Hugo Ibscher and the Cover of the Berlin Akhmimic Proverbs Codex

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

In 2022, I published a short paper on the construction of the Beatty-Michigan codex of the Pauline epistles (P46, TM 61855). I suggested that the surviving page numbers in the codex might not be an entirely reliable guide to the original size of the single quire that makes up the codex (I had noticed that some other better preserved single-quire papyrus codices were not symmetrical in terms of numbered pages in the two halves of the codex).

I realized after publication that I had not noted an additional fact relevant to the discussion: Early codices, even single-quire codices, can have multiple sequences of page numbers. I pointed to the Crosby-Schøyen codex (TM 107771) as an example in a subsequent post.

Now, I follow up with another addendum. In the original article I used the Berlin Akhmimic Proverbs codex (TM 107968) as an example of a single-quire codex in which the outer folia of the quire were incorporated into the cover, relying upon the conservator Hugo Ibscher’s description of the book:

The original cover of Berlin Ms. or. oct. 987, now on a paper quire; image source: Paola Buzi, The Manuscripts of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin preussischer Kulturbesitz, Part 4 (Steiner, 2014), plate 5

“The Berlin Akhmimic Proverbs codex presents further interesting evidence. Hugo Ibscher noted that the outermost folia of this single-quire codex were incorporated into the leather cover of the codex along with waste papyrus to help stiffen the cover.”

I added a footnote to this sentence expressing some caution about this interpretation of Ibscher:

This is at least how I understand Ibscher’s somewhat confusing description: “The cover of the book consists of 6 to 8 layers of papyrus, which, when glued on top of each other, resulted in a strong cardboard. The outer sheets of this cardboard contain remains of Greek writing, while the inner ones are apparently blank. It fits well with this that from the first papyrus roll, before the surviving sheet 1 of the codex, four more sheets have been taken from the first papyrus roll [from which the bifolia were cut] that are not found in the codex and were probably used to strengthen the book cover and were bound through at the same time” (Hugo Ibscher, “Von der Papyrusrolle zum Kodex,” Archiv für Buchbinderei 20 [1920] 21–40, at 39: “Der Buchdeckel besteht aus 6 bis 8 Papyruslagen, die übereinandergeklebt eine starke Pappe ergaben. Die äußeren Blattlagen dieser Pappe enthalten griechische Schriftreste, während die inneren anscheinend unbeschrieben sind. Hierzu paßt es gut, daß aus der ersten Papyrusrolle, vor dem erhaltenen Blatt 1 des Codex, noch vier Blätter entnommen sind, die sich im Kodex nicht vorfinden und wahrscheinlich zur Verstärkung des Buchdeckels verwendet und gleich mit durchgeheftet wurden”). I take heart from the fact that Theodore C. Petersen showed a similar understanding: “The papyrus boards of the binding were found by Dr. Ibscher to have been built up of six to eight papyrus leaves pasted one over the other. Several of the innermost of these were found to have been sewn as part of the original codex, i.e., as its outermost sheets.” See Theodore C. Petersen, Coptic Bookbindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library (ed. Francisco H. Trujillo; Ann Arbor: Legacy, 2021) 430. It is unclear how common this type of construction was among single-quire codices. I know of no other documented examples. J.A. Szirmai, citing Ibscher’s “Der Kodex,” mentions another alleged example of this phenomenon, but he has misread Ibscher’s reference, which is almost certainly to the Berlin Proverbs codex (Szirmai, The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding [Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999] 12).

I was a little unclear on what Ibscher meant by “und gleich mit durchgeheftet wurden.” And I probably should have given Ibscher’s reference from “Der Kodex” in full. The context there is a discussion of single-quire codices. Ibscher does not specifically name the Proverbs codex (which is why Szirmai, I think, misinterpreted him), but it must be the Proverbs codex that Ibscher had in view:

“In one of these early codices I was able to make the interesting observation that the six outer bifolia were left blank. They were firmly attached to the quire by stitching, then glued together and now also served as a book cover, which was covered with leather.”

“Bei einem dieser frühen Kodizes konnte ich noch die interessante Beobachtung machen, daß die sechs äußeren Doppelblätter unbeschrieben gelassen wurden. Sie wurden mit der Lage durch die Heftung fest verbunden, dann zusammengeklebt und dienten nun zugleich als Buchdeckel, der mit Leder überzogen war.”

