Author Archives: Brent Nongbri
Erasing Wax Tablets in the Sun
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 … Continue reading
Realistic Renderings of Papyrus Rolls in Stone
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 … Continue reading
Early Publications on the Nash Papyrus
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 … Continue reading
The Purchase of the Nash Papyrus, Again
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 … Continue reading
The Purchase of the Nash Papyrus: Two Different Dates
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 … Continue reading
A Cambridge Papyrus of the Odyssey and the Nash Papyrus
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 … Continue reading
A Roman Library in Spain and the “declamatio sarcophagus”
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 … Continue reading
Michael Blanding’s The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby
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 … Continue reading
The Iconography of Jewish Scrolls in the Roman Era
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 … Continue reading
A New Article on P.Oxy. 7.1008 and 7.1009 (P15 and P16)
The latest issue of Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft contains an article I wrote on two papyrus folia from Oxyrhynchus. Here is the abstract: P.Oxy. 7.1008 and 7.1009 (P15 and P16 in the INTF’s Kurzgefasste Liste) preserve portions of 1 … Continue reading
Variant Readings 