A New Article the Production and Date of P.Bodmer 14-15 (P75)

Posted on September 16, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

The latest issue of Novum Testamentum has an article that I wrote on the production and date of P.Bodmer 14-15 (a.k.a. P75, a.k.a. Pap.Hanna 1, Mater verbi, TM 61743), a papyrus codex containing the Gospel According to Luke and the Gospel According to John:

“The Construction and Date of P.Bodmer 14–15 (P75): The Length of kollemata as a Criterion for Dating Papyrus Codices,” Novum Testamentum 68 (2026) 518–538.

It’s open access.

This is not the first time I have addressed the question of the date of this codex. In 2016, I published an article in the Journal of Biblical Literature, which argued that the standard dating of the papyrus (“ca. 200 CE”) was based on surprisingly weak palaeographic evidence and that a more realistic approach that combined palaeography, codicology, and alleged archaeological provenance would allow for a date of production in the fourth century.

In the new article, I’ve tried to come at the problem from a different angle. In a blog post from 2025, I briefly mentioned a change that took place in the manufacture of papyrus rolls in the fourth century. In the early imperial period, the kollemata (papyrus sheets) that were pasted together to form papyrus rolls usually had a breadth that did not exceed about 30 cm. In the fourth century, however, we begin to find papyrus rolls that were made up of much longer kollemata, up to and beyond a meter in breadth.

Part of a kollema of the Bodmer Menander Codex digitally reassembled; original images from the Bodmer Lab

Because the bifolia of papyrus codices were cut from papyrus rolls, this datum is a neglected tool for helping to assign dates to papyrus codices.

Here is the abstract for the new article:

This article describes an underutilized criterion for assigning dates to papyrus codices, the presence of very long sheets (kollemata) in the rolls from which the bifolia of papyrus codices were cut. In the 1970s, Eric Turner argued that a shift in the production of papyrus rolls took place in the fourth century, at which point rolls began to be manufactured using kollemata much longer than the 10–30 cm kollemata normally used in the early Roman imperial period. The present article briefly discusses the manufacture of papyrus rolls, gathers evidence for longer kollemata, and places this evidence in conversation with P.Bodmer 14–15 (P75). The date of this manuscript has been the subject of some debate in recent years, and consideration of the length of its kollemata adds another, perhaps decisive, piece of evidence that this codex was produced no earlier than the fourth century.

This was a fun article to research and write. It assembles a corpus of codices whose bifolia are cut from papyrus rolls with very long kollemata (greater than about 80 cm):

  • Berlin Gnostic Codex (P.Berol. inv. 8502, TM 107765), usually assigned to the 5th century
  • Nag Hammadi Codices I, II, III, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XIII, after the middle of the 4th century
  • British Library Ms. Or. 7594 (TM 107763, “Budge’s Deuteronomy”), after the middle of the 4th century
  • PGM IV (Paris, BnF Suppl. grec 574, TM 64343), usually assigned to the 4th century
  • Bodmer Codex of Visions (TM 59994), after the middle of the 4th century (usually assigned to the 5th century)
  • Bodmer Menander Codex (TM 61594), now usually assigned to the 4th century
  • P.Bodmer 3 (TM 107758), usually assigned to the 4th century
  • Crosby-Schøyen Codex (TM 107771), now usually assigned to the 3rd or 4th century
  • Chester Beatty Ac. 1499 (now CBL BP XXI, TM 61873), usually assigned to the 5th century
  • Ambrosian Josephus (TM 61316), assigned to the 6th century

The examples that can be relatively securely dated (Budge’s Deuteronomy, at least three of the Nag Hammadi codices, and the Bodmer Codex of Visions) were produced no earlier than the middle of the fourth century. Radiocarbon analysis of the Crosby-Schøyen Codex allows for a date of production from the middle of the third century to the middle of the fourth century; indications of the contents of the last tractate suggest the second quarter of the fourth century may be the most likely date of production.1 The other codices are all usually assigned to the 4th or 5th century (or the 6th century in the case of the Ambrosian Josephus).

Papyrus rolls with shorter kollemata continued to be produced during and after the fourth century, but the production of rolls with very long kollemata seems to be an innovation of the fourth century. The upshot, as I phrase it in the article: “We may formulate a tentative rule of thumb: Papyrus codices with bifolia cut from rolls made up of shorter kollemata are not necessarily older than the fourth century, but papyrus codices with bifolia cut from rolls made up of long kollemata are more likely to have been made in the fourth century or later.”

As it turns out, the two kollemata of P.Bodmer 14–15 that can be confidently reconstructed are also quite long (at least 1.28 m and 1.34 m).