Now, I am happy to report that another passage by Ibscher confirms this understanding of the construction of the Proverbs codex in no uncertain terms. While looking up some information about the Medinet Madi codices, I came across this note by Ibscher specifically in reference to the Proverbs codex (Ms. or. oct. 987):

“The Coptic papyrus codex of the Berliner Staatsbibliothek, which was still bound when I received it for conservation, consists of 40 bifolia and some stubbed bifolia, while the 6 outermost bifolia were glued together to form the book cover.”

“[D]er koptische Papyruskodex der Berliner Staatsbibliothek, der noch im Einband saß, als ich ihn zur Konservierung erhielt, umfaßt 40 Doppelblätter und einige Einzelblätter, während die äußeren 6 Doppelblätter zusammengeklebt den Buchdeckel ergaben.”

It’s good to have Ibscher’s view of this matter fully clarified.

Bibliography:

Ibscher, Hugo. “Die Handschrift.” Pages v–xiv in Hans Jakob Polotsky and Alexander Böhlig, Manichäische Handschriften der Staatlichen Museen Berlin: Kephalaia, 1. Hälfte (Lieferung 1–10). Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1940.

Ibscher, Hugo. “Der Kodex.” Jahrbuch der Einbandkunst 4 (1937) 3-15.

Nongbri, Brent. “The Construction and Contents of the Beatty-Michigan Pauline Epistles Codex (P46).” Novum Testamentum 64 (2022) 388-407.

Posted in Berlin Coptic Proverbs Codex, Book binding, Book covers, Chester Beatty Papyri, Chester Beatty Pauline Epistles, Codices, Codicology, Crosby-Schøyen Codex, Schøyen Collection | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Moss, God’s Ghostwriters

Posted on April 28, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

Over the last few years, Candida Moss has published several very interesting articles on different aspects of slavery and early Christianity, such as:

After reading these articles, I recognized that I was not going to be able to approach early Christian literature (or indeed, ancient Roman literature more generally) in quite the same way again. Gaining a greater appreciation of the the ubiquity of enslaved labor in the Roman world, and especially the role of shorthand specialists in the production of writing, casts all of early Christian literature in a different light.

Now Moss has synthesized her findings and produced what is probably the most important book in New Testament studies written in the last half century. God’s Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible manages to touch upon and reframe nearly every “classic” question of critical New Testament scholarship–issues of authorship and pseudepigraphy, sources and editing, transmission and textual variation, reading and reception, and even theology. And it’s written in a way that will be readable to those outside specialist circles (for scholars, a companion website provides amplified footnotes and a set of additional resources, and the articles mentioned above offer further documentation and nuance).

The topic of slavery in the New Testament is of course not new. There are many studies about what early Christian writers had to say on the topic of slavery and also about the metaphorical use of the language of slavery and freedom in early Christian writings. But in the last twenty years or so, scholarship has begun to focus more on actual enslaved people in the Roman world, including early Christians. Moss is meticulous in noting her debts to the work of predecessors and contemporary colleagues working on ancient slavery. Yet, she has pushed this conversation in interesting new directions by focusing especially on the role of literate enslaved laborers in the production, transmission, and consumption of literature in the Roman world.

Sarcophagus of Valerius Petronianus, side relief showing an elite figure reclining while an assistant holds writing tablets, Museo archeologico di Milano; image source: Wikimedia Commons

Part of what makes the book intriguing is the complication of the idea of authorship. When we talk about things like “Paul’s letters,” we’re actually talking about the letters of Paul and his co-authors. Several of the letters are clear about this in their opening lines: Paul and Sosthenes (1 Corinthians); Paul and Timothy (2 Corinthians, Philippians, and Philemon); Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy (1 Thessalonians). But Moss pushes further to highlight the different kinds of labor that went into composing writing in the Roman world. There are places in our sources where such labor flashes into view and then disappears just as quickly, such as Romans 16:22: “I, Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord.” We only see Tertius for a moment, but he has been there the whole time, “writing” the entire letter to the Romans. And acknowledging this fact feels different after reading Moss’s discussion of shorthand notation, a complicated set of signs memorized by literate workers, who were often enslaved, in order to quickly take dictation. The notary who took the dictation would later expand the shorthand copy to produce a copy in normal writing. It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that, much as we might like to imagine these letters as a direct conduit to “Paul’s beliefs,” what we are seeing here is more probably a situation of co-authorship. And it’s likely that Paul’s other letters, and most literary works in Roman antiquity, were written in a similar way. The praise of the shorthand writer attributed to the professor, poet, and statesman Ausonius evokes a partnership (albeit an unequal one): “No teaching ever gave you this gift, nor was ever any hand so quick at swift stenography: Nature endowed you so, and God gave you this gift to know beforehand what I would speak, and to intend the same that I intend” (Ephemeris 7).

