Recent Comments
Brent Nongbri on A Late Example of the Biblical… Andrew Patton on A Late Example of the Biblical… El Jesús Histórico:… on The Palatine Alexamenos G… magnificentb49030ee1… on Callimachus on the Walls Brent Nongbri on Callimachus on the Walls
Category Archives: Antiquities Market
The Lying Pen of Scribes Project: An Appreciation
Over the last few years, I have had a number of occasions to mention The Lying Pen of Scribes, a project on the Dead Sea Scrolls funded by the Research Council of Norway. In fact, it may not be quite … Continue reading
Posted in Antiquities Market, Archaeological context, Dead Sea Scrolls, Fakes and Forgeries
Tagged archaeology, Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, history, qumran
2 Comments
A New Article on Carl Schmidt and the Antiquities Trade
The coptologist Carl Schmidt (1868-1938) was very active in the antiquities trade. His name is associated with the purchase of many well known manuscripts, including one I’ve discussed here. An important new article on Schmidt has appeared in a journal … Continue reading
Roberta Mazza’s Stolen Fragments
I’ve just finished reading Roberta Mazza’s excellent new book, Stolen Fragments: Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts (Stanford: Redwood Press, 2024). This is a well organized and highly readable book. It tells a story–equal parts … Continue reading
Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Antiquities Market, Bruce Ferrini, Dead Sea Scrolls, Dirk Obbink, Fakes and Forgeries, Green Collection, Lee Biondi, P.Sapph. Obbink, Scott Carroll
Tagged Antiquities Market, archaeology, Bible, books, egypt, history, museum-of-the-bible, papyri, papyrology, roberta-mazza, sappho
6 Comments
The Sale of the Crosby-Schøyen Codex and its Cost Over Time
The auction of several items from the collection of Martin Schøyen took place yesterday in London. The highlight of the sale was the so-called Crosby-Schøyen codex, which sold for just over the high end of the estimated price range at … Continue reading
The Upcoming Sale of the Crosby-Schøyen Codex (Just How Old is this Book?)
It has been an unusually busy news week for Coptic codices. I posted a few days ago about the Mudil Psalms codex, and then yesterday several news outlets reported that Christie’s will be auctioning off the Crosby-Schøyen codex, a papyrus … Continue reading
Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Antiquities Market, Codices, Codicology, Crosby-Schøyen Codex, Maguid Sameda, Radiocarbon analysis, Schøyen Collection
Tagged antiquities, antiquities-trade, auctions, Codicology, coptic, history, manuscripts, papyrology, papyrus, rare-book-trade, rare-books
8 Comments
The Hobby Lobby v. Dirk Obbink Ruling
In 2023, the civil case of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Dirk D. Obbink switched venues from New York to Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma court has now found a default judgement in favor of Hobby Lobby, with the result that … Continue reading
The Robinson Papyri, and the Mississippi Papyri, and William H. Willis
Several years ago, I tried to sort out some of the confusion that surrounds the so-called Robinson Papyri, a collection of papyrus manuscripts accumulated by the archaeologist David M. Robinson (1880-1958) and eventually inherited by the classicist William H. Willis … Continue reading
The Date of the New Oxyrhynchus Sayings of Jesus P.Oxy. 87.5575
The publication of the latest volume of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri has been in the news. Among the newly published pieces is a small fragment of a leaf of a papyrus codex that contains a previously unknown collection of sayings of … Continue reading
Notes on a Forger’s Methods
John de Monins Johnson (1882-1956) was in some ways a kind of successor to Grenfell and Hunt for a short period in the early twentieth century. Before taking up a position at Oxford University Press, he had training as a … Continue reading
Posted in Antiquities Market, Fakes and Forgeries
5 Comments
Variant Readings 