A portion of a reconstructed kollema of P.Bodmer 14-15

That the bifolia of P.Bodmer 14–15 were cut from papyrus rolls with such long kollemtata is an important piece of evidence for establishing the date when the codex was made. As I phrase it at the end of the article:

“On its own merits, this argument would be reason enough to establish the fourth century as a terminus post quem for the production of P.Bodmer 14–15. Yet, in the specific case of this codex, the long kollemata add to an already substantial amount of evidence pointing to a date of production in the fourth century:
– the palaeographic similarity of the script of P.Bodmer 14–15 to the script of documents securely dated to the fourth century;
– the similarity of the format of P.Bodmer 14–15 to that of codices securely dated to the fourth century;
– the likely association of P.Bodmer 14–15 with the Bodmer Papyri, which consist mostly of codices of the fourth and fifth centuries.
New discoveries and perhaps further study of known papyrus codices may reveal that the use of rolls with very long kollemata developed earlier than the fourth century. Pending such studies, however, the presence of very long kollemata should probably be taken as a reasonably strong indication of manufacture in the fourth century or later. The production of P.Bodmer 14–15 should now be assigned with some measure of confidence to the fourth century.”

  1. See the detailed discussion in Hugo Lundhaug, “The Date of MS 193 in the Schøyen Collection: New Radiocarbon Evidence,” BASP 57 (2020) 219–234 ↩︎
Posted in Codices, Codicology, P.Bodmer 14-15, Palaeography, Voluminology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Erasing Wax Tablets in the Sun

Posted on August 19, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

I’ve had waxed tablets on my mind for the last few months. In 2025, I had the opportunity to meet up with the ERC TabulaRasa project, which is doing some very interesting cross-cultural work on erasable media from antiquity to the early modern period.

I’ve used models of wax tablets in my teaching in the past. When working with several students writing, erasing, and rewriting in tablets, I’ve found that at the end of the session, I had to clean up a lot of wax shavings. This is because the students used the blunt end of the stylus to erase writing that has been scratched into the wax.

Metal stylus for use with wax tablets; image source: The British Museum

Depending on how thick the wax is and how deeply the writing is incised, this process can involve gouging out quite a bit of wax, which eventually needs to be replaced. A more efficient method involves heating the blunt end of the stylus over a flame to erase the writing by melting the wax and working it into a smoother surface without loss of wax. This is clearly a better method, unless you happen to be using a bone stylus instead of a metal one. And open flames probably run afoul of normal classroom safety rules.

I was discussing these topics with a colleague who said that her grandmother had actually used waxed tablets in school, and it was customary to just leave the tablets in the sun in order to erase them. The warm summer weather encouraged me to give it a try.

I inscribed a couple lines on a the inner side of a waxed diptych (bound together with a link stitch, in deference to Georgios Boudalis), and then left it out in the sun.

According to the weather report, it was about 34° C (about 94° F). After three hours in the sun, the wax was liquified (to the point that it was visibly seeping into the wooden frame).

After a couple hours cooling off in the shade, it solidified into a smooth, clean slate with no wax lost (aside from what was absorbed into the wood.

This seems like a good method for achieving a fresh reset of wax tablets, at least in warm climates. It’s probably a bit impractical if one needs to reuse the tablets quickly (the whole melting-and-hardening process took about five hours).

For more on erasing and reusing wax tablets in antiquity, see Anna Willi, “Refill, Reuse, Recycle Reusing Wax Tablets in the Roman North-western Provinces,” in Erasing and Rewriting in Manuscript Cultures Practices of Text Obliteration and Manuscript Reuse in a Global Perspective, ed. Michele Cammarosano (De Gruyter, 2025).

Posted in Tablets | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Realistic Renderings of Papyrus Rolls in Stone

Posted on August 8, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

I’m always very interested to see renderings of papyrus rolls in ancient art, whether it is in fresco, manuscript illumination, or carved stone. When it comes to stone reliefs or statues, one needs to be careful to make sure that the papyrus roll is actually ancient and not a Renaissance addition (hands grasping papyrus rolls are frequently later additions to fill lost pieces). And ancient carvings of papyrus rolls can often be disappointingly impressionistic.

But I recently saw a carved artifact that shows papyrus rolls with a surprisingly high level of detail. The depiction occurs on the lid of a sarcophagus in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens:

Sarcophagus lid with bundle of papyrus rolls; Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 1497; image source: Brent Nongbri 2026

There is a lot going on in this artifact. I quote from the museum’s didactic tag:

“Attic sarcophagus in the form of a couch. Pentelic marble. Found in Athens. The sarcophagus was used twice. A reclining married couple was originally depicted on the lid, which has the form of a mattress. When economic difficulties dictated its reuse at a later date, the male figure was cut back and replaced by a group of papyrus scrolls (byblos), and the female head was replaced by a head of a man. The second use of the sarcophagus dates from 230–240 A.D.”

It is the large group of papyrus rolls that were re-carved, apparently in the third century, that caught my attention (I’m not sure what is the basis for the very precise date of “230–240 A.D.”).