Wax tablet with a student’s practice in shorthand symbols; British Library Add. MS 33270; image source: H.J.M. Milne, Greek Shorthand Manuals (Egypt Exploration Society, 1934)

Was Tertius enslaved? Moss demonstrates that people who performed secretarial work in Roman antiquity often were. And names like “Tertius” (literally, “the third one”) were common for slaves. But more elite Romans also had such “numerical” names. At the end of the day, we don’t know the status of Tertius with certainty; we simply don’t have enough data. Indeed, one of the themes that runs through the book is the problem of invisibility. Had Tertius not decided to add his ten words of greeting, we wouldn’t know he had ever existed. A similar situation applies with almost all literate enslaved labor in the ancient Roman world. We have to work with a small corpus of surviving evidence, because when these kinds of workers did their jobs well, they became invisible. Moss highlights the irony: “They performed their work so perfectly that they wrote themselves into nonexistence.”

P.Oxy. 44.3197, a contract for dividing up the slaves of the estate of Tiberius Julius Theon. Among the slaves are Heron the γραμματεύς (scribe), Ammonas the νοτάριος (shorthand writer), and Demas the προχειροφόρος (amanuensis); image source: University of Oxford Sustainable Digital Scholarship

One tactic Moss uses to address this problem of invisibility is to present historical reconstructions that are avowedly imaginative. This decision will no doubt invite some criticism. Yet, by explicitly and repeatedly highlighting the imaginative elements in her own account, Moss invites fellow historians to consider the imaginative work that lies behind many of our own easy assumptions about Roman literary culture.

The question really is: What should our “default” assumptions about the composition of early Christian literature be? Having read Moss’s work, I don’t think it’s historically responsible to picture Paul or the writers behind the gospels as lone theological geniuses. The realities of ancient practices of composition, at least to the extent that we can reconstruct and imagine them on the basis of limited and fragmentary sources, suggest that a rethinking of ancient authorship is going to be necessary.

And it’s not just the composition of early Christian literature that involved this often invisible labor. The copying of texts, the movement of books from place to place, and the reading of books all frequently involved enslaved or formerly enslaved workers. If Paul and co-authors wrote letters together, those who delivered letters also had a role in creating and conveying the meaning of the text. Cicero comments in a letter to a friend, “Your freedman Cilix was not well known to me before, but ever since he delivered me your letter, so full as it was of affection and kindness, he has himself by his own words followed up in a wonderful way the courtesy with which you wrote. It was a delight to me to hear him holding forth…” (Ad. fam. 3.1). Moss’s chapters detail the ways in which reading the ancient evidence with enslaved laborers in view can inform and transform the way we understand these aspects of early Christianity.

Clever and insightful observations abound. Throughout the book, Moss places various early Christian texts in dialogue with literature that depicts different aspects of ancient enslaved life. To take just one of many examples, Moss pairs Paul’s language–or perhaps better, the language of Paul, Sosthenes, and the others involved in the writing of 1 Corinthians–about the body (“Christ is the head of every man…You all are the body of Christ, and individually its limbs”) with the fascinating but neglected treatise on household management by Bryson, who theorized slavery for elite Romans: “Slaves resemble the limbs of the body…”

Excerpts from Bryson, Oikonomikos logos, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Grec 1984, fol 165 verso; image source: Gallica

The comparison prompts reflections on how early followers of Jesus may have understood their relationship with the man they called their κύριος, dominus, master. It adds a dimension to the self-designation of some followers of Jesus as δοῦλοι Χριστοῦ, “slaves of Christ” (Romans 1:1, Philippians 1:1, Titus 1:1, James 1:1, 2 Peter 1:1, Jude 1). And for all the ink spilled on the meaning of πίστις/fides in early Christian writings, Moss’s emphasis on Roman elites’ use of the term to describe the proper attitude of the enslaved to the enslaver (“loyalty”) is striking and suggestive.

Overall, this book has an effect that is similar to that of E.P. Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977). Even if you don’t agree with every interpretive move the author makes, the collective force of the book’s examples leaves you with what can only be described as a new perspective. In other words, if the field takes God’s Ghostwriters seriously (and it should), then there is no going back. And the way forward will involve greater effort to pay attention to the enslaved people who played important parts in producing, promulgating, and preserving the writing of the Roman world.

