We have discussed before, the ancient source material that inspired Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey adaptation. We also discussed the reasons why you should read Homer’s epic poem, the most notable being the glimpse it offers into the ordinary lives of ancient populations, showing the kinds of heroes they worshiped and the stories that inspired them. This brings us to a related topic. First, watch The Odyssey; it is, by no means, the greatest fantasy epic of the last 20 years, but it deserves some of the hype. The final act is the best 40 minutes you may watch in 2026. Secondly, The Odyssey is not unique. The ancient world has a plethora of stories that continue to find new life in the 21st Century by tickling the curiosity of individuals such as yourself, who want to know what fiction people were reading 3000 years ago. Interestingly, searching for the origins of fiction could easily take us 100,000 years into the past, which sounds absurd, because surely no written works from that age have survived. And that assumption is correct. However, many scholars have observed that constellations such as The Seven Sisters got their names from stories ancient populations told about those twinkling points they saw in the night sky, re-imagining them as mighty beings travelling across the cosmos, entirely ignorant about the goings-on of our insignificant world. What about those seemingly random carvings on ancient ruins that appear to portray cohesive narratives when scholars read them as individual pieces of the same story as opposed to separate pieces of art? A cave painting in Indonesia (on the Island of Sulawesi) shows three human figures beside a giant pig. According to the BBC, this is the world’s oldest cave painting (51,200 years old), but it’s too abstract for scholars to definitively identify the story it wants to tell. More importantly, it won’t mean anything to you, not unless you have an affinity for abstract art. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a far better starting point. The oldest surviving story (2,100 BCE), the Sumerian epic poem follows Gilgamesh, the partially divine King of Uruk. Gilgamesh’s divine heritage eventually breeds cruelty and arrogance, compelling the gods to create Enkidu, a wild man they expect to challenge and overcome Gilgamesh. But Gilgamesh’s fight with Enkidu only succeeds in planting the seeds of a lasting friendship between the pair. The Odyssey is often commended for creating the structures and character archetypes present in modern-day fantasy. However, The Epic of Gilgamesh laid the foundation for all those concepts. If you read fiction as a child, you may wonder how a story as familiar as The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor could possibly hail from 4,000 years in the past (2,000 – 1,900 BCE). The protagonist is a sailor who undertakes a voyage to the king’s mines that eventually fails. To lift his spirits, the sailor’s attendant tells him of a voyage he also undertook and the disasters he encountered and overcame. The Egyptian story sounds familiar because the attendant uses the tale of his voyage to reveal insightful proverbs that uplift and educate, much like 21stcentury children’s fiction. Here is a fascinating tidbit about The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor. It was written on papyrus by a scribe called Amenaa (or Ameniamenna), who signed his work. Why does that matter? Amenaa’s signature is the oldest surviving signature on papyrus (the actual oldest surviving signature on any piece of text comes from a scribe called Gar Ama, who left his mark on a Sumerian clay tablet in 3,100 BC). Why is that important? It is not; I just think it’s cool. We can end on The Book of the Dead, which does not technically fit into this category because it is not a story. But I think it deserves a mention because the text is frequently mentioned in fantasy and horror. The Book of the Dead is a collection of papyri from ancient Egypt (3,500 years old) detailing spells and funeral rites that would allow a deceased person to navigate the Duat (the underworld) and reach the afterlife. It survived because The Book of the Dead was not a singular text. Instead, anyone could commission their own version of the text, containing spells that mattered to them where the underworld was concerned. You can find these works online for free, including translations of The Book of the Dead. You can even look at the original text, although it is written in hieroglyphic script, which won’t mean anything to you. If you have never cared about the ancient world, these stories will probably ignite that interest. mbjjnr8@gmail.comThe post Such a long way from papyrus writings appeared first on The Observer Media Ltd.