Sarcophagus lid with bundle of papyrus rolls (detail); Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 1497; image source: Brent Nongbri 2026

I checked Theodor Birt’s classic book on the depiction of papyrus rolls in art, and he of course also took note of the fine carving of these papyrus rolls:

“The large sarcophagus in the Athens Museum (inv. 1497) is like a marble illustration of Pliny’s account of the manufacture of papyrus: On its lid, a reclining male figure leans with his shoulder against a massive bundle of papyrus rolls, the outer edge of which alone contains no fewer than 18 rolls. These rolls depict the composition of the papyrus in horizontal and vertical strips, rendered with great care. On the rolls located on the back side of the lid, only the vertical strips are visible; on those on the front, both are visible. It was not possible to take a photograph due to the lighting in the room.”1

But the rendering may be even more clever than Birt describes. The rolls that show fibers oriented in both directions do not show overlap. Rather, they seem to depict the closed roll, showing the point of attachment of the protokollon. Recall that papyrus rolls were made up of a series of sheets (kollemata), with each sheet (kollema) pasted to the next with a slight overlap (kollesis) The writing would be along the horizontal fibers of the roll, and the roll was rolled up with the horizontal fibers on the inside and the vertical fibers on the outside. But the outermost kollema of the closed roll, the protokollon (“first sheet”), would be reversed in its fiber orientation.

Diagram of the parts of a papyrus roll; image: Brent Nongbri 2025

Thus, the outermost kollema of the roll, the protokollon, would have horizontal fibers on the outside and vertical fibers on the inside, while all other sheets would have vertical fibers on the outside. If the width of the protokollon was less than the circumference of the closed roll, the kollesis between the protokoolon and the second kollema would be visible. I think that is what we are seeing in the relief of these closed rolls. Here is a model papyrus roll next two one of the carved rolls:

Model papyrus roll next to a carved roll from the sarcophagus lid, showing the kollesis at which the protokollon attaches to the second kollema

Horizontal fibers on the outside on the left, then vertical fibers on the right where the second kollema is attached. The level of attention to detail here is almost unbelievable. But, as in the depiction of sets of tablets, artists sometimes seem to have taken great care in trying to get the details as correct as possible in their chosen medium.

  1. T. Birt, Die Buchrolle in der Kunst (Teubner, 1907), 227: “Der große Sarkophag im Athenischen Museum Nr. 1497 ist wie eine marmorne Illustration zu dem Fabrikationsbericht des Plinius: auf seinem Deckel lehnt sich eine liegende männliche Gestalt mit ihrer Schulter an ein gewaltiges Rollenbündel, das allein an seiner Außenseite nicht weniger als 18 Rollen zählen läßt. Diese Rollen zeigen die Komposition des Papiers in Quer- und Vertikalstreifen mit redlichem Fleiß ausgeführt. An den auf der Rückseite des Deckels befindlichen Rollen erkennt man nur die Vertikalstreifen, an den auf der Vorderseite beide. Eine photographische Aufnahme war bei der Beleuchtung des Raumes nicht ausfahrbar.” ↩︎
Posted in Book covers, Papyrus Making, Sculpture, Voluminology | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Early Publications on the Nash Papyrus

Posted on August 6, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

Thanks to the several readers who pointed out that the early issues of The Cambridge Review are available at HathiTrust (for those in the US). In the 1903 issue, F.C. Burkitt provides an account offering basically contemporary evidence for 1902 as the date of purchase of the Nash Papyrus:

“The fragments came into the possession of Mr. W. L. Nash, the Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, in the course of 1902, having been bought in Egypt from a native dealer together with some papyrus fragments of the twelfth book of the Odyssey. …And now Mr. Nash, in recognition of the part that Cambridge has played in the publication of the fragments, has with very great generosity presented the Papyrus itself to the University Library.”

This is all very good, but I’m still not able to say what the source is for the date of purchase in 1898 that sometimes pops up in scholarship. I’m also unclear about the condition of the papyrus when Nash acquired it. In his 1903 article in The Jewish Quarterly Review, Burkitt describes the papyrus in the following way:

“In its present state, the Nash Papyrus consists of four fragments, all of which fit together. …The material is now very brittle, and it would be hazardous to detach it from the card upon which the fragments have been gummed, but Mr. Cook and I have managed to ascertain that there is no writing on the other side.”

Does this mean that the papyrus fragments were glued to separate pieces of cardboard already when Nash bought them? If so, it may be the case that it was not Nash who bought the pieces in Egypt but someone else (note the odd wording in Burkitt’s statement above: “came into his possession…having been bought in Egypt”). In any event, Burkitt does not mention any such treatment of the Odyssey fragments said to have been purchased with the Nash Papyrus. Interesting. Nor does Burkitt say anything about how the Odyssey fragments came to be his own property before he donated the fragments to Cambridge in 1903. So there are still some unsolved mysteries here.

