Damaged fragment deemed 'unremarkable' turns out to be rare piece of Homer's 'Odyssey' history

An ancient fragment of Homer's "Odyssey" was hiding in plain sight for decades in a university library in the Netherlands — until a professor took a closer look.

The discovery, announced by Utrecht University this month, was made in the university's Special Collections.

Mark de Kreij, an assistant professor of Ancient Greek and Papyrology at Radboud University, came across the unidentified parchment while studying Greek manuscripts in the university's collection.

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De Kreij told Fox News Digital the fragment had originally been kept with Coptic Christian manuscripts, which he said was "probably why it was missed in the early research on the collection."

By the time he examined it, however, the still-unidentified fragment had been moved to a box containing Greek manuscripts.

Utrecht University said the fragment was first considered ordinary.

"Hidden among these, first regarded as an unremarkable 7th-century fragment, was a damaged and discolored fragment with very small, neat letters," the university said.

"De Kreij soon recognized a few words typical of the Homeric epics."

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The fragment contains verses from Book 12 of the "Odyssey" — including the pivotal moment when the sun god Helios discovers that Odysseus' crew killed and ate his sacred cattle.

Helios then demands vengeance from Zeus — an episode recently depicted in the Christopher Nolan film adaptation.

Researchers believe the manuscript was owned by a reader living in Egypt's Fayum oasis, southwest of modern-day Cairo, around 300 A.D. 

The fragment has been dated to the 3rd or 4th century A.D.

And its age isn't the only thing that makes it a rarity. The university says only a few fragments like it exist across the world.

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"There are only around 30 fragments like it worldwide," the statement said.

Though the university described the fragment as part of a "pocket edition" of the complete epic, one expert told Fox News Digital she was not convinced by that interpretation.

Anna Dolganov, a Roman historian and papyrologist at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, questioned whether the fragment came from a complete copy of Homer's epic.

"The entire ‘Odyssey’ would require 480 pages," she said.

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Dolganov noted that a parchment volume of that length would be extremely thick in such a small format — making it unlikely, in her view, that the codex contained the entire epic.

The expert also pointed to the handwriting, which she described as more casual and cursive than what she would expect in a complete literary work.

"What I think it's more likely to be is an anthology," she posited. "Or a private collection of excerpts from literary texts, possibly for use in schools, for education, or a private anthology that would have been much, much smaller — not the entire 'Odyssey.'"

De Kreij pointed to the text preserved on both sides of the parchment as evidence that it belonged to a complete copy of the epic.

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"Both sides contain passages from book 12 of the ‘Odyssey,’ which are nearly contiguous," he told Fox News Digital.

De Kreij said an anthology is theoretically possible, but he knows of no similar examples from the period. Complete copies of works such as the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," by contrast, have numerous parallels, he said.

Dolganov said the discovery also reflects Homer's widespread popularity in the ancient world, where his works played an important role in education.

The ancient poet "was very popular indeed all over the Mediterranean world where Greek was learned," Dolganov said.

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"Homer was used to teach Greek," she added, explaining that his works were widely used as school texts around the Eastern Mediterranean.

Dolganov noted that dating ancient literary manuscripts can be difficult and imprecise, particularly in situations where scholars rely on handwriting as evidence.

"It would be important not to overstate how certain we are that this is indeed as early as the third or fourth century," she said.

"But it doesn't need to be, to be a very interesting and exciting discovery," she said.

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De Kreij said the dating is based on several features of the fragment, including its codex format, parchment material, the appearance of the ink and its handwriting.

"The neat, small bookhand cannot be dated with absolute certainty, but there are good parallels from the late third and fourth century," he said.

"All such dating has to be approximate, but in the scientific edition, I cite a number of dated parallels to back up my estimate."

Dolganov also reflected on the human connection offered by the discovery.

"This is something that people held in their hand," she said. "This is something they carried with them and read, and it's a text that's also accessible to us."

"So it kind of connects us to the ancient reader because we are similarly excited by this timeless work of literature."