Words With Power – September 11-18 2026
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Welcome to Words With Power where I review the latest discoveries and insights into writings and objects magical, weird, mystical, and fantastic.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2026/09/scrap-of-1700-year-old-copy-of-the-odyssey-washes-up-in-utrecht/
https://allthatsinteresting.com/netherlands-ancient-odyssey-papyrus-fragment
https://archaeology.org/news/2026/09/18/medieval-serpentine-pendant-uncovered-in-russia/
https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/article-909060
https://archaeology.org/news/2026/09/18/medieval-serpentine-pendant-uncovered-in-russia/
https://www.medievalists.net/2026/09/early-medieval-village-switzerland/
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1142736
Rare 1,700-Year-Old Odyssey Fragment in Utrecht
Papyrologists at Utrecht University formally announced the identification of an extremely rare, 1,700-year-old manuscript fragment of Homer’s Odyssey. Identified by researcher Mark de Kreij among uncataloged early Christian and Coptic papyri, the card-sized parchment (dating to the 3rd or 4th century CE) contains verses from Book 12. The lines describe the pivotal mythical episode where Odysseus’s crew slaughters the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios, incurring divine wrath and Zeus’s destructive sea storm. Thought to come from a pocket codex in Egypt, it is one of only about 30 known surviving Odyssey fragments from that era.
11th-Century Dual-Mythology “Serpentine” Medusa Amulet
Archaeologists from Novgorod State University reported unearthing an eleventh-century copper-alloy serpentine pendant in the historic town of Staraya Russa, Russia. The circular medallion illustrates syncretic folk-magic: one side displays a Christian warrior-saint (likely St. Theodore Stratelates, famous for slaying a dragon-serpent), while the reverse depicts a snaky, Medusa-like figure derived from classical Greco-Roman myth. These dual-purpose amulets were carried as apotropaic charms to ward off illness and evil spirits, providing fresh evidence of how ancient pagan mythology intertwined with medieval Eastern Christian demonology and protective folklore.
Repatriation and Technical Analysis of 2nd-Century BCE Gilded Mask
On September 18, 2026, Swiss authorities formally returned a 2,000-year-old Ptolemaic gold funerary mask to Egypt following a multi-year illicit trafficking investigation. Certified examinations revealed the artifact is an exceptional specimen of gilded cartonnage, layered from linen and painted plaster. Originating from tombs in the Fayoum oasis, the mask is designed around ancient Egyptian mythological concepts of the afterlife: it protected the deceased’s face and allowed their spirit to recognize and inhabit the body. It uniquely blends traditional Egyptian religious iconography with Hellenistic artistic influences.
Fifth-Dynasty Funerary Chapels and False-Door Ritual Text at Saqqara
On September 18, 2026, Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities detailed discoveries made by an Egyptian-Spanish team at the Mariette Cemetery in Saqqara. Excavators identified two previously unknown funerary chapels within a mastaba belonging to Yunmin, an Old Kingdom royal scribe and judicial magistrate. The walls feature remarkably preserved painted reliefs and hieroglyphic formulas. The accompanying false doors provided physical and symbolic conduits between the realms of the living and the dead, reflecting ancient mythological conceptions of spiritual passage and the soul receiving mortuary offerings.
Bubasteum Necropolis Royal Chamberlain Tomb and Cult Tools
Announced in conjunction with the Saqqara excavations, a separate team working in Sector A of the Bubasteum necropolis uncovered the tomb and intact false door of royal chamberlain Sekhentiu-Ptah. Positioned within the sanctuary district dedicated to Bastet—the cat goddess associated with protection, fertility, and divine warfare—the site yielded an intact suite of alabaster funerary tools, purification basins, and offering platters still in situ. These ritual artifacts provide physical evidence of the specific liturgical rites performed to invoke Bastet’s protection and ensure the deceased’s transition to Osiris’s mythological underworld
Deviant Burials and Revenant Lore: Merovingian Cemetery Analysis
On September 13, 2026, the Bern Archaeological Service and researchers released a comprehensive bioarchaeological synthesis of an early medieval settlement and 122 associated graves near Bern, Switzerland. Dating to the 6th–7th centuries, the cemetery yielded several atypical (“deviant”) interments, including prone skeletons, bodies pinned under stones, and grave goods intended to seal graves. These burial customs represent concrete archaeological manifestations of early European revenant folklore—the visceral fear of the undead returning to terrorize communities—which directly forms the historical and anthropological root of Gothic horror and vampire mythologies.
Early Modern Revenant Folklore: Biomechanical Profiling of the Pień “Vampire”
Forensic anthropologists and historians presented new bioarchaeological findings on the 17th-century “vampire” grave of Zosia in Pień, northern Poland. Interred during the early modern witch and revenant panics, the young woman was buried with an unlocked iron padlock on her big toe and an iron sickle angled over her throat to decapitate her if she attempted to rise. The analysis confirmed the sickle was placed prior to soft-tissue decomposition, providing rare archaeological proof of immediate anti-demonic funeral rites enacted by communities terrified of supernatural contagion and unquiet spirits—the direct precursor to modern literary horror.
Tudor Religious Subversion: The Secreted Nicholas Love Manuscript
Researchers at the Universities of Sussex and Cambridge resolved a century-old bibliographic mystery by identifying missing folios from a suppressed early 15th-century manuscript of Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ. Six leaves held at The Keep in Brighton were definitively matched to a mutilated volume in Yale’s Beinecke Library. Archival tracing revealed the prohibited devotional text was covertly salvaged by Sir John Gage—a key Crown enforcer tasked with dissolving Catholic monasteries. The discovery provides real-world historical intrigue matching classic detective and historical crime fiction, revealing how enforcers illicitly preserved banned religious literature.
Caroline Stevermer interview about her fantasy novel “The Glass Magician”