Rare 1,700-year-old fragment of Homer's Odyssey is found tucked inside a Dutch library book

From the Newshound archive · first published 19 September 2026.

A Greek literature professor stumbled on the ancient parchment while examining early Christian manuscripts at Utrecht University Library in the Netherlands. Dr Mark de Kreij of Radboud University spotted the tiny, damaged scrap — measuring just 2.6 by 3 inches — when he noticed a few words typical of Homeric verse. Experts say it likely belonged to a pocket-sized complete Odyssey, carried by a Homer fan around 300 AD.

The fragment covers Book 12, the dramatic moment Odysseus's crew eat the sun god Helios's immortal cattle, triggering Zeus to destroy his ship.

Experts call the find a 'tipping point' passage in the epic, and say only around 30 similar Odyssey fragments have ever been discovered.

The parchment arrived at Utrecht hidden among Coptic manuscripts from the estate of German scholar Carl Schmidt, and had been mislabelled as an unremarkable 7th-century fragment.