For the benefit of those outside the US, here is the full article from The Cambridge Review (and below are links to the other early publications on the Nash Papyrus):

Cook, S.A. “A Pre-Masoretic Hebrew Papyrus.” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 24 (1902) 272.

Cook, S.A. “A Pre-Masoretic Biblical Papyrus.” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 25 (1903) 34–55.

Burkitt, F.C. “The Hebrew Papyrus of the Ten Commandments.” Jewish Quarterly Review 15 (1903) 392–408.

Burkitt, F.C. “The Nash Papyrus: A New Photograph.” Jewish Quarterly Review 16 (1904) 559–561.

Albright, W.F. “A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabaean Age: The Nash Papyrus.” Journal of Biblical Literature 56 (1937) 145–176

Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Antiquities Market, Nash Papyrus | Leave a comment

The Purchase of the Nash Papyrus, Again

Posted on August 5, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

I continue to be puzzled by the problem of the purchase of the Nash Papyrus. In an earlier post, I noted that one finds two different dates in the literature, 1898 and 1902. I cited Emanuel Tov among those who have given the 1902 date. But I now see that in a more recent volume (2020) Tov has also noticed the problem already:

“the Nash Papyrus…purchased in Egypt in either 1898 or 1902”1

No reference is given, but I really am curious about the source of this 1898 purchase date. The earliest reference to it that I have been able to find is a 1962 article about the Jewish materials in the Cambridge University Library. There we find the following statement:

“The most prized possession is the Nash Papyrus, one of the greatest relics of antiquity. It was acquired in 1898 by W. L. Nash, Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology.”2

There is no reference cited to support the claim. It is interesting, however, that the earliest explicit reference to the papyrus being purchased in 1902 seems to be a bit later, J.A. Sanders, The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll (Cornell University Press, 1967), 9:

“One of the oldest Bible fragments emanating from Egypt, but not from the Geniza, was acquired there in 1902 by W. L. Nash. The ‘Nash papyrus’ contains a variant form of the Ten Commandments and Deut. 6:4-5. Paul Kahle dates it in the first century A.D. and W. F. Albright in the second century B.C.”

Again, no reference supports the claim for the 1902 purchase.

And I’ve run into the problem (again) of a Cambridge publication that is potentially relevant but not accessible to me [[Update 6 August 2026: I now have a copy; thanks to those who sent links!]]:

The Cambridge Review: A Journal of University Life and Thought (1903)

If anyone has access, I would be grateful for a copy, and that still holds true for this piece:

Reif, S.C. “The Nash Papyrus.” Cambridge 15 (1984) 41–45 (I believe the periodical is Cambridge: The Magazine of The Cambridge Society).

  1. E. Tov, “Papyrus Nash and the Septuagint,” in A Necessary Task: Essays on Textual Criticism of the Old Testament in Memory of Stephen Pisano, Analecta Biblica 14, ed. Dionisio Candido and Leonardo Pessoa da Silva Pinto (Roma: Pontificia Università Gregoriana and Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2020), 33–50, at 34. ↩︎
  2. H. Rabinowicz, “Cambridge University Library,” Jewish Quarterly Review 53 (1962) 69–76, quotation at 69. ↩︎
Posted in Nash Papyrus | Tagged | 2 Comments

The Purchase of the Nash Papyrus: Two Different Dates

Posted on August 4, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

In my earlier post about a papyrus containing the Odyssey at Cambridge, I mentioned that this piece was purchased together with the Nash Papyrus, but I noted that I could not figure out the precise date of the purchase. There seem to be two different stories.

Recall Burkitt’s report about the purchase of these papyri in his 1903 article: “The recent history of the [Nash] Papyrus is involved in some obscurity. It came into the possession of Mr. W.L. Nash, the Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, having been bought in Egypt from a native dealer along with some very early uncial fragments of the Odyssey. Mr. Nash thinks it very probable that the whole ‘find’ comes from somewhere in the Fayyum.”1

The current webpage for the Nash Papyrus at the Cambridge Digital Library mentions no specific date of purchase: “Purchased from an Egyptian dealer in antiquities by Dr Walter Llewellyn Nash, and presented to the Library in 1903, the fragment was said to have come from the Fayyūm.”

Older versions of this page, however, do mention a date of purchase: “Purchased from an Egyptian dealer in antiquities in 1902 by Dr Walter Llewellyn Nash and presented to the Library in 1903, the fragment was said to have come from the Fayyum.” The date of 1902 occurs elsewhere in the literature. For example, Emanuel Tov writes that the Nash Papyrus “was discovered in Egypt in 1902,”2 but no reference is provided.