Metal tag, likely from the collar of an enslaved person; the inscription reads: tene me ne fugia(m) et revoca me ad dom(i)num Viventium in ar(e)a Callisti
Inscription translation: Capture me, lest I escape, and return me to my master Viventius on the estate of Callistus; image source: The British Museum, 1975,0902.6
Posted in Book Trade in Antiquity | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

The Upcoming Sale of the Crosby-Schøyen Codex (Just How Old is this Book?)

Posted on April 4, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

It has been an unusually busy news week for Coptic codices. I posted a few days ago about the Mudil Psalms codex, and then yesterday several news outlets reported that Christie’s will be auctioning off the Crosby-Schøyen codex, a papyrus codex containing an eclectic mix of early Christian texts in Coptic (Melito’s On Passover, 2 Macc. 5:27–7:41, 1 Peter, Jonah, and a liturgical exhortation).

Eugenio Donadoni displaying the Crosby-Schøyen Codex for Christie’s; image source: France24

The codex is currently part of the collection of Martin Schøyen, a Norwegian collector who holds a number of early papyrus and parchment manuscripts. There is a brief posting at Christie’s website with highlights of what will be on sale in June. It’s not clear which, if any, of Schøyen’s other papyrological holdings might be up for sale.

A nearly complete bifolium of the Crosby-Schøyen codex; image source: CNN

As some of the various news articles note, the Crosby-Schøyen codex first came to the notice of scholars in the 1950s when it was bought by the University of Mississippi. I noted some months ago that a recent article by Dan Sharp makes a deep dive into the history of this purchase and other related transactions.

In the news reports, the date of the codex is given as “around 250-350 AD.” This is a reasonable date range, but it’s not quite the whole story (see below). This is one of the few papyrus codices that has actually been subject to radiocarbon analysis, the results of which were published in 2020 by Hugo Lundhaug (available here open access).

One sentence that appears in some of the news reports is baffling:

“A single scribe is said to have written the codex, which is made up of 52 leaves – or 104 pages – over a period of 40 years at a monastery in upper Egypt.”

There’s a lot to unpack here.

  • “A single scribe is said to have written the codex”: Yes, it is generally thought that one copyist executed the whole codex.
  • “made up of 52 leaves – or 104 pages.” That may be the number of leaves in the Schøyen portion of the codex, but to the best of my knowledge, the most reliable analyses suggest that the original book when whole had 68 folia and two stubs, so 136 pages with two uninscribed partial leaves. Some of these folia are lost, but there are fragmentary remains of some folia in other collections (the Chester Beatty collection in Dublin and the Fondation Martin Bodmer in Cologny).
  • “over a period of 40 years”: I have no idea what this claim even means. Writing an ancient script is a difficult skill to master, but it doesn’t take 40 years to copy a codex.
  • “at a monastery in upper Egypt.” Yes, this is a widely accepted theory for the production of this codex. But if this theory is true, that fact would really narrow down the range of possible dates for the production of the codex. The specific theory is that this book was produced in one of the Pachomian monasteries in Egypt, and these monasteries were only formed in the second quarter of the fourth century. This would mean that the date of the codex would actually be more like 330-350. That is to say, the radiocarbon analysis gives us a rough terminus ante quem (latest possible date of production), and the monastic production theory gives us a terminus post quem (earliest possible date of production).

So, if this is accurate, then the sales claims about this codex containing “the two earliest complete texts of two books of the Bible, 1 Peter and Jonah” may not be strictly correct. P.Bodmer 8 also has a reasonable claim to being the earliest complete copy of 1 Peter. We can’t say for sure, as we just don’t know the dates of these manuscripts with high degrees of precision.

What we can say with confidence is that this is an early and well preserved specimen of the codex format. When the codex first arrived in Mississippi, it was still in a relatively intact state:

The Crosby-Schøyen codex before it was taken apart, view of the quire showing the broken remains of the outer folia surviving at the spine; image source: William H. Willis, “The New Collections of Papyri at the University of Mississippi,” in Leiv Amundsen and Vegard Skånland (eds.), Proceedings of the IX International Congress of Papyrology (Oslo: Norwegian Universities Press, 1961), 381-392, plate V.

