{"id":425,"date":"2026-05-12T16:45:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T16:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/12\/why-was-an-egyptian-mummy-stuffed-with-a-fragment-of-homers-iliad\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T16:45:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T16:45:21","slug":"why-was-an-egyptian-mummy-stuffed-with-a-fragment-of-homers-iliad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/12\/why-was-an-egyptian-mummy-stuffed-with-a-fragment-of-homers-iliad\/","title":{"rendered":"Why was an Egyptian mummy stuffed with a fragment of Homer\u2019s Iliad?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus by Gavin Hamilton (1760-1763).<\/span> National Galleries of Scotland Collection<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Archaeologists have found something unexpected inside a 1,600-year-old Roman-era Egyptian mummy: a fragment of Homer\u2019s Iliad. It wasn\u2019t placed beside the body, but inside the mummy\u2019s abdomen<\/a>. But the real surprise isn\u2019t just where the fragment was found. It\u2019s how it got there. To understand, we must go back \u2013 to the Iliad itself, and to what it became in the Roman world.<\/p>\n

In The Iliad<\/a>, a poem shaped in the 8th century BC and attributed to Homer<\/a>, the Trojan war<\/a> does not end in triumph or renewal. It ends in devastation. The poem closes at the edge of collapse, with Troy reduced to a landscape of heroic ruin. And yet, this is not where the story ends.<\/p>\n

According to later Roman tradition, one Trojan escaped. Aeneas \u2013 son of Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite \u2013 fled the burning city carrying his father on his shoulders and the household gods in his hands. He moved west, across the Mediterranean, towards Italy, where he became the ancestor of Rome.<\/p>\n

This continuation did not come from the Iliad itself. It was shaped centuries later, most famously in Virgil\u2019s Aeneid<\/a>. But it changed the meaning of the Trojan war entirely. The past, in other words, was actively reorganised \u2013 through stories that could be reworked, extended and connected across time and space.<\/p>\n

\n \"Painting
\n Painting by Pompeo Batoni (1753), depicting Aeneas fleeing the burning city of Troy with his father Anchises and the household gods, as the fall of Troy is recast as the beginning of a journey toward the foundation of Rome.<\/span>
\n Galleria Sabauda<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Turning defeat into origin<\/h2>\n

For Roman audiences, the Trojan war was more than a distant Greek legend. It became a way of thinking about origins, identity and power<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Claiming descent from Troy was more than a matter of tracing a lineage. It required constant cultural work \u2013 through storytelling, education and shared knowledge. The Iliad provided the raw material: characters, events and genealogies that could be reshaped and redeployed across generations.<\/p>\n

Across the Roman Empire, educated elites learned Homer as part of their schooling. They quoted him in speeches, analysed him in classrooms and used him to signal cultural authority<\/a>. To know the Iliad was to speak a language that others across the empire understood.<\/p>\n

A senator in Rome, a teacher in Asia Minor or a student in Egypt could all draw on the same stories. The poem created a shared frame of reference \u2013 one that allowed very different people to situate themselves within a common past.<\/p>\n

\n \"Plan
\n Plan of the late bronze age citadel of Troy (c. 1300\u20131109BC) shown in red, with Roman-period structures in blue, integrated into the ancient fortification in such a way that the surviving walls functioned as a theatrical backdrop of \u2018authentic antiquity\u2019, transforming archaeological depth into a deliberately scenographic experience.<\/span>
\n University of T\u00fcbingen<\/span>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the Roman imperial period, the site of ancient Troy \u2013 located in modern-day Turkey \u2013 became a destination. Emperors invested in its development, tying it directly to Rome\u2019s claimed Trojan origins. Under Emperor Augustus, Troy was folded into the political language of empire. And under Emperor Hadrian<\/a>, it became part of a wider culture of travel, memory and heritage.<\/p>\n

A visitor to Troy in the 2nd century AD would have arrived at a curated landscape. There were baths, places to stay and spaces for performance. A small theatre \u2013 the Odeion \u2013 was built directly into the ancient citadel, so that the remains of the bronze age city, understood as the setting of the legendary battles around Troy, formed a dramatic backdrop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Visitors could walk through what was presented as the setting of Homeric epic, experiencing the Trojan war as something anchored in the ground beneath their feet. <\/p>\n

From Troy to Egypt<\/h2>\n

Across the Roman Empire, the Iliad circulated as a living text: copied, taught and read. Egypt, one of Rome\u2019s most important provinces, was no exception. Yet here, Homer circulated within a cultural landscape that differed in important ways from the Greek literary world in which the poem had first taken shape.<\/p>\n

For Roman observers<\/a>, Egypt often appeared as a place where antiquity was materially preserved as well as remembered \u2013 through temples, monuments and practices that emphasised continuity with the past. At the same time, it was a deeply hybrid society, where Egyptian, Greek and Roman traditions interacted in complex ways.<\/p>\n

Homer was among the most widely copied authors in Roman Egypt \u2013 read and taught as a marker of education and cultural belonging and deeply embedded in everyday literary culture. <\/p>\n

\n \"A
\n The Odeion of Troy, a small covered theatre inserted into the fabric of the ancient citadel and constructed in the early 2nd century AD, exemplifies the Roman reconfiguration of the site\u2019s urban and cultural landscape.<\/span>
\n University of T\u00fcbingen<\/span>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Homeric version of the Trojan War was particularly prominent among the Greek-speaking elite, especially in urban centres such as Oxyrhynchus, where the mummy was found. Other versions of the story \u2013 which placed greater emphasis on Paris and Helen\u2019s stay in Egypt, as reported by Herodotus based on accounts from Egyptian priests \u2013 were probably more widespread among the broader Egyptian population<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The initial media coverage<\/a> of the discovery of the fragment inside the Egyptian mummy suggested the text was deliberately chosen to accompany the deceased. As a personally meaningful object, perhaps reflecting their education or cultural identity. <\/p>\n

The most telling explanation, however, may be the most straightforward. Discarded or damaged papyri could be reused as inexpensive material. The fragment may therefore have functioned as stuffing<\/a> \u2013 bundled together and inserted into the body cavity without particular regard for its literary content.<\/p>\n

The very fact that a scrap of the Iliad could end up as disposable filling, however, speaks to how deeply Homer had penetrated everyday life in Roman Egypt.<\/p>\n

A text in motion<\/h2>\n

To make sense of the past in the Roman world meant moving between story and monument, between genealogy and deep time. Each perspective made the others more intelligible. <\/p>\n

The Iliad helped create a world in which different pasts could be connected, compared and reshaped. By linking stories, places and traditions across the Mediterranean, the Roman world turned the past into a flexible resource \u2013 one that could generate identity, authority and belonging in shifting contexts. <\/p>\n

This is why the Iliad mattered: it circulated across many different settings. It shaped elite education, but it was also part of everyday reading culture. At Troy, it helped transform the city into a place of cultural memory. The text itself also had a long material afterlife, surviving not only as an authoritative story, but through manuscripts and writing materials that were copied, passed on \u2013 or even reused for entirely different purposes.<\/p>\n

Its most enduring insight is therefore this: the past is not something simply preserved, but something continuously made and remade \u2013 through the stories, practices and materials that carry it across time.<\/p>\n

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus by Gavin Hamilton (1760-1763). National Galleries of Scotland Collection Archaeologists have found something unexpected inside a 1,600-year-old Roman-era Egyptian mummy: a fragment of Homer\u2019s Iliad. It wasn\u2019t placed beside the body, but inside the mummy\u2019s abdomen. But the real surprise isn\u2019t just where the fragment was found. It\u2019s how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}