A Spanish-Egyptian team found a papyrus of Homer’s “Index of Ships” (Iliad Book 2) inside mummy wrappings at the Roman-era necropolis of Oxyrhynchus, Egypt.
Key Takeaways
The text is the “Index of Ships” – a catalogue of Greek forces in Troy – from Book 2 of the Iliad, excavated at Oxyrhynchus (modern El-Bahnasa), one of antiquity’s richest papyrus sites.
Joint University of Barcelona and Institute of the Ancient Near East team recovered multiple mummies; three had gold tongues, one copper, with gold leaf applied post-mummification.
Tomb 65 yielded a hypogeum with deteriorated remains and additional tongue inserts, pointing to layered, multi-period reuse of burial chambers.
East of Ptolemaic Tomb 67, limestone chambers held cremated adults, an infant, and cloth-wrapped cats alongside terracotta and bronze Harpocrates and Cupid figurines.
Oxyrhynchus has long produced papyrus finds; embedding literary text inside mummy cartonnage or wrappings was a recycling practice common in the Greco-Roman period.