Category Archives: Find Stories
Further Revelations from Sampson’s Article: The Sappho Papyrus and the German Officer
In a previous post on C. Michael Sampson’s article in the most recent issue of the Bulletin of the American Association of Papyrologists, I mentioned that Sampson’s essay contained a number of interesting but somewhat complicated revelations about questions surrounding … Continue reading →
The Trojan Horse in Pakistan and Questions of Provenance
In the process of preparing to teach a course on ancient trade networks, I encountered a very informative chapter by Rachel Mairs in The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization (2017), which introduced me to a fascinating artifact of which … Continue reading →
Qumran Cave 1 Questions, Part 3: Is Cave 1 Really Cave 1?
This is the third in a series of questions relating to the source of the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls to appear on the market in 1947. The first post dealt with the Genesis Apocryphon, and the second with the … Continue reading →
Qumran Cave 1 Questions, Part 1: The Genesis Apocryphon Roll
One of the many events called off in the general shut down of activities last month was a meeting at the University of Agder associated with The Lying Pen of Scribes project, On the Origin of the Pieces: The Provenance … Continue reading →
Important Developments with the New Sappho Papyrus
Mike Holmes of the Museum of the Bible has just released some new discoveries from the Museum’s ongoing provenance research to me and several other people via e-mail. There are several important revelations. Especially important are 1) a stunningly sharp … Continue reading →
Publication of the Tchacos-Ferrini Mathematical Codex
I see that later this month we can expect the publication of the Tchacos-Ferrini mathematical codex (LDAB 10719, now dubbed by the editors P.Math.). This codex travelled the antiquities market along with a papyrus codex of Exodus in Greek, a … Continue reading →
The Harris Homer Roll Online
A couple years ago, I wrote an article on two papyrus manuscripts now housed in the British Library, the so-called Harris Homers. I’ve written on this blog before about the curious story of their discovery in the “Crocodile Pit of … Continue reading →
The Papyrus of Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians: Provenance Questions
I recently wanted to quickly refresh myself on what can be known about the provenance of the famous papyrus containing nearly the entire text of Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians (British Library Pap. 131, LDAB 391). As usual, this turned … Continue reading →
National Geographic’s “Bible Hunters” Article Online
I mentioned in an earlier post that cover story of the December 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine features “Bible Hunters”–the search for early Christian and Jewish manuscripts. The full story is now online (along with some images that are … Continue reading →
God’s Library: Publication Day
So, it’s August 21. This is the official publication date for God’s Library (I’m not entirely sure what that means, because the book has been shipping from the publisher for a couple weeks now already). Thanks again to everyone involved … Continue reading →
Variant Readings 