▲Archaeologists find Egyptian mummy buried with the 'Iliad'(openculture.com)
25 points by diodorus 5 days ago | 4 comments
▲atombender 10 minutes ago
Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47864056 (247 points, 93 comments, 28 days ago)
▲zulux 12 minutes ago
>>If Christopher Nolan’s coming adaptation of the Odyssey happens to do well enough to get Hollywood back on its feet,

A typical laconic reply works here. "If"

▲stingrae 48 minutes ago
This reminds me of a piece I just saw at the Legion of Honor (SF) special exhibit on the etruscans. They have a Etruscan manuscript, written on linen, that was used to wrap a mummy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_Linteus
▲baud147258 1 hour ago
I am a little disappointed the tomb where the mummy was found is from the time where Egypt was part of the Roman Empire. At this point ancient Egypt had been a colony of Rome for quite some time and beforehand a Greek/Macedonian colony for a few more centuries (under the Ptolemaic dynasty, founded by a general of Alexander the Great). If it was from a previous era, it would have been a much more interesting find (in my eyes).
▲lkrubner 1 minute ago
The Iliad was written after the classical era of Bronze Age Egypt, so no classical age mummy could be buried with the Iliad because it didn't exist yet.
▲gerdesj 9 minutes ago
The article describes the veneration Roman -> (old) Greek -> (old) Egyptian and this finding appears to show that the veneration went both ways.

Frankly I can understand that: Homer really did smash out an absolute banger with Iliad. I might ask for a copy in my grave too, when the time comes.

The whole point of the article appears to be that when civilizations overlap, the "good old days" becomes a two way street (to gargle metaphors). I do find that interpretation very interesting and it fits in with my world view that history ("historia" - Latin for "story") is generally rather more complicated than many would like it to be to fit their current (or current as was) world view.