And there is some conflicting information. A different webpage for the Nash Papyrus was created in association with Cambridge University Library’s “Lines of Thought” online exhibition in 2016. This exhibition also included a page for the Odyssey papyrus (with zoomable digital images!). While the current version of the exhibition page lacks the Odyssey papyrus, an archived version of the page for the Odyssey papyrus gives this information about purchase: “In 1898 W. L. Nash, Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology (SBA), acquired from a native Egyptian dealer in Egypt the papyrus fragments of the Hebrew Bible now known as the Nash Papyrus. …From that same dealer at the same time he also acquired eleven papyrus fragments bearing Greek text that he sent ‘for description’ to Francis Crawford Burkitt.”

The reference for this information is Larry Stone, The Story of the Bible (Thomas Nelson, 2010). There (p. 23), we read that the Nash Papyrus “was acquired from an Egyptian antiquities dealer in 1898.” I also find this date on the British Museum’s page for Nash and in the edition of the Nash Papyrus in CPJ 4 609 published in 2020 (“This papyrus was purchased in Egypt in 1898 by W. L. Nash”). But nowhere do I find references to any late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century documentation of either of this date or the 1902 date.

I can see how one could deduce from the earliest reports that both the Nash Papyrus and the Odyssey papyrus were purchased in 1902. Cook’s first report on the Nash Papyrus is dated 19 October 1902, and Burkitt’s first report on the Odyssey papyrus is dated July 1902.3 It is perhaps reasonable to assume that Nash purchased the pieces in the winter of 1901–1902 and sent them to Burkitt and Cook for analysis in early 1902.

The 1898 purchase date is still a bit of a mystery to me.

One item of bibliography that I failed to locate is cited as:

Reif, S.C. “The Nash Papyrus.” Cambridge 15 (1984) 41–45

I think the periodical must be Cambridge: The Magazine of The Cambridge Society, but I have not been able to track down the issue in question. If anyone has a copy, I would be grateful to see it.

  1. F.C. Burkitt, “The Hebrew Papyrus of the Ten Commandments,” Jewish Quarterly Review 15 (1903) 392–408, quotation at 392. ↩︎
  2. E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (2nd rev. ed.; Fortress, 1992), 118. ↩︎
  3. S.A. Cook, “A Pre-Masoretic Hebrew Papyrus,” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 24 (1902) 272; F.C. Burkitt, “Fragments of Some Early Greek Mss. Written on Papyrus,” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 24 (1902) 290–292. ↩︎
Posted in Antiquities Market, Nash Papyrus | Tagged , | 2 Comments

A Cambridge Papyrus of the Odyssey and the Nash Papyrus

Posted on August 3, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

In the last couple days, the Cambridge University Library has been posting about a papyrus in their collection that contains a passage from the Odyssey.

This is Cambridge University Library Add MS 4074 (TM 61188), containing some fragmentary lines of Book 12. What caught my eye about the post was the note on the tape that seals the glass frame: “Presented by F.C. Burkitt, M.A., 1903.” There are many sub-collections of papyri kept at Cambridge, but I was not aware of a “Burkitt” collection. In any event, a little digging revealed that these fragments are said to have been purchased together with the much more famous “Nash Papyrus” (Cambridge University Library MS Or.233), a Hebrew papyrus containing a version of the ten commandments now usually assigned to the second century BCE on the basis of palaeography. Burkitt published the Odyssey fragments in 1902, but he provided his most detailed statement of their purchase in an article on the Nash Papyrus:

“The recent history of the [Nash] Papyrus is involved in some obscurity. It came into the possession of Mr. W.L. Nash, the Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, having been bought in Egypt from a native dealer along with some very early uncial fragments of the Odyssey. Mr. Nash thinks it very probable that the whole ‘find’ comes from somewhere in the Fayyum. These Greek fragments must be as old as the second century A.D., and are probably much earlier: they contain portions of Odyssey XII. 279–304, and have been edited by the present writer with a facsimile in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology.”1

So, the papyrus was bought in Egypt in the first years of the twentieth century, although I’m not sure about the exact date and place of purchase. Walter Llewellyn Nash (1842–1920) was a physician and archaeological enthusiast. He was involved in different archaeological societies, attending the meetings of the Egypt Exploration Fund, becoming a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and acting as secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology. Francis Crawford Burkitt (1864–1935) held different professorships at Cambridge from 1903 to 1935, but during the period of the acquisition and publishing of the Odyssey fragments, Burkitt seems to have been an independent scholar. In his obituary for Burkitt, Kirsopp Lake wrote that Burkitt, having been denied a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, refused other offers: “He could afford to do so, as he was endowed with ample means, and he settled down in Cambridge to the life of a private scholar.”2 It’s not clear whether Nash simply gifted the Odyssey papyrus to Burkitt or whether Burkitt purchased the fragments from Nash and then donated them to Cambridge.

