Ancient Homeric fragment from the Odyssey identified in Utrecht library

Mark de Kreij, a papyrologist at the University of Utrecht, discovered a previously unnoticed fragment of Homer's Odyssey among a collection of ancient Christian manuscripts. The 6.6 by 7.7 cm parchment holds lines from Book XII describing Helios informing Zeus of the crew's violation of a sacred taboo, leading to a storm that wrecks the ship and leaves Odysseus as the sole survivor. The university says the fragment was part of a miniature edition of the epic, similar in size to a modern e-reader, probably owned by a Homer enthusiast living in the Faium oasis of Egypt around the third century.

The find adds to roughly thirty known Odyssey fragments worldwide, most dating to the early Christian era. The parchment was acquired in the mid-20th century from the heirs of German scholar Carl Schmidt and had been stored in the library for decades without recognition.