Ancient Odyssey fragment found in university library
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Mark de Kreij, a teacher at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, discovered a 1700-year-old fragment of Homer’s Odyssey while examining the university’s library collection.
De Kreij found the 6.6 by 7.7 centimeter parchment piece two years ago while reviewing a collection of Coptic manuscripts.
The fragment preserves a few lines from Book 12 of the epic poem, describing a scene where Odysseus’s men disobey his warnings and kill the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios, leading to a storm sent by Zeus. The university acquired the collection from a relative of German scholar Carl Schmidt, and the ancient Greek text had become mixed in with the Coptic papyri. Egyptian texts written using the Greek alphabet.
Researchers believe the fragment came from a small book made in Egypt between the 3rd and 4th centuries. Utrecht University publicized the discovery following the success of Christopher Nolan’s recent film adaptation of the Odyssey, which boosted sales of English and Dutch translations. Although only a few copies of such an early Odyssey fragment remain, scholars say the find demonstrates that Homer’s epic was continuously copied and transmitted in ancient times.
De Kreij suggests the fragment survived because it came from the middle of the book, with the outer pages protecting it.
