Thanks once again to David Bradnick for unearthing a recent video featuring Scott Carroll, who continues his manuscripts roadshow. In this clip, Dr. Carroll seems to be prepping a group for a trip to the Museum of the Bible. The talk took place on 8 October 2026 as a part of the Annual Convention of the International Society of Bible Collectors. Much of the video features various kinds of cartonnage and shows Carroll revisiting some of his favorite pieces seen in videos from a decade ago, but he also has some new items to show off.

There are many interesting moments in the video. Two that stood out:

• 28:40: the cartonnage “thingamajig” (now identified as a hypocephalus) supposedly containing papyri of 1 Samuel and Homer
• 1:09:06: “First century” Mark

Perhaps the most puzzling bit is the account of the infamous Sappho papyrus published by Prof. Dirk Obbink. I fear Dr. Carroll may be suffering from memory loss. As a reminder, here is Scott Carroll in 2012 excitedly describing the papyrus fragments of Sappho that he claims to have discovered:

“I do have an example here of what he’s talking about with Corn Flake-type–these are not quite Corn Flake size. You can see here. There are 26 fragments of this text in Greek on papyrus. And, um, it came out of a mummy mask I dismantled a few weeks ago.  Um, it is, they are texts. Of course for me, with my area of passion and scholarship–biblical texts are, are what I’m most interested in. But really, truly for classical scholars, this is, these are texts of the most elusive and sought-after of all Greek authors, and that’s the writing of the, uh, female poet Sappho.”

So this is Scott Carroll claiming back in 2012 that it was he who he extracted the Green Collection’s Sappho fragments from a mummy mask.

In 2026 in front of an image of those very same fragments, Dr. Carroll has this to say at about the 23 minute mark:

“Now, there are, ah, a number of texts that have been found where scholars will say, ‘This has come from mummy cartonnage’. And they’ve done that in order to hide its provenance. It’s very important who owns it, who rightfully owns it. And there was a particularly, uh, a world renowned scholar at Oxford and a former colleague who would do this, uh and, it was about a decade ago, uh, found on the right texts that are from Sappho, who is, ah ah ah, an ancient poetess, as old as Homer, greatly desired, only a fragmented understanding of her writings. And he discovered these, and his claim was, in publication, it was discovered in a mummy mask. Well how do you verify that? That’s very difficult. Uh, probably more likely it was discovered in the, uh, sales catalog of a Turkish papyri dealer.”

That’s a very different different story from the one Carroll was telling back in 2012. The Oxford scholar that Carroll is throwing under the bus is of course Professor Dirk Obbink. The tale of Professor Obbink and his Sappho papyrus has had many twists and turns. The papyrologist Michael Sampson analyzed a private sale catalog said to have been produce by Christie’s, the esteemed auction house. Sampson demonstrated that the catalog contained staged images of the Sappho papyrus being extracted from cartonnage. And Brian Hyland, a curator at the Museum of the Bible, uncovered the fact that Carroll himself planted some of the Green collection Sappho fragments in a mummy mask that he dismantled in 2012. The most recent and thorough account of the whole affair can be found in Roberta Mazza’s award-winning book, Stolen Fragments (2024).

And despite Carroll’s apparent new-found appreciation for the importance of provenance, the purchasing practices associated with his work with the Green family still seem to be operative. At one point, Carroll shows an image of a manuscript fragment preserved in a binding:

He then exclaims, “We acquired this yesterday! Ahhhhhhh! And I’m not gonna tell you where! No no no no no. I’m not gonna give my secrets away!”

It is fascinating that this talk is being given to a group of Bible collectors. If they are taking Dr. Carroll’s advice on responsible antiquities purchasing, one can only say caveat emptor.