Oldest text of the Odyssey (not)

Guardian, "Ancient find may be earliest extract of epic Homer poem Odyssey"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/10/earliest-extract-of-homers-epic-po...

The Culture Ministry quote shows they know what's going on, but the Guardian is misundstanding. There are SCADS of papyri of the Odyssey and also some ostraka that are older—some as old as six centuries older!

Grumble.

Still cool. But only one textual variant was spotted from photos.

The summer 2016 exhibit “Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2016/pergamon) had a papyrus fragment with lines from Book 20, ca. 285-250 BC, which was found in Egypt in 1902. They claimed it was the earliest preserved written text. (I’ve uploaded a picture of the fragment to my profile, along with a picture of the explanatory text.’

But yes, still cool.

Cool. And thanks theaelizabet - nice pics and documentation!

Here's a link to the fragment.

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/09.182.50/

>1 timspalding: So, the article claims it could be the oldest found in Greece. Is that true? I wondered if it was a matter of fine points (even though, I suppose, that's not such a fine point).

It's still cool of course. But yes, the claim is a bit silly. Unless like >5 pmackey: says, they mean it's the earliest found in Greece proper. That might possibly be true.