Creepy discovery – what the ancient fragment of the "Odyssey" was hiding

Employees of Utrecht University Library discovered an ancient fragment of Homer's "Odyssey" in the archives, dating back 1,700 years. The find is a palm-sized parchment scrap containing lines from the twelfth book of the poem. The artifact had long gone unnoticed among Egyptian and Greek documents.

Employees of Utrecht University Library made an archaeological find: among archival collections of early Christian manuscripts, a parchment fragment of Homer's "Odyssey" was discovered, about 1,700 years old. The palm-sized artifact contains lines from the twelfth book of the poem, describing the episode where Odysseus' hungry crew eats the sacred animals of the god Helios. The find had long gone unnoticed among Egyptian and Greek documents. The discovery belongs to Associate Professor of Ancient Greek Mark de Kreij, who noticed the miniature Greek letters. Previously, the fragment was mistakenly dated to the seventh century AD. The collection came to the university in the mid-twentieth century from the heirs of German researcher Karl Schmidt. Scholars suggest the manuscript originated from the Egyptian Fayum oasis and was similar in size to a modern e-reader. There are only about thirty such artifacts worldwide. The researcher identified the manuscript in 2024, but the university made an official statement only in mid-September 2026.