The Green Collection Mummy Masks: A Possible Source

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Brent Nongbri

carroll mask sinkFor some time now, I’ve been trying to make progress in ascertaining the previous ownership of both the manuscripts and the cartonnage (from mummies and other sources) that ended up in the Green Collection. This post will focus on the mummy masks. For the record, there are several mummy masks that have been associated with the Green Collection over the years. Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Antiquities Market, Dirk Obbink, Green Collection, Mummies, Mummy cartonnage, Scott Carroll | 30 Comments

Sources and Destinations of Scott Carroll’s Papyri?

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Brent Nongbri

carroll belarus papyri smallThanks to Alin Suciu and Tommy Wasserman for pointing out that some of the manuscripts and facsimiles that Scott Carroll has been displaying over the last couple of years were part of an exhibition organized by Carroll’s Manuscript Research Group at the National Library of Belarus in 2018, complete with placards containing details that apparently relate to the current owners of some of these manuscripts: Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Antiquities Market, Scott Carroll | 7 Comments

Still More Greek and Coptic Papyri from Scott Carroll

Posted on January 24, 2019 by Brent Nongbri

carroll manuscript small

Thanks again to the resourcefulness of David Bradnick, here is still another video of Scott Carroll displaying still more papyrus and parchment manuscripts, including some Greek and Coptic manuscripts that have not appeared in the other videos I have surveyed. This video was filmed in Kansas City on 7 September 2016 during a meeting of the group Youth With a Mission.

Scott Carroll’s portion of what seems to have been a quite long evening begins at about the 32:50 mark and is notable for the number of Coptic manuscripts included in the presentation. Around the 38 minute Mark, Carroll gives an overall description of the material he will discuss: “recently discovered. . .all new material. . .some of these things are as recent as this past week.” One of Carroll’s slides describes this material as “Buried Treasures”: Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Green Collection, Green Collection 1 Samuel, Green Collection Greek Genesis, Green Collection Hebrews, Green Collection Romans, Mummies, Mummy cartonnage, Scott Carroll | 19 Comments

More of Scott Carroll’s Papyri?

Posted on January 21, 2019 by Brent Nongbri

carroll 2018 talk stones and scriptures

Thanks to David Bradnick for uncovering this relatively recent video of Scott Carroll that was recorded February 23, 2018 (Update: Thanks to Peter Gurry and Susanna Kinzig for pointing out the website for the original event). In this talk, “Stones and Scriptures,” Carroll presents slides with images of several of the same manuscripts that he discussed in a 2016 talk, as well as images of several other manuscripts. At about the 11:05 mark, Carroll begins going through some slides of the manuscripts that he describes in the following way:

“These texts are just a couple of examples of things recently that we have, ah, discovered or identified.” Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Antiquities Market, Bruce Ferrini, Green Collection, Green Collection 1 Samuel, Green Collection Greek Genesis, Green Collection Hebrews, Green Collection Romans, Mummies, Mummy cartonnage, Scott Carroll | 26 Comments

Editions of Rylands Greek Papyri Online

Posted on January 19, 2019 by Brent Nongbri

rylands papyri vol 3The John Rylands Library contains a great collection of papyri in different languages. I’m most interested in the Greek pieces, the bulk of which were published in the first half of the twentieth century in four volumes. Digital copies of the first two volumes, edited by Arthur S. Hunt, have for some time been available at the wonderful archive.org. Volumes 3 and 4, published in 1938 and 1952 have not been available online, but I just realized that at some point late last year, the University of Manchester uploaded scans of volumes 3 and 4 (interestingly, the copies are from Princeton Theological Seminary). These volumes contain some very important Jewish and Christian manuscripts. This is a fantastic development for those of us without access to a good papyrological library. Thanks to our friends at the University of Manchester and archive.org (and PTS)! Links are here:

Rylands Greek Papyri: volume 1, volume 2, volume 3, volume 4

[Update 29 January 2019: A.K. adds some further helpful info in the comments below:

“https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/special-collections/access-the-special-collections/using-manuscripts/published-catalogues/greek-papyri/ has the complete set plus the 1968 and 1978-9 updates. https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/special-collections/access-the-special-collections/using-manuscripts/published-catalogues/coptic-manuscripts/ is also relevant.”]

Posted in Rylands Papyri | 4 Comments

Scott Carroll’s Classical Papyri

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Brent Nongbri

carroll menander papyrus smallSo, I think I may be starting to alleviate some of my confusion about Scott Carroll and the Green Collection papyri. One part of all this that was unclear to me was the status of several manuscripts acquired or “discovered” by Scott Carroll that were not immediately related to the Museum of the Bible project. What happened to these pieces? What had escaped me what the possibility that Scott Carroll was not just a broker of manuscript purchases for others but also a purchaser and owner of manuscripts himself.

