4th-century fragment of the Odyssey discovered in Utrecht University Library
During a project to study and publish the ancient manuscripts in our Special Collections, Dr Mark de Kreij of the Radboud University made a remarkable discovery.
The Odyssey
The success of Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey has brought Homer’s timeless masterpiece back to the world’s attention. And it was timeless – the Odyssey was famous by Aristotle’s day, and has never lost that status.
In Utrecht, we have proof of the work’s popularity in Late Antiquity (c. 300-600 CE). During his project, Dr Mark de Kreij made an exciting discovery: a small fragment of a parchment codex (book) dating to the 3rd or 4th century CE. Written on this slip of parchment are verses of book 12 of the Odyssey – there are only around thirty fragments like it worldwide.
Provenance
In the middle of the 20th century, Utrecht University purchased a collection of early Christian manuscripts from the heirs of the German scholar Carl Schmidt. The majority of these texts were written on parchment, in Coptic (the Egytian language written using the Greek alphabet), but the set included a few Egyptian and Greek papyri. Hidden among these, first regarded as an unremarkable 7th-century fragment, was a damaged and discoloured fragment with very small, neat letters. De Kreij soon recognised a few words typical of the Homeric epics. Further research revealed these verses to be from book 12 of the Odyssey.
Book 12
Book 12 is the final book in Odysseus’ nested narrative, just before his actual return to Ithaca. In book 6, he arrived at the island of Scheria, home to the Phaeacians, after a storm wrecked his ship and killed all of his companions. After his arrival, Odysseus tells his hosts in books 9-12 about the journey that brought him from Troy to Scheria. He regales them with tales of the Lotus Eaters, Polyphemus the Cyclops, Circe and Calypso, and finally the loss of his ship. At the end of Odysseus’ long narration, the court of the Phaeacians hears how his companions—despite his express prohibition—ate the cattle of the Sun god Helios. Helios was furious, asked Zeus for revenge, and sent a terrible storm to rob Odysseus of his ship and his crew.
Tipping point in the Odyssey
The verses on Utrecht Gr. Ms. B6.39a describe exactly the moment Helios finds out what Odysseus’ companions have done. This leads to the lowest point of Odysseus ten-year journey, but also the start of his mission of revenge against the men who are trying to take charge of his wife Penelope and his palace on Ithaca. This is a crucial tipping point in the Odyssey, and not by chance roughly halfway through the 24 books. This page, written on both sides, will have been a part of a pocket edition of the complete Odyssey (about the size of a Kindle), owned by a fan of Homer living in the Fayum oasis, around 300 CE.
Besides ‘high’ literature, most ancient manuscripts of our Special Collections are documents from the Greco-Roman period in Egypt. Nearly all of them will be published shortly by De Kreij in the volume Hieratic, Demotic, Greek, and Coptic Texts in the Utrecht University Collection (P.Utr.).