Category Archives: Find Stories

God’s Library: Publication Day

Posted on August 21, 2018 by

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 →

Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Antiquities Market, Archaeological context, Book binding, Book covers, Codices, Find Stories, Manuscript Collections, Palaeography, Radiocarbon analysis | 6 Comments

The Nag Hammadi Discovery Story

Posted on August 20, 2018 by

Over on his blog, Bart Ehrman is answering questions about the Gospel of Thomas. He has started out by re-telling a version of the traditional find story of the Nag Hammadi codices. This is a topic that I treat in … Continue reading →

Posted in Codices, Find Stories, Nag Hammadi | 3 Comments

A Marble Relief of a Priest of Cybele

Posted on July 5, 2018 by

It’s always a pleasant surprise to visit a familiar museum and find a “new” piece. It happened to me the other day at the Capitoline Museum. Earlier this year, there was an exhibition on Johann Joachim Winckelmann (actually, it was mainly … Continue reading →

Posted in Find Stories, Sculpture | 2 Comments

Excavating the Oxyrhynchus Philo Codex

Posted on May 14, 2018 by

In my previous post, I mentioned that the Oxyrhynchus Philo codex (LDAB 3540) was published in a number of different outlets. There are also some tantalizing hints about the archaeological context of the fragments. Here is the data on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Market, Codices, Find Stories, Maurice Nahman, Oxyrhynchus Papyri | 7 Comments

A Working List of Funerary Sculpture Attributed to Oxyrhynchus

Posted on May 5, 2018 by

As I have been looking into a set of sculptures attributed Oxyrhynchus (in previous posts here and here), some patterns have emerged in terms of acquisition. It seems that the best thing to do is to make a list of … Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Market, Find Stories, Oxyrhynchus Sculpture, William Matthew Flinders Petrie | 2 Comments

The Tura Papyri: Archival Footage

Posted on December 27, 2017 by

In my previous post on the Tura Papyri, I mentioned that the books are said to have been discovered in 1941 during the clearing of quarries south of Cairo for use by the British military. The earliest detailed account of … Continue reading →

Posted in Find Stories, Tura Papyri | 1 Comment

The Tura Papyri

Posted on December 22, 2017 by

While many of the papyrus and parchment codices in the Fondation Martin Bodmer appear to be part of a single ancient find, several of these codices are known to have distinct origins. One of these is P.Bodmer LVII, a portion … Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Market, Bodmer Papyri, Find Stories, Tura Papyri | 2 Comments