Crumpled parchment fragment in Utrecht library turns out to be a piece of Homer's Odyssey from the third century

For decades, a small, crumpled piece of parchment has been sitting unnoticed in Utrecht University Library's collection - until researcher Mark de Kreij recognized it as a genuine fragment of Homer's Odyssey from the third or fourth century. The discovery is remarkable because only about thirty parchment fragments of the Odyssey from that era are known to exist worldwide, making this one of an incredibly rare group. What makes it even more interesting is that this particular fragment contains a unique textual variant - it describes how Odysseus' crew ate Helios' sacred cattle rather than Odysseus himself being blamed. So here's the thing: this fragment had been hiding in plain sight among Schmidt's collection, which arrived at the university in the 1950s, but nobody had properly examined it until now.