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Category Archives: Manuscript Collections
7Q5 and Appeals to Authority, Part 2: Herbert Hunger
I have written before about 7Q5, a small fragment of papyrus found in Cave 7Q at Qumran. It contains an unidentified text in Greek. It became (in)famous in the early 1970s when José O’Callaghan (1922-2001) argued that it preserved a bit … Continue reading
Posted in 7Q5, Dead Sea Scrolls, Herbert Hunger, Palaeography
Tagged 7Q5, Herbert Hunger, Palaeography
7 Comments
New Article on P.Oxy. 1 2 and P.Oxy. 7 1010
This will be the first of a few posts about some recent articles of mine that have just been published. The first is a piece jointly authored by AnneMarie Luijendijk and me. The full article is available (open access!) here: … Continue reading
New Images of P52
For some time now, the Rylands Library at the University of Manchester has hosted good digital images of P.Ryl. Gr. 3 457 (a.k.a. P52), the fragment of the Gospel According to John. I recently visited the University of Manchester’s LUNA … Continue reading
New Radiocarbon Analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls
An important new study of the Dead Sea Scrolls has just been published (open access!) in the journal PLOS One: Mladen Popović et al., “Dating ancient manuscripts using radiocarbon and AI-based writing style analysis,” PLOS One 2025. In some ways, … Continue reading
Posted in Dead Sea Scrolls, Frank Moore Cross, Palaeography, Radiocarbon analysis
Tagged archaeology, books, Dead Sea Scrolls, history, qumran, Radiocarbon analysis
8 Comments
7Q5 and Appeals to Authority, Part 1: Orsolina Montevecchi
I am fascinated by the Wikipedia entry for 7Q5, which seems to continuously bounce back and forth between being useful and informative to being goofy and borderline incoherent. 7Q5 is a tiny fragment of papyrus found in Cave 7Q at … Continue reading
Posted in 7Q5, Dead Sea Scrolls, Orsolina Montevecchi
Tagged 7Q5, ancient-judaism, Bible, christianity, Dead Sea Scrolls, early-christian-manuscripts, history
16 Comments
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
Decoration of the Fore-edges of Coptic Codices
There is a fun article in The New York Times about the growing trend among publishers of producing deluxe editions of romance and fantasy books. The article mentions different kinds of cover enhancements but focuses on decoration of the fore-edge. … Continue reading
Additional Items from the Schøyen Collection on Sale
Thanks to Alexander Schick for the tip: Earlier this year, Christie’s offered on auction several pieces from the collection of Martin Schøyen. Among the pieces sold was the so-called Crosby-Schøyen codex. Still no word on who bought the book or … 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
Variant Readings 