It is a single-quire codex (a single large stack of papyrus sheets that was folded and tacketed through the central fold). The outer folia had broken away by the time the codex arrived in Mississippi. But the papyrus seems to have been pliable enough to handle the codex just as one would handle a modern book:

The Crosby-Schøyen codex before it was taken apart, opened to the end of 2 Macc. 5:27-7:41, page numbered ⲝⲋ (= 66) and the beginning of 1 Peter, page numbered with a new sequence beginning with ⲁ (= 1); image source: William H. Willis, “The New Collections of Papyri at the University of Mississippi,” in Leiv Amundsen and Vegard Skånland (eds.), Proceedings of the IX International Congress of Papyrology (Oslo: Norwegian Universities Press, 1961), 381-392, plate V.

The codex was disassembled, and the individual folia were mounted between glass plates, which is how they are now seen in Christie’s sales video.

The Corsby-Schøyen codex is a very interesting artifact in terms of the history of the book, for what it can tell us about early book construction and codicology (one example is its curious scheme of pagination).

It is also interesting from a legal and ethical point of view. Because it was removed from Egypt before 1970, it sits on the “happy” side of the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. Yet, it is one of many ancient manuscripts that exited Egypt before 1970 but after the passage of Egypt’s Law no. 215 of 1951. Sharp’s research demonstrates that the codex probably left Egypt in 1954 or 1955, was moved to Switzerland, and then brought to the US in the summer of 1955. Law no. 215 stipulated that certain antiquities could leave Egypt but only with explicit written government approval. I believe the Egyptian dealer who sold this codex, Maguid Sameda, held an official antiquities license issued by the government, so, in theory at least, some paperwork should exist that documents that the legal export of the codex from Egypt (although I have never seen it).

Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Antiquities Market, Codices, Codicology, Crosby-Schøyen Codex, Maguid Sameda, Radiocarbon analysis, Schøyen Collection | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Mudil Psalter

Posted on March 31, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

News services in Egypt have announced that the Mudil Psalter is back on display after undergoing conservation treatment. This was a very well preserved Coptic codex that was excavated in 1984.

The Mudil Psalter after conservation (2024); image source: Egypt State Information Service

It was found buried together with the body of a young girl, but, frustratingly, we don’t know the exact relationship between the book and the body. Here is what I wrote about the codex in God’s Library (2018) in the context of discussing stories about bodies buried with books in late antique Egypt:

“A more recent discovery is less open to doubt but still frustratingly vague. In 1984, during excavations in a cemetery about forty-five kilometers north of Oxyrhynchus, a small but thick parchment codex of the Psalms in Coptic was reportedly discovered. The so-called Mudil Psalter (LDAB 107731) was likely copied in the fourth or fifth century. It is said to have been found either ‘under the head of a young girl’ or simply ‘near the head of a young girl’ in a tomb, or, most elaborately, ‘placed open as a pillow beneath the head of an adolescent girl in a humble cemetery.’1 The codex was found during work supervised by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, but no analysis was undertaken on the human remains or other material in the tomb. Nor is there any photograph or drawing of this discovery showing either the corpse or the book in situ before removal. Thus we are left to wonder what was the exact relationship between the book and the corpse and what the date of the burial might have been.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is the most elaborate description of the find that has stuck, and this codex is sometimes thus called “the Pillow Psalter,” even though we don’t actually know how the codex was positioned in relation to the body. In any event, although the photo is a bit blurry, it looks like the book has undergone extensive treatment. Earlier images of the codex show the folia in a very cockled state:

The Mudil Codex in 1993; image source: G. Gabra, Cairo: The Coptic Museum and Old Churches (Cairo: Egypt International, 1993), p. 111

It would be interesting to learn exactly what conservation procedures the codex has undergone.

The binding of the Mudil Psalter was the subject of an in-depth study published in 2020 by Julia Miller:

Julia Miller, “Modeling Ambiguity: The al-Mudil Codex (David Psalter),” in Julia Miller (ed.), Suave Mechanicals: Essays on the History of Bookbinding, vol. 6 (Ann Arbor: The Legacy Press, 2020), 305-362.

Miller’s study is full of excellent images of the codex and also Miller’s incredible models:

It’s nice to see the codex in the news and good to know that it is back on display at the Coptic Museum in Cairo.