F.C. Burkitt in 1929; image source: National Portrait Gallery

The date of the Odyssey fragments is also an interesting question. In the classic article that redated the Nash Papyrus from the second century CE to the second century BCE, W.F. Albright made passing mention of the Odyssey fragments:

“I have consulted the two eminent papyrologists, Dr. H. Idris Bell of the British Museum and Dr. Herbert C. Youtie of the University of Michigan; both date them between 50 and 150 A.D. Dr. Bell writes: ‘Though usually reluctant to be very positive on questions of dating I feel very confident in this case that the papyrus is Roman, not Ptolemaic. I should date it, with less hesitation than usual, in the latter part of the first or the early part of the second century A.D.’ He goes on, however, to observe: ‘I doubt whether the date of the Odyssey fragments is really relevant to that of the Hebrew papyrus; unless the two can be shown to have been found together simultaneous acquisition proves nothing, since dealers often combine the most diverse pieces.'”3

I can’t really offer an independent assessment because I have not seen either the papyrus itself or a good digital image (I have not been able to find an image of this papyrus on the Cambridge University Library website, which is a bit strange, since they clearly have an image available for their social media accounts).

  1. F.C. Burkitt, “Fragments of Some Early Greek Mss. Written on Papyrus,” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 24 (1902) 290–292; F.C. Burkitt, “The Hebrew Papyrus of the Ten Commandments,” Jewish Quarterly Review 15 (1903) 392–408, quotation at 392. ↩︎
  2. K. Lake, “F.C. Burkitt,” Journal of Biblical Literature 55 (1936), 17–19, quotation at 17. ↩︎
  3. W.F. Albright, “A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabaean Age: The Nash Papyrus,” Journal of Biblical Literature 56 (1937) 145–176, quotation at 146. ↩︎
Posted in F.C. Burkitt, Nash Papyrus, Palaeography | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

A Roman Library in Spain and the “declamatio sarcophagus”

Posted on July 31, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

I’ve been thinking quite a bit in recent years about the places where Roman books were stored and used. So I was interested to see several news stories in the last couple days with headlines like “One of the Best Preserved Roman Libraries Discovered in Spain” and “Archaeologists Find Oldest Library in Iberian Peninsula.”

These stories concern the fourth-century phase of the Fuente Álamo villa in southern Spain and are based on a new article:

Antonio López García, Javier Martínez Jiménez, and Eduardo Cerrato Casado, “New Approaches to Identifying Roman Libraries: Two Late Antique Examples from Stobi (North Macedonia) and Fuente Álamo (Spain),” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 39 (2026)

The structure was excavated over a period of time between the 1980s and the early 2000s. As the article’s authors note, the space had been identified earlier as “an office or library,” which seems quite plausible.1 And indeed, the present study supports that identification with a different kind of analysis (“shape grammar,” a computational technique previously applied to Roman library architecture by Myrsini Mamoli). So far, so good, although perhaps not exactly the “discovery” the headlines indicated.

Overview of the possible library showing the room with an apse along with curved and square niches along the walls

The authors then introduce an artifact that is new to me, a piece in they call the “declamatio sarcophagus.” This damaged sarcophagus seems to have been found in the general area of the villa (its exact point of discovery appears to me to be unknown, but I may have missed some bibliography). The authors raise the possibility that the sarcophagus might be connected to the owner of the villa (or even depict the owner of the villa in the left panel). The authors’ illustration of the sarcophagus is below:

Leaving aside the authors’ proposed association of the sarcophagus with the villa, I must admit that I am a little puzzled by the authors’ description of the left panel of the sarcophagus:

“The sarcophagus is contemporary with the second phase of the Fuente Álamo villa (fourth century AD), when the apsed hall was in use. The left side of the main face shows a bearded man sitting on a chair in columnar frame with his feet resting on a footstool. He holds a scroll in his right hand and an open codex in his left hand. The man is addressing another bearded figure wearing a toga, in what has been described as a declamatio scene.”

I see the seated person on the left instead holding a roll, with one end of the roll in each hand, a fairly typical pose in sarcophagus reliefs. This was also the interpretation of Manuel Rodríguez de Berlanga in 1903:

“With his left arm extended and the right held close to the chest, the figure appears to be unrolling a papyrus roll to read it—a scroll rolled up at both ends.”2

It would be interesting if this sarcophagus did depict a figure holding both a roll and a codex, but I don’t think we have any images of codices here.

The relevant portions of the sarcophagus became separated from it at some point and have had a different modern display history. At one point, they were embedded in the wall of a museum (as the background of the inset image above seems to show. I am unsure whether all the pieces have been reassembled now. In any event, if anyone has better images of these parts or of the rest of the sarcophagus, I would be grateful to see them.

