An interesting news report is circulating about the discovery at Olympia of an incised clay tablet containing lines from Homer’s Odyssey. The ultimate source of the story seems to be a press release from the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports, which presents the least garbled version of the report. The picture accompanying the story shows a bit of text text from Book 14, lines 8-13 of the Odyssey:

Incised clay tablet containing lines from the Odyssey; image source: Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports

The tablet is tentatively assigned to the third century CE. So, the headlines describing it as “the oldest written record of Homer’s Odyssey” are of course a bit of an exaggeration. I am curious to learn more about the precise context of the find and the extent of the inscription.