  1. For the first description, see Gawdat Gabra, “Zur Bedeutung des koptischen Psalmenbuches im oxyrhynchitischen Dialekt,” Göttinger Miszellen 93 (1986): 37–42, at 37. For the second, see Gawdat Gabra, Der Psalter im oxyrhynchitischen (mesokemischen/mittelägyptischen) Dialekt (Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag, 1995), 23. For the third, see Michelle P. Brown (ed.), In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000 (Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 2006), 74. Brown’s source for this more elaborate description is unclear. She cites Gawdat Gabra, Cairo: The Coptic Museum and Old Churches (Cairo: Egypt International, 1993), but Gabra here describes the book again only as having been found “in a shallow grave under a young girl’s head” (110). ↩︎
Posted in Archaeological context, Book binding, Mudil Psalter | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Hobby Lobby v. Dirk Obbink Ruling

Posted on March 27, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

In 2023, the civil case of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Dirk D. Obbink switched venues from New York to Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma court has now found a default judgement in favor of Hobby Lobby, with the result that Professor Obbink is now obligated to pay Hobby Lobby “$7,085,100.00, together with prejudgment interest from February 5, 2013, at the rate of 6% per annum, as specified in 15 Okla. Stat. § 266, postjudgment interest at the rate provided in 28 U.S.C § 1961 until the judgment is satisfied, and attorney’s fees and costs.”

Dirk Obbink presenting for the Passages Speakers Series in Oklahoma City in 2011

The complaint alleges that Professor Obbink sold Hobby Lobby 32 papyri that turned out to have been stolen from the collection of the Egypt Exploration Society. The original complaint contains a list of seven purchases Hobby Lobby made from Professor Obbink between 2010 and 2013, outlined by Lynda Albertson in a post yesterday (which also has a nice summary of the whole affair).

There are a couple interesting statements in the complaint document, which is often identical with the original New York filing. This statement was in the original filing, but I breezed right by it:

“Obbink, one of the world’s leading scholars of ancient papyri, also acted throughout his career as a private dealer of papyri fragments and other antiquities to the world’s greatest museums and private collectors.”

Is this actually accurate? I wonder if Hobby Lobby has evidence to back up the statement about sales to other museums. Did Professor Obbink in fact sell to others outside the community of wealthy Christian collectors in the US? If so, might there be more missing EES pieces in other collections?

I think it’s also worth emphasizing a statement that I highlighted before when the New York complaint was filed:

“The fact that some unknown number of the Fragments were stolen renders all the Fragments unsalable and worthless to Hobby Lobby, which stands to lose both the Fragments and the entire value of the Purchase Price it paid to Obbink.”

If Professor Obbink has acted as Hobby Lobby alleges, he should of course be held accountable. But it’s worthwhile to reflect on how “worthless” the stolen fragments actually were to Hobby Lobby. One of the aspects of the Hobby Lobby and Museum of the Bible relationship that was amply documented by Candida Moss and Joel Baden was that Hobby Lobby would buy manuscripts and other artifacts, have them appraised at higher values than they paid, donate them to the Museum of the Bible, and then take a tax write-off for the higher amount. As Baden and Moss write (Bible Nation, p. 25):

“The financial incentive to donate items, and reap the substantial tax write-off, is commonplace among serious art and antiquities collectors; this is how many museums have traditionally acquired much of their holdings. Part of what sets the Greens apart from other collectors, however, is that when they donate pieces from their collection, they give them to their own nonprofit organization. When, in 2015, we asked Steve Green how the family decides what artifacts to donate to the Museum of the Bible, he candidly responded that the decision was financial: “I don’t know that there’s a lot of rhyme and reason to it. . . . We want to donate X amount and we can do it with this, and that’s easy so we’ll do it.” Once donated to the Museum, however, the items never truly leave the Greens’ control. The charitable organization known as Museum of the Bible, Inc. (MOTB) is also based at Hobby Lobby, Inc., in Oklahoma City. Once the bricks-and-mortar museum opens in D.C. the artifacts will be transferred there, but the museum, as we will see later in this book, effectively remains under Green control.”

Items bought from Professor Obbink do seem to have been among those that Hobby Lobby donated to the Museum of the Bible, as the Museum records for some of the Distribution Papyri indicate. This is the provenance information associated with P.Oxy. 1353:

Provenance details for P.Oxy. 1353; Museum of the Bible

Now, the model that Moss and Baden describe, and which Scott Carroll used in his own business, Ancient Asset Investment, refers to a minimum 3-to-1 return for people who buy antiquities and then donate them to non-profit organizations. One of the videos in which Carroll promoted this plan in 2014 is very explicit on this point. The host of the event, Marshall Foster, says “So a person who wants a tax write-off that’s major, I mean, so that you don’t pay taxes for the next year and a half, two years, uh you buy one of these treasures, and it’s, it’s a legal, uh, way to do it.”