  1. C. Cosana et al., “Análisis de los morteros y pinturas murales de la villa romana de Fuente Álamo,” Antiquitas 30 (2018) 79–88, at 80: “una sala considerada como despacho o biblioteca de la vivienda.” ↩︎
  2. M. Rodríguez de Berlanga, Catálogo del Museo Loringiano (Málaga: Tipografía de Arturo Gilabert, 1903), 99-101, at 100: “Con la izquierda estendida y la diestra recogida cerca del pecho, figura estar desarrollando un volumen para leerlo, el cual aparece enrollado en ambos extremos.” ↩︎
Posted in Sculpture | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Michael Blanding’s The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby

Posted on July 19, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

When I began this blog back in 2017, the mysteries surrounding Hobby Lobby and its biblical manuscripts were really driving some aspects of my research. Over the last decade, there has been thorough reporting of on Hobby Lobby and its (mis)adventures in the antiquities trade. To name just three of the most prominent examples:

These are all substantial investigations. Is there really that much more to say?

It turns out that there is. Building on the research of these and other works, Michael Blanding’s new book, The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby (2026), makes a deep dive into the Green family and the role that it has come to play in American politics.

Blanding explains the three-way marriage of capitalism, a particular kind of Christianity, and the US government by telling the story of the Green family over multiple generations.

The key figure in Blanding’s story is David Green, founder of Hobby Lobby, and his lifelong effort to merge his desire for success in business with his evangelical Christian convictions. It’s a struggle that led him to declare that God had told him that He (God) was the real owner of Hobby Lobby, and that he (David) should act in accordance with this fact.

One manifestation of this mix of motivations is the Museum of the Bible. Roughly half the book deals with the development and execution of the Museum, and there is some new and quite interesting information to be found here. Back in 2017, Moss and Baden had noted that one of the factors that prompted the Green family to acquire biblical artifacts–Greek and Coptic papyri, Torah scrolls, cuneiform tablets and more–was the tax benefit that they could get by purchasing artifacts at low prices, having them appraised at higher values, and then donating the artifacts to their own Museum of the Bible:

“The magic ratio for the Greens was 1:3: for a given investment to be financially viable, they had to be able to write it off at three times the amount that they purchased it for. …The proposal, Carroll told us, was this: manuscripts would be acquired for a third or less of their projected eventual value. They would then be donated to a charitable organization— but this time the charitable organization would be their own, one that they control” (Moss and Baden, Bible Nation, p. 24).

Blanding has explored court records and discovered that the actual ratio seems to have been considerably higher, at least in some instances:

“Hobby Lobby made its first donation of 431 Torah scrolls to the museum, showing just how much of a tax write-off it could garner. The company had acquired the scrolls for $1.75 million over the previous two years but now had them appraised at $23 million, an increase of more than ten times the value” (Blanding, The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby, p. 186).

So, the tax relief from these donations was considerable, though perhaps not entirely legal. The court documents linked above accuse the various Green family trusts of “Substantial Valuation Misstatement” and “Gross Valuation Misstatement” in connection to their donations of artifacts (the appraiser named in the documents is Lee Biondi, who is also one of the sellers of so-called “Dead Sea Scroll” fragments that are widely regarded as fakes).

Blanding interviewed a number of people in preparation for the book, including me (one correction for the record here: I was not, in fact, “born in Norway,” p. 192), and also explored a number previously untapped resources. His footnotes include references to email correspondence between Scott Carroll and Johnny Shipman from all the way back in 2010, which shed light on the early days of the planning for the Museum of the Bible.

The book is well written and basically even-handed in its treatment of potentially divisive topics. Blanding makes his own views of various political issues clear, but his presentation of the views of the Green family are most frequently drawn from quotations of their own publications. I agree with The New York Times reviewer, Virginia Heffernan, who put it like this:

“Blanding unfurls this story with great sensitivity. The history of the Greens, who declined to talk to him for the book, is hard to tell in secular terms. The family tends to proceed by way of auguries, revelations and angelic visitations. For readers who might want to hold open the possibility that, for example, God did not speak to David Green from the skies and thus does not own Hobby Lobby, Blanding must convey both our shared reality and the fact that his protagonists live somewhere else.”

When I lecture about Hobby Lobby and the Museum of the Bible, especially to audiences outside the US, people are often puzzled by a story in which government, finance, and religion are so tightly interwoven. Reading Blanding’s book makes the combination of these elements in Hobby Lobby seem not just understandable but also, in a way, inevitable.

Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Antiquities Market, Book Reviews, Green Collection, Lee Biondi, Scott Carroll | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Iconography of Jewish Scrolls in the Roman Era

Posted on June 11, 2026 by Brent Nongbri

A recent visit to the Jewish catacomb at Vigna Randanini got me thinking a little more about the iconography of Jewish scrolls (–thanks to Tony Keddie and the University of Texas at Austin for making the visit possible).

The inscription is CIJ 1 221 (JIWE 2 266):

CIJ I 221 (Vigna Randanini catacombs); image source: Brent Nongbri, June 2026

The text is straightforward:

CASTRICIUS
GRAMMATEUS
IULIA COIIUX (read CONIUNX)
MARITO SUO
BENE MERENTI
FECIT

Castricius the grammateus. Julia his spouse had this made for her well-deserving husband.

