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

Refining Radiocarbon Calibration for the Southern Levant

Posted on June 5, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

At the website for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a new article has been posted in pre-print format: “Fluctuating radiocarbon offsets observed in the southern Levant and implications for archaeological chronology debates.”

While the title isn’t exactly catchy, this is an interesting article that is potentially significant for the dating of ancient manuscripts that may have been produced using materials native to this area. Continue reading →

Posted in Dendrochronology, Radiocarbon analysis | 8 Comments

Some Observations on the Updated EES Statement on P.Oxy. 83.5345

Posted on June 4, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

Thanks to Stephen Goranson for noting that the Egypt Exploration Society has posted an updated statement regarding some of the questions surrounding P.Oxy. 83.5345.

There is a good deal of helpful and interesting information in this update. For now, I’ll just comment upon a a few points. Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Market, Dirk Obbink, Green Collection, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Scott Carroll | 12 Comments

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri in the 1930s

Posted on June 2, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

From 1898 to 1927, Grenfell and/or Hunt edited the first seventeen volumes of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri series (Grenfell’s periodic illnesses limited his participation in a couple volumes, and Hunt was away from Oxford during World War I). But over a decade elapsed between the publication of Volume 17 (1927) and Volume 18 (1941). What was happening with the papyri during this time? In an earlier post, I mentioned the movement of the Oxyrhynchus collection after the death of Arthur Hunt in 1934. Eric Turner has provided a bit more detail about that process by working through the minutes of committee meetings of the Egypt Exploration Society. I quote at length from Turner’s obituary for Edgar Lobel (identified as “EL” in the following excerpt): Continue reading →

Posted in Oxyrhynchus Papyri | 3 Comments

A Bit More on the Storage and Inventory of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri

Posted on June 1, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

As Grenfell and Hunt’s team extracted papyri from the garbage heaps in Oxyrhynchus, they placed them in baskets, which Grenfell and Hunt eventually packed away in tin boxes. As Grenfell famously wrote in his report of the first season’s excavation at Oxyrhynchus: Continue reading →

Posted in Oxyrhynchus Papyri | 5 Comments

Some Observations on the “Provisional Dating” of P.Oxy. 83.5345

Posted on May 28, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

I want to dwell a little bit on one of the lines from the Egypt Exploration Society’s statement on P.Oxy. 83.5345:

“This is the same text that Professor Obbink showed to some visitors to Oxford in 2011/12, which some of them reported in talks and on social media as possibly dating to the late first century AD on the basis of a provisional dating when the text was catalogued many years ago.”

There are a number of things worthy of further consideration here, but I want to focus on the “provisional dating” that was made “when the text was catalogued many years ago.”

My working assumption is that this statement refers to the cataloguing process undertaken in the 1960s. Continue reading →

Posted in Codices, Dirk Obbink, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Palaeography | 14 Comments

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri of Dubious Provenance and Editorial Choice

Posted on May 27, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

P.Oxy. 83.5345, the newly published papyrus fragment of the Gospel According to Mark, has the inventory number 104/14b, which is part of a clear sequence of such numbers among the Oxyrhynchus papyri; so there is no good reason to doubt that the new Mark fragment was excavated from Oxyrhynchus. But The Oxyrhynchus Papyrus series has published some items that either were not excavated by Grenfell and Hunt or are of uncertain provenance. Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Market, Oxyrhynchus Papyri | 1 Comment

The Oxyrhynchus “Distributions”

Posted on May 26, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

In the recent discussions about the newly published fragment of the Gospel According to Mark (P.Oxy. 83.5345), there has been a little confusion about the so-called “distribution papyri.” These are pieces of papyrus excavated from Oxyrhynchus and elsewhere that the Egypt Exploration Fund sent to various institutions (and occasionally individuals), mostly in the UK and USA, that made financial donations to support the work of the EEF. Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquities Market, Green Collection, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, William Matthew Flinders Petrie | 7 Comments

EES Makes Edition of the New Oxyrhynchus Mark Fragment Available Online

Posted on May 25, 2018 by Brent Nongbri

The EES has made the edition of the new Mark fragment in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri series available freely online at https://www.ees.ac.uk/news/poxy-lxxxiii-5345

Also, Candida Moss and Joel Baden, who have been following the Green Collection and Museum of the Bible story for the past few years, weigh in with further news from Scott Carroll and Dirk Obbink in the Daily Beast here.

Posted in Antiquities Market, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Scott Carroll | Leave a comment

Sorting the Oxyrhynchus Papyri

Posted on May 25, 2018 by Brent Nongbri
Oxyrhynchus Papyri Pile

Papyri from the excavations of Grenfell and Hunt; image source: Egypt Exploration Society

Again, it would be great to get a systematic account from somebody “in the know” about the unpublished inventory of material from Oxyrhynchus. Hunt, of course, identified some things in the field and then back at Oxford. But it seems like he and Grenfell didn’t themselves have a sense of just how much material they uncovered. In a lecture in 1920, Grenfell wrote that Volume 15 of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri series “probably carries us more than half-way through the publication of the total finds of literary texts from that site. Continue reading →

Posted in Oxyrhynchus Papyri | 8 Comments