The Hobby Lobby v. Obbink complaint notes that aside from the seventh purchase from Professor Obbink (which involved the four gospel fragments), the other six purchases were all delivered: “Obbink sent the Fragments at issue in the Action from the United Kingdom to Hobby Lobby in Oklahoma City, where Hobby Lobby is headquartered.” So, if Hobby Lobby did appraise these items, donate them to the Museum of the Bible, and take the tax deduction, it would seem that Hobby Lobby may have managed to extract considerable value out of these “worthless” papyrus and parchment fragments after all.

Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Antiquities Market, Dirk Obbink, Green Collection, Oxyrhynchus Papyri | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Another Question About Those Possible Stands for Holding Open Papyrus Rolls

Posted on March 3, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

In a post back in 2021, I highlighted some interesting artifacts discussed in a 2001 article by Susan Wood. It’s a fascinating piece that focuses on two decorated ivory plaques with curious sets of holes found at Pompeii. The image below from her article reproduces the front and back of one of these plaques:

Ivory plaque from Pompeii, Naples Archaeological Museum 109905 A; image source: Susan Wood, “Literacy and Luxury in the Early Empire: A Papyrus-Roll Winder from Pompeii,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 46 (2001), p. 24, figures 1 and 2

Wood makes a plausible case that these pieces were parts of a device for holding open papyrus rolls. She pointed to plaques of similar shapes and sizes in Cambridge and Nîmes, which are preserved together with sets of rods that fit through the various holes in the plaques:

Ivory plaques and rods (papyrus roll holder?) at the Fitzwilliam Museum; image source: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Ivory plaque and rods (papyrus roll holder?) from Nîmes, Musée de la Romanité; image source: Moose and Hobbes

I recently had a chance to see the Pompeiian examples in person. Only one of them was in Naples, tucked away in a nondescript case in a corner. The other one, however, was part of a traveling exhibition at the Capitoline Museums in Rome. This one was in a case that you could actually walk beside and around, and it was interesting to see just how curved these plaques are. This is something that Wood noted in her article, describing the pieces as having convex and concave surfaces. I think that, when I saw the images above, I failed to register just how pronounced this curvature is. It’s a a bit difficult to see when viewing these objects from the front:

Ivory plaque from Pompeii, Naples Archaeological Museum 109905 A; image source: Brent Nongbri 2023

But looking at them from the side gives a better impression of the way that they curve.

Ivory plaque from Pompeii, Naples Archaeological Museum 109905 A; image source: Brent Nongbri 2023

I’m not sure how this curving surface would affect the way that these objects might function as the ends of devices that would have held papyrus rolls. One of the arguments Wood makes in favor of this interpretation is the idea that the ends of the papyrus rolls would rub against the plaques: “The more abraded concave surfaces must have been the inner sides of the plaques, which came in contact with the edges of papyri” (p. 32). But, if the plaques were curved, would the edges of papyrus rolls actually have much contact with the plaques? I note that the replica model pictured in Wood’s article seems to have been made with flat plaques like the Fitzwilliam example, and at least in the image provided, the mock-up roll only seems to be touching one of the two plaques:

Image source: Susan Wood, “Literacy and Luxury in the Early Empire: A Papyrus-Roll Winder from Pompeii,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 46 (2001), p. 27, figure 8

If these plaques were curved, the roll would seemingly just touch the outer edges of the plaque. I wonder whether such a scenario would be consistent with the abrasion patterns that Wood mentions on the inner surfaces of the plaques? I didn’t get a sufficiently good look at the insides of the plaques to tell. I would be interested to see a replica of one of these devices in action.

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A Figurine of Venus Found in an Ancient Synagogue

Posted on March 1, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

The ancient synagogue in Rome’s port city of Ostia was uncovered by accident in the early 1960s during the construction of a highway between Rome and the newly built international airport in Fiumicino. The discovery of a Roman-era synagogue was big news, and the excavation and restoration of the building was carried out between 1961 and 1963. Several popular publications about the building appeared over the next few years, but no proper excavation report was ever produced, and very few of the artifacts discovered at the synagogue were ever published.

The ancient synagogue at Ostia (image source: Parco archeologico di Ostia antica)

Beginning in 2001, a project based at the University of Texas at Austin began re-examining the 1960s work and conducting new archival investigations and archaeological excavations at the site. One aspect of the project has been an attempt to coordinate the artifacts excavated in the 1960s with the more recent stratigraphic excavation undertaken by the Texas team. The results of this work are sometimes pretty amazing, and they are starting to be published.

