Renais­sance Europe admired ancient Rome, ancient Rome admired ancient Greece, and ancient Greece admired ancient Egypt. But the admi­ra­tion could actu­al­ly go both ways in that last case, since the two civ­i­liza­tions’ peri­ods of exis­tence over­lapped. The Greeks made no secret of their regard for Egypt as a far deep­er well of knowl­edge and wis­dom (indeed, much of what we know about ancient Egypt today comes from Greek records), but archae­o­log­i­cal evi­dence shows that the Egyp­tians, in turn, were hard­ly dis­mis­sive of Greek accom­plish­ment. Many Hel­lenic texts have been dis­cov­ered in Egypt­ian bur­ial sites, but only recent­ly has a Greek lit­er­ary work turned up pack­aged with a mum­my — and not just any lit­er­ary work, but pages from Home­r’s Ili­ad.

Unearthed from a 1,600-year-old Roman-era tomb in the Egypt­ian town of Al Bah­nasa, the frag­ment con­tains lines from Book 2’s epic “cat­a­logue of ships,” which lists all the ves­sels the Achaean army sends off to Troy. It dates from an era in ancient Egypt, cen­turies after the reign of the Greek-descend­ed Cleopa­tra, when “Greek lit­er­ary papyri may have func­tioned as a cru­cial cul­tur­al pass­port,” as the New York Times’ Franz Lidz writes.

“Being Hel­lenic con­not­ed an exclu­sive social sta­tus and finan­cial priv­i­lege — and had to be metic­u­lous­ly doc­u­ment­ed through genealo­gies going back across sev­er­al cen­turies.” It’s pos­si­ble that pages of the Ili­ad were assumed to act as a kind of Greek pass­port that would let the deceased bypass the tri­als of the under­world described in the Egypt­ian Book of the Dead.

So ven­er­at­ed was Home­r’s work at this stage of ancient Egypt­ian his­to­ry, in fact, that physi­cians also cred­it­ed it with cura­tive prop­er­ties. “For a bed-bound patient shiv­er­ing with malar­ia, the pre­scrip­tion was sim­ple: Brace your head against a papyrus scroll of Book 4 to break the fever.” What­ev­er the effec­tive­ness of the Ili­ad against infec­tious dis­ease, or even to assure safe pas­sage into the world beyond, its con­tin­ued study around the world more than a mil­len­ni­um and a half after it was get­ting slipped into Egypt­ian tombs — and the bet­ter part of three mil­len­nia after its com­po­si­tion — sug­gests a kind of his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al pow­er not pos­sessed by ordi­nary lit­er­a­ture. If Christo­pher Nolan’s com­ing adap­ta­tion of the Odyssey hap­pens to do well enough to get Hol­ly­wood back on its feet, per­haps we’ll have to give it to the ancient Egyp­tians and admit that Homer real­ly does offer sal­va­tion after all.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Homer’s Ili­ad and Odyssey: Free Audio­Books & eBooks

Hear Homer’s Ili­ad Read in the Orig­i­nal Ancient Greek

The Only Illus­trat­ed Man­u­script of Homer’s Ili­ad from Antiq­ui­ty

The Old­est Tat­toos Ever Dis­cov­ered on an Egypt­ian Mum­my Date Back 5,000 Years

The Ancient Egypt­ian Book of the Dead: A Guide­book for Sur­viv­ing the After­life

How Did the Egyp­tians Make Mum­mies? An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to the Ancient Art of Mum­mi­fi­ca­tion

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.