1,700-year-old fragment of the 'Odyssey' discovered between pages of Dutch library book
The fragment is from Book 12, when Zeus curses Odysseus' men for killing and eating Helios' sacred cattle.
A 1,700-year-old fragment of Homer's Odyssey has been discovered in a Dutch library, hidden between the pages of an old Egyptian text. The fragment, which measures just 2.6 by 3 inches (6.6 by 7.7 centimeters), contains verses from Book 12 of the epic, describing a critical moment when the sun god Helios discovers that Odysseus' men have killed and eaten his immortal cattle.
The find was made by Mark de Kreij, a Greek literature expert at Radboud University in the Netherlands, while he was studying early Christian manuscripts purchased by Utrecht University in the mid-20th century. This discovery marks the second time this year that a fragment from a Homeric epic has been found unexpectedly, following the discovery of Iliad papyrus fragments inside a Roman-era mummy in Egypt.
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