What is a little strange is the rectangular image below the writing. It has been variously interpreted (a ladder, a scroll case, a “schematic ark” for Torah scrolls), but it is now usually said to represent an unrolled scroll.1 This would be a fitting enough image for a grammateus, but it doesn’t really look very much like typical Jewish imagery of scrolls to me.

Maybe the most famous image of a scroll in a Jewish context in the Roman era comes from the decorations of the synagogue at Dura Europos:

Fresco in the Dura-Europos synagogue, figure reading a scroll; image source: C.H. Kraeling, The Excavations at Dura-Europos: The Synagogue (Yale University Press, 1956), Plate LXXVII

I’m aware of one inscribed image that is generally thought to represent an open scroll similar to this, a fragmentary plaque in the Vatican Museums with a menorah, below which seems to be a floating scroll with the two ends still partly rolled up:

CIL 1 478, fragmentary inscription showing part of a menorah and a partly unrolled scroll; Vatican Museums (Monteverde Catacombs); image: Brent Nongbri, 2017

Perhaps the artist of the image in the Castricius inscription was aiming at something like this, but I’m not sure. Jewish scrolls are more commonly depicted is as part of a scene of a Torah shrine with open doors. The clearest images are probably those found on glass, which show the end (frons) of the rolls with a spiral pattern, as in this example at the Israel Museum:


Glass base with gold decoration showing scrolls in the Torah shrine; Jerusalem, Israel Museum; image source: Fonds Françoise Foliot, preserved by Wikimédia France

In the gold/glass medium, artists occasionally added an element of three-dimensionality to the depiction, showing the depth of the roll in addition to the frons:, as in this example at the Met in New York, which shows both a set of scrolls in the shrine and what looks like a free-standing scroll immediately to the left of the shrine:

Glass base with gold decoration showing scrolls in the Torah shrine and a standing vertical scroll to the left of the shrine; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; image source: The Metropolitan Museum 18.145.1a, b

The Torah shrine motif occurs in different media, for instance, in this terracotta lamp found at the synagogue at Ostia:

Terracotta lamp from the synagogue at Ostia showing a Torah shrine with scrolls (inv. 12501); image source: L. Benini and M. Perani, “Censimento e catalogo delle lucerne di epoca tardo romana conservate in Italia,” Materia giudaica 20-21 (2015-2016), p. 320

We also find this type of depiction in inscriptions, like this one now in the Naples Archaeological Museum:

CIJ 1 327, fragmentary inscription showing a Torah shrine with scrolls flanked by a menorah on both sides (Archaeological Museum, Naples, inv. 4521, said to be from Monteverde Catacombs); image source: Francesco Leone, La menorà: Culto storia e mito (Skira, 2017), p. 187

On the lamp and the inscription, the design is more schematic than in the detailed depictions on glass. The scrolls in the open cabinet are represented by simple circles (or circles with dots in their centers). The idea, however, is basically the same as the more detailed renditions in the glass bases. The depiction of rolls from other angles is less frequent (as least as far as I am aware). We already saw one instance of a freestanding partly open scroll (the Salutia inscription) and a freestanding closed scroll (the Met glass base). There is also a fresco in the Jewish catacomb at the Villa Torlonia that seems to show a roll with an index tag:

Fresco in the vault of the eastern acrosolium of cubiculum II showing a scroll with an index tag; image source: H.W. Beyer and H. Lietzmann, Die jüdische Katakombe der Villa Torlonia in Rom (De Gruyter, 1930), Tafel 4.

As far as I know, that is about the extent of the visual range of depictions of scrolls in Jewish sources: a spiral showing the frons or end, the closed roll showing the height of the scroll and perhaps some perspective with one or both of the ends depicted as well, and the partly open scroll shown in the Dura Europos image and the Salutia inscription.

What about other images in Jewish inscriptions that may more closely resemble the Castricius rectangle? The nearest parallel might be a rectangular object that is patterned with both vertical and horizontal lines that appears on another inscription in the Vatican Museums, inv. 30824:

Inscription showing a rectangular object, a lulav, and part of a menorah; Vatican Museums, inv. 30824; image source: Brent Nongbri, 2008

Of course, this image is also difficult to interpret. The most recent analysis wisely leaves it at “una griglia rettangolare.”2 So, given the lack of decent parallels for the image in the Castricius inscription, I am inclined to regard the image as an unidentified object until better comparative evidence is forthcoming.

  1. On the various interpretations, see the relevant entry in David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, Volume 2: The City of Rome (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 232-233 and Rachel Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Diaspora (Brill, 1998), 368-369. ↩︎
  2. Alessandra Negroni, “Le Iscrizioni,” in La catacomba ebraica di Monteverde: vecchi dati e nuove scoperte (Rotoform, s.r.l., 2013), 155-318, at 312. ↩︎
Posted in Inscriptions, Judaism, Voluminology | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment