape. There were baths, lodging places, and spaces intended for performances. A small theater — the Odeon — had even been built directly within the ancient citadel, so that the remains of the Bronze Age city, considered as the backdrop of legendary battles around Troy, formed aspectacular background. Visitors could walk through what was presented as the very setting of the Homeric epic, experiencing the Trojan War as a story literally anchored in the ground beneath their feet.
From Troy to Egypt
Across the entire Roman Empire, theIliadcirculated like a living text: copied, taught, and read. Egypt, one of the most important provinces of Rome, was no exception. But Homer circulated there in a cultural landscape very different from the Greek literary world in which the poem had originated.
For theRomans, Egypt often appeared as a territory where Antiquity was not only narrated but also materially preserved — through its temples, monuments, and practices highlighting continuity with the past. At the same time, it was a profoundly hybrid society, where Egyptian, Greek, and Roman traditions blended in a complex manner.
Homer was among the most copied authors in Roman Egypt: he was read and taught as a marker of education and cultural belonging, deeply integrated into daily literary life.

The Homeric version of the Trojan War held a particularly important place among the Greek-speaking elites, especially in urban centers like Oxyrhynchos, where the mummy was discovered. Other versions of the story — placing greater emphasis on the stay of Paris and Helen in Egypt, as reported by Herodotus based on accounts from Egyptian priests — were probably more widespread among theEgyptian population as a whole.
Thefirst articles dedicated to the discoveryfrom the fragment found in the Egyptian mummy suggested that the text had been deliberately chosen to accompany the deceased, as an object imbued with personal significance, perhaps related to his education or cultural identity.
The most convincing explanation is, however, perhaps the simplest. Damaged or unusable papyri were often reused as cheap material. This fragment could thus have served asjamming, grouped with other pieces then inserted into the abdominal cavity without real consideration for its literary content.
But the simple fact that a fragment of theIliadcould have ended up as filler material shows how deeply Homer was integrated into daily life in Roman Egypt.
A text in motion
In the Roman world, giving meaning to the past involved constantly moving between narratives and monuments, between genealogies and the depths of time. Each perspective allowed the others to be illuminated.
TheIliadcontributed to shaping a world where different pasts could be connected, compared, and reinterpreted. By linking stories, places, and traditions across the entire Mediterranean, the Roman world made the past a flexible and reusable resource, capable of producing identity, authority, and a sense of belonging in changing contexts.
That is precisely why theIliadcounted as much: the text circulated in very different contexts. It structured the education of elites, but was also part of the ordinary culture of reading. In Troy, it contributed to transforming the city into a place of cultural memory.
The text itself has also experienced a long material life, surviving not only as an authoritative narrative but also through copied manuscripts and writing materials, transmitted—even reused for completely different purposes. Its most enduring lesson may be this: the past is never simply preserved. It is constantly made and remade through the narratives, practices, and material objects that carry it through time.

The authors do not work for, do not advise, do not hold shares, do not receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and have declared no affiliation other than their research institution.

–ref. How did a fragment of the “Iliad” end up inside an Egyptian mummy? –https://theconversation.com/how-a-fragment-of-the-iliad-ended-up-inside-an-egyptian-mummy-282886