5 Archaeological Finds That Illuminate Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’

Modern archaeologists have identified thousands of papyrus fragments containing portions of the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey.” Many of these fragments come from the excavation of mummies entombed during the rule of the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty and the Roman Empire, periods in which the administrative language of Egypt was Greek.

“The oldest [Homeric] papyri that we have come from Egypt, and they are dated to the third century B.C.,” Perrone says. Some of these “papyri were extracted from mummy cartonnage”—such as the decorated face or body coverings placed on mummies. Workers created these plaster casts with linen or papyrus scraps, which makes them a unique source of ancient writing.

One of the oldest known “Odyssey” papyri is a fragment housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art dated between 285 and 250 B.C. This fragment, discovered in an Egyptian necropolis (or “city of the dead”) in 1902, contains three lines that do not appear in the modern version of the poem passed down to us from medieval scholars, illustrating how the poem changed over time.

In the ancient Mediterranean world, many people thought of the Trojan War described in the “Iliad” as a real historical event. By the seventh century B.C., people identified a city in Anatolia as the historical location of Troy, the city where the war took place.

With this reputation, the city—then known as Ilios, Ilion or Ilium—became an ancient tourist destination. In the fourth century B.C., Alexander the Great visited the city and the spot where Achilles, the Greek hero in the “Iliad,” was supposedly buried. Later, Roman emperors also visited the famous city.

In the 19th century, a German archaeologist rediscovered (and damaged) the ancient site in modern-day Hisarlık, Turkey. Since then, there has been scholarly debate about whether it is correct to say this was the true location of Troy.

The UNESCO World Heritage Convention identifies it as the “Archaeological Site of Troy.” At the very least, the site appears to be the historical place that ancient Greeks and Romans believed to be Troy.

One of the oldest known examples of the “Odyssey” in writing is a single line on a potsherd, or pottery fragment. This potsherd dates to the fifth century B.C and comes from ancient Olbia, an archaeological site in modern-day Ukraine.

More recently, archaeologists identified 13 lines of the “Odyssey” inscribed on a brick in Olympia, Greece. The lettering on the brick dates to the third century A.D., a few centuries after scholars at the Library of Alexandria created a standardized version of the text. Unlike many earlier papyrus fragments, the text closely matches this standardized tradition and does not contain the textual variations seen in older copies.

In 1939, archaeologists identified an ancient palace in Pylos, Greece, dating to around 1300 B.C. Some scholars have suggested that the site might have inspired the palace of King Nestor in the “Odyssey,” where Odysseus’ son Telemachus travels to in search of information about his missing father.

Among the artifacts archaeologists have identified at the palace are tablets that might refer to a large ritual bull sacrifice, such as the one that Telemachus sees when he visits Pylos. Even so, Perrone cautions that “the problem of localizing Homeric places … is a very debated issue in Homeric scholarship.”

Archaeologists have found multiple examples of “sealed papyri” dating to the Roman era at a necropolis in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. These papyri were placed on mummies’ abdomens and secured with clay sealing devices during the embalming process.

Many of the sealed papyri at Oxyrhynchus contain magical content. In 2026, researchers announced that one of the mummies—who likely died in the first or second century A.D.—was buried with a sealed excerpt from the “Iliad.” The excerpt contains the famous “Catalog of Ships” that lists all of the groups who sailed to Troy to fight in the Trojan War.

Perrone, who was not involved with this research, says it’s possible the “Iliad” excerpt could have served as a “magical talisman,” because some of the other sealed papyri appear to have a magical context. However, she is waiting until the scholars involved in this finding publish their research before she draws any conclusions.