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Author Archives: Brent Nongbri
Dead Sea Scrolls at the Vatican
A visit to the Vatican Museums almost always yields something new. You can never know which rooms will be open, so occasionally there is the pleasant surprise of getting to see material that is usually hidden away. There are also … Continue reading
The Fate of the Van Kampen Collection
I’ve written before on a few occasions about the Van Kampen Collection of ancient manuscripts, a kind of predecessor of the Green Collection. In fact, it was Scott Carroll, the main architect of the Green Collection, who was also the … Continue reading
Stands for Holding Open Papyrus Rolls?
In discussions of the early codex, one often finds statements about the obvious technological superiority of the book with pages over the roll. Sometimes these claims will push further and say that rolls were not only relatively less easy to … Continue reading
Posted in Voluminology
5 Comments
More Papyrus Roll Vocabulary: frons, cornua, umbilicus
In an earlier post, I raised some questions about the description of papyrus rolls. This generated some very helpful discussion in the comments. I now want to look at some of the ancient terminology for rolls. A good place to … Continue reading
Posted in Martial, Voluminology
10 Comments
Buying Books in Rome circa 86 CE
The surviving writings of the satirical poet Martial provide a number of insights into Roman book culture. He has been an especially important figure in discussions of the history of the codex, as he mentions on multiple occasions portable parchment … Continue reading
Posted in Book Trade in Antiquity, Martial
8 Comments
The Vocabulary of Reading a Papyrus Roll
When I was writing an earlier post that mentioned papyrus rolls, I realized that it was difficult to describe certain physical aspects of rolls. Here is what I wrote: “Normally when a papyrus roll was rolled up, the text was … Continue reading
Posted in Voluminology
24 Comments
A New Project: The Early History of the Codex
A busy semester is now winding down, and I’m happy to announce that in August, I’ll be kicking off a new, five-year project: The Early History of the Codex: A New Methodology and Ethics for Manuscript Studies (EthiCodex) based here … Continue reading
Posted in Codices, Codicology, Radiocarbon analysis
9 Comments
Hobby Lobby Inc. vs Dirk Obbink
A couple days ago, the news broke that Hobby Lobby has sued Professor Dirk Obbink for over $7 million USD. The 10-page complaint (which can be seen here) does not paint a nice picture of Prof. Obbink, but that’s generally … Continue reading
The Eusebian Apparatus in Codex Sinaiticus
The Eusebian apparatus for the gospels has been getting some much deserved attention in the last few years. This remarkable system for navigating the parallel material in the gospels has formed the topic of a very useful monograph by Matthew … Continue reading
Posted in Codex Sinaiticus, Codicology
7 Comments
An Informative Article on a (Different) Sappho Papyrus
When it comes to Sappho papyri, I’ve been reporting mostly bad news for the last couple years. I’m happy to have some good news now about a different papyrus of Sappho, one whose provenance and authenticity are not under any … Continue reading
Posted in Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Voluminology
3 Comments
Variant Readings 