2,000-Year-Old Unpublished Verses of Greek Philosopher Empedocles Discovered in Cairo

Empedocles depicted with symbolic representations of the 4 classical elements. Credit: Greek Reporter archive

Researchers person identified 30 unpublished verses by Empedocles successful a papyrus fragment housed successful Cairo, Egypt, offering nonstop entree to the ancient Greek philosopher’s penning for the archetypal time. The fragment is astir 2,000 years aged and was held successful the archives of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology.

Nathan Carlig, a papyrologist astatine the University of Liège, identified the papers arsenic papyrus P. Fouad inv. 218. He determined it belongs to Physica, a philosophical poem by Empedocles of Agrigentum, who lived during the 5th period BC.

Cairo’s papyrus unveiled Empedocles’ unpublished verses

Carlig said that cognition of Empedocles had until present depended wholly connected indirect accounts, including abbreviated quotations and summaries recovered successful aboriginal authors specified arsenic Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch, adding that the papyrus present allows scholars to work the philosopher straight without relying connected sources that whitethorn beryllium partial oregon shaped by aboriginal interpretation. He besides noted that the papers is the lone known surviving transcript of Physica, portion abstracted sections of the aforesaid scroll person been held successful Strasbourg.

A two-thousand-year-old papyrus fragment, discovered successful the archives of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology successful Cairo, reveals 30 antecedently unpublished verses by Empedocles, a pre-Socratic philosopher of the 5th period BCE. pic.twitter.com/JDVxG1BTxo

— Tom Marvolo Riddle (@tom_riddle2025) April 2, 2026

The verses code the mentation of particle effluvia and sensory perception, with peculiar attraction to sight.

Researchers recovered respective antecedently unrecognized connections successful the text, among them what they judge to beryllium the probable nonstop root down a transition written by Plutarch successful the 2nd period CE.

The investigation besides drew links to works by Plato and by Aristotle’s pupil Theophrastus, each dating to the 4th period BC.

Papyrus breaks caller crushed successful past Greek philosophy

The study recovered traces of Empedocles successful the surviving enactment of the playwright Aristophanes and successful the philosophical writings of the Roman writer Lucretius. Researchers besides reason that Empedocles whitethorn beryllium seen arsenic an aboriginal forerunner of the atomist tradition, astir associated with Democritus of Abdera.

To convey the standard of the find, the authors inquire readers to representation a distant aboriginal successful which Victor Hugo exists lone done schoolroom excerpts from Les Misérables, a signifier philharmonic based connected Notre-Dame de Paris, and a printed programme from a accumulation of Hernani.

In that scenario, they said, turning up pages from an archetypal Hugo manuscript would transportation tremendous weight. That, they argue, is precisely the concern scholars of Empedocles present face.

Carlig described the find arsenic portion of what student Peter Parsons erstwhile called a renewed awakening of past literature. A caller book, L’Empedocle du Caire, edited by Carlig, Alain Martin, and Olivier Primavesi, presents the archetypal published variation of the substance on with its translation and commentary. The work opens caller ways to recognize Empedocles and his spot successful the past of Greek philosophy, researchers said.