Newly translated ancient Egyptian hangover cure is more embarrassing than your hangover

You might think you've got it pretty bad when you've overindulged in a crisp sauvignon blanc, but it couldn't be as bad – or as humiliating – as being hungover in the middle of the desert, wearing a leafy, homemade necklace.

That's the millennias-old hangover remedy that's recently been translated from an ancient Egyptian papyrus scroll dating back around 1,900 years.

The "drunken headache" cure was actually written in Greek (owing to the significant Greek influence on the area following the conquests of Alexander the Great) and recommended the "victim" string together leaves from an Alexandrian chamaedaphne shrub (Ruscus racemosus) and wear them around their neck to ease the pain.

The papyrus is just one of over 500,000 documents, which included around 30 other medical records, discovered by researchers Benard Grendell and Arthur Hunt near the ancient Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus early in the early 1900s. The most recently published translated volume, which includes the hangover cure, is "the largest single collection of medical papyri to be published," wrote Vivian Nutton, a professor at University College London, at the beginning of the volume.

The collection includes remedies for everything from ulcers and tooth aches to haemorrhoids and eye surgery (separately, we think).

There's no word on how successful the remedy was, or if could undo those embarrassing text messages you sent to your ex at 1am, though.