This point is clarified in a video (apparently recorded in a home in California) with an upload date of 21 April 2015. It was filmed some time after Carroll had parted ways with the Greens and the Museum of the Bible enterprise and had started his own business ventures. [[Update 28 July 2019: David Bradnick points out that the event was held on 2 March 2014.]] It would thus be odd if Carroll still had Green Collection papyri in his possession at the time of the video. But Carroll does display several actual manuscripts in this video and seems to confirm that he is the owner of these pieces (the presentation was put online in three separate files; my references will be to part number and time marker). So, in part 2 at about the 35 second mark, just before passing out the first of several artifacts to the audience, he encourages them to be careful, and in reference to himself and his wife says:

“These things are under our ownership.”

Here are the papyrus pieces that Carroll displayed with his identifications below (all from part 2 of the film, time points given at the bottom of the images): Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Antiquities Market, Green Collection, Mummies, Mummy cartonnage, Scott Carroll | 11 Comments

More Early Christian Greek and Coptic Papyri in the Green Collection?

Posted on January 11, 2019 by Brent Nongbri

carroll and torah scroll

In earlier posts I’ve discussed a number of early Christian manuscripts associated with the Green Collection (papyri of Genesis, Exodus and Hebrews, Matthew, Romans, and 1 Corinthians). Most of these pieces were featured at different points in the “Passages” speakers series and other media outlets in 2011 and 2012, when Scott Carroll was still working with the Green family to build their personal collection.

After he parted ways with the Green family, Carroll continued to publicly discuss and display images of manuscripts he had acquired while working with the Greens. One such occasion was a talk that seems to have been given in January June of 2016. Carroll was speaking to a church audience and mentioned several “newly discovered” manuscripts. Continue reading →

Posted in Bruce Ferrini, First Century Mark, Green Collection, Green Collection Greek Genesis, Green Collection Hebrews, Passages Speakers Series, Scott Carroll, Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Two More Greek Papyri in the Green Collection: Exodus and Hebrews

Posted on January 9, 2019 by Brent Nongbri

In my last post, I highlighted a papyrus of Genesis mentioned by Scott Carroll in his 2011 lecture in the “Passages” speakers series. Later in that same talk, Carroll singled out two other pieces in the collection, a papyrus leaf from a codex of Exodus in Greek and a fragment of a papyrus copy of Hebrews.

carroll hebrews exodus 2011

Here is some of what Carroll had to say about these pieces: Continue reading →

Posted in Bruce Ferrini, Green Collection, Green Collection Hebrews, Passages Speakers Series, Scott Carroll | 7 Comments

A Green Collection Papyrus of Genesis in Greek

Posted on January 7, 2019 by Brent Nongbri

I continue to work through the “Passages” speakers series videos. During his talk in the 2011 sequence of lectures, Scott Carroll mentioned a number of literary papyri that the Green Collection had acquired.

carroll passages 2011 papyri

In the course of explaining the differences between literary papyri and documents, Carroll mentioned some of the Green Collection’s holdings: Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Market, Green Collection, Green Collection Greek Genesis, Passages Speakers Series, Scott Carroll | 9 Comments

P.Bodmer 1, A Land List Reused for Books 5 and 6 of the Iliad

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Brent Nongbri

2018 was an important year for the study of the Bodmer Papyri, with the launch of the “Papyri” cluster of the Bodmer Lab website, which made available digital images of the papyrus and parchment manuscripts from Egypt in the collection.

2019 is now off to a good start with the announcement that the publication of P.Bodmer 1 (recto) is now available to freely download:

Tomasz Derda, P. Bodmer I Recto: A Land List from the Panopolite Nome in Upper Egypt (after AD 216/7), Journal of Juristic Papyrology Supplement 14 (Warsaw: Journal of Juristic Papyrology; Oxford: Oxbow, 2010).

P.Bodmer 1 is a land list from the Panopolite nome that was turned over and upside down to be reused to copy books 5 and 6 of the Iliad. It was acquired by Martin Bodmer in the early 1950s, and the reused side of the roll (the Iliad) was published already in 1954 by Victor Martin as P.Bodmer I. The document on the front of the roll, however, has remained unpublished until now.

pbodmer 1 before conservation

P.Bodmer 1 before conservation; image source: Victor Martin, Papyrus Bodmer I (Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, 1954)

Continue reading →

Posted in Bodmer Papyri, Reuse of manuscripts | 3 Comments