A Marble Relief of a Priest of Cybele

Posted on July 5, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

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 on the history of the Capitoline hill in the eighteenth century). That exhibit is now over, but in a ground-floor room of the Palazzo Nuovo (in a section of the exhibit that I completely missed) were some of the didactic materials from the exhibition along with some pieces of sculpture. I was surprised to see among them the famous relief of the priest of Magna Mater: Continue reading →

Posted in Capitoline Museum, Find Stories, Sculpture | 5 Comments

The Palatine Alexamenos Graffito

Posted on June 25, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

Just about every introductory book on early Christianity will have an image, usually a drawing or a significantly enhanced photograph, of the famous “Alexamenos graffito,” a depiction of a man worshipping a crucified figure with the head of a donkey. The image, discovered in 1856 on the southwestern slope of the Palatine hill in Rome, is generally thought to evoke the experience of Christians in the Roman world in the age before Constantine. Usually assigned to some point in the third century, it is among the earliest depictions of the crucifixion of Jesus and a Christian worshipper.

Alexamenos

Detail of the Palatine Alexamenos graffito (June 2018)

Continue reading →

Posted in Graffiti | 10 Comments

More on Oxyrhynchus, the Robinson Papyri, and the Museum of the Bible

Posted on June 23, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

At Hyperallergic, Michael Press has written up a very interesting piece on some of the various projects that receive financial support from the Museum of the Bible as revealed through tax documents. The whole article is worth reading. Of specific relevance to some of the recent news about “first century” Mark is the following bit: Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Market, Duke Papyri, Green Collection, Oxyrhynchus Papyri | 9 Comments

Another Book Biography: The Berlin Akhmimic Proverbs Codex

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

In my last post on the use of waste papyrus in covers of ancient codices, I made reference to the Berlin Coptic Proverbs codex (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. oct. 987, LDAB 107968). This reminded me that I had intended for some time to make a post dedicated to this book. Continue reading →

Posted in Berlin Coptic Proverbs Codex, Book binding, Book covers, Carl Schmidt, Codices | 10 Comments

1 Samuel and the Green Collection’s “Cartonnage”

Posted on June 17, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

Thanks to Matthew Hamilton for pointing out that the Green Collection papyrus containing 1 Samuel was described in the catalog accompanying the “Passages” exhibition in 2012. Matthew states that in the catalog, “the papyrus is noted as having 9 chapters [and] is dated to the early 3rd century AD.” Thus, it seems clear that in the video I mentioned in my previous post, Scott Carroll really was talking about “chapters” of the book being extracted from mummy cartonnage. Even more interesting is Matthew’s note that, according to the “Passages” catalog, the papyrus “had been pressed and sewn together and recycled for domestic use.” Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Market, Book covers, Codices, Green Collection, Green Collection 1 Samuel, Scott Carroll | 14 Comments

Paris Philo Codex (sort of?) Online

Posted on June 16, 2018 by Brent Nongbri
Paris Philo Codex

Bibliothèque nationale de France (Ms. Suppl. grec 1120, Philo of Alexandria

In an earlier pair of posts, I described the extant fragments of a substantial papyrus codex of the works of Philo of Alexandria that was found at Oxyrhynchus (LDAB 3540). The other major Roman-era source for Philo’s works is a shorter but much better preserved papyrus codex containing Quis rerum divinarum heres sit and De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Ms. Suppl. grec 1120, LDAB 3541). It is generally assigned to the roughly the same period as the Oxyrhynchus Philo (3rd century CE).

I discuss this codex at some length in my forthcoming book, so I don’t want to give away all the secrets, but I just discovered that the BnF has made some images of the codex available online at Gallica (and they have been online since January of 2017!). Continue reading →

Posted in Book covers, Codices, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Paris Philo of Alexandria | 3 Comments

The Green Collection 1 Samuel Papyrus and Mummy Cartonnage

Posted on June 15, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

In the course of rooting around online for further insight into the early Christian papyrus fragments I have been discussing (here and here), I’ve followed in the tracks of others (like Brice Jones and Roberta Mazza) who were already going down this rabbit hole years ago. Today that path led to another papyrus in the Green Collection that travelled widely in the Passages exhibition. Unlike some of the other camera shy fragments in the collection, this manuscript appeared prominently in promotional materials. It is a papyrus containing the beginning of 1 Samuel in Greek. Here is an image published in the online version of The Oklahoman in May 2011:

1 Samuel Passages Exhibit

Papyrus containing 1 Samuel 1:1-5 in the Green Collection in 2011; image source: The Oklahoman

Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Market, Green Collection, Green Collection 1 Samuel, Mummy cartonnage, Scott Carroll | 13 Comments

P129, P130, and P131: A Couple More Observations

Posted on June 14, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

In my previous post, I tried to direct attention to the source of certain papyri in the Green Collection and/or the Museum of the Bible that seem to have been acquired at about the same time as “first century” Mark was allegedly for sale. A substantive comment to that post by Greg Given brings together some related issues.

So, to recap, the pieces under discussion are, according to the INTF Liste: Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Market, Anton Fackelmann, First Century Mark, Green Collection, Green Collection 1 Corinthians, Green Collection 1 Samuel, Green Collection Hebrews, Green Collection Romans, Mummy cartonnage, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Scott Carroll | 4 Comments

“First Century” Mark and “Second Century” Romans and “Second Century” Hebrews and “Second Century” 1 Corinthians

Posted on June 12, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

[[Update 18 October 2019: It has now been shown that the papyri containing Romans and 1 Corinthians mentioned in this post were in fact stolen from the Oxyrhynchus collection. See details here.]]

Elijah Hixson has posted a nice update on the latest developments regarding questions around P.Oxy. 83.5345, the recently published papyrus fragment of the Gospel According to Mark. It’s well worth a read.

The lack of clarity on all sides in this episode is unfortunate. One part of Dan Wallace’s latest statement on the matter was especially striking to me: Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Market, Codices, First Century Mark, Green Collection 1 Corinthians, Green Collection Hebrews, Green Collection Romans, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Scott Carroll | 38 Comments

Still more on P.Oxy. 83.5345

Posted on June 11, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

In an earlier posting, I noted that the updated statement from the Egypt Exploration Society still left some lingering questions about the treatment of this papyrus fragment and that some of these questions could best be answered by Dan Wallace and others involved in the non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) related to this papyrus. Now Dan Wallace has himself offered an update shedding some light on the NDA he signed. This is all very strange. It would be helpful if the “major collection that was interested in purchasing the papyrus” would identify itself and release all parties from this NDA so that the academic community can get a little clarity about the recent history of this papyrus.

 

Posted in Antiquities Market, Oxyrhynchus Papyri | 16 Comments