2,000-year-old work by ‘lost’ philosopher who inspired Plato and Aristotle is uncovered in Egypt

The papyrus containing work by Empedocles (Picture: IFAO/Cover Images)

A work by a ‘lost’ Ancient Greek philosopher has been rediscovered, written on a 2,000-year-old papyrus fragment found in Cairo.

The fragile document contains 30 previously unknown verses by Empedocles, a pre-Socratic philosopher of the 5th century BCE.

Elements of Empedocles’ philosophy are mentioned by later philosophers and writers, including Plato and Aristotle, but it was not thought that his own words had survived, until now.

The fragment was found and identified in the archives of t...