Some of the artifacts excavated from the synagogue in the 1960s were briefly discussed in the early publications and so have been in some sense “known about” for a long time, even if they were wrongly dated. For example, a few of the 1960s articles about the synagogue showed a series of terracotta lamps decorated with menorahs and torah shrines.

Oil lamps found at the synagogue at Ostia; image source: Brent Nongbri 2010

These have now been systematically studied and published by Letizia Ceccarelli (see her chapter here).

Other material found at the site of the synagogue has been almost entirely unknown to the wider public, and some of it is incredibly interesting. Among the objects excavated from one of the earliest phases of the building are two of terracotta figurines. One depicts a lar (a Roman household god) and the other is the Roman goddess Venus:

Figurine of Venus from the synagogue at Ostia; image source: Mary Jane Cuyler, “Veiled Venus and Camillus of the Harvest: Two Terracotta Figurines Discovered in the Synagogue Complex at Ostia,” in La sinagoga di Ostia antica: 60 anni dalla scoperta 20 anni di Arte in Memoria (Parco archeologico di Ostia antica, 2023), p. 94, figure 2 (photo by L.M. White)

They are preserved in relatively good shape, and excavation records indicate that they were discovered in the same spot. They seem to have been deposited together in antiquity. What were these Roman gods doing in a Jewish synagogue? Mary Jane Cuyler has published the figurines and her chapter is available open access.

Other finds from the 1960s excavation of synagogue include a coin hoard found under a mosaic that was published by Daniela Williams in 2014 (see the open access article here). More material from the Ostia synagogue should be published in the near future.

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The Forma Urbis: A New Museum in Rome

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

A disclaimer: I’m fan of maps in general and of the Severan marble map of Rome in particular (I’ve mentioned it before on the blog). So it may be no surprise that I am very enthusiastic about the new museum dedicated to the map that has opened on the edge of the Caelian hill in Rome.

Only a relatively small percentage of the original map survives in the form of fragmentary marble blocks, but what we do have provides valuable data about the topography of the ancient city at the time the map was made (between 203 and 211 CE). The map was originally displayed on a wall in the Temple of Peace near the forum. The organizers of the museum, however, have wisely chosen to place the fragments on the floor under glass embedded in an eighteenth-century map that fills in the missing areas. The curators have also superimposed the outlines of some ancient buildings on the eighteenth-century map in order to help with orientation.

The Museo della Forma Urbis

Provided that the glass on the floor doesn’t get too dirty and scratched, this seems like an ideal solution. Right now, it looks great, and it even photographs reasonably well:

Remaining bits of the Severan marble map showing the Temple of Minerva (left) and the Temple of Peace (right); the darker black line directly beneath the join of the two fragments on the right represents the wall to which the marble map was originally affixed

The museum is not large, but it is very well done. The main room houses the surviving fragments whose placements are known. Pieces whose placements are uncertain are mounted on the wall and used to help explain some of the symbols that one finds on the map:

A key to some of the symbols found on the marble map

There are also small side displays about how the marble slabs were attatched to the wall and about problems with the orientations of some structures on the map. It’s a fantastic display in a small space. The museum is set within the Parco archeologico del Celio just to the south of the Colosseum. Outside the museum is a garden full of interesting inscriptions and architectural fragments. I very much enjoyed spending a morning there.

For anyone interested in the map, also have a look at the Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project . The page is a bit dated now, but it’s still a solid set of online resources for the study of the marble map. A related useful resource for the topography of Rome is the zoomable online version of Rudolfo Lanciani’s Forma Urbis Romae. which superimposes the modern (1901) street plan of the city on the ancient remains of the city that were known at that time.

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The Potential Early Papyrus Codex at Graz

Posted on February 15, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

Back in June 2023, several news outlets picked up the story of “the Graz mummy book.” A team at the University of Graz led by Theresa Zammit Lupi had identified P.Hib. 113, a papyrus extracted from mummy cartonnage and published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1906, as a bifolium from a codex, a book with pages. This was big news because P.Hib. 113 can be dated with a reasonable degree of confidence to about the middle of the third century BCE. This is some three centuries earlier than most scholars have placed the development of papyrus and parchment codices.

P.Hib. 113 (Graz, UBG Ms 1946; image source: University of Graz)

Then in September, I noted that the team at Graz had posted a more detailed essay on the papyrus. This has now been summarized in an open-access report published in early 2024 in the Journal of Paper Conservation.

Earlier this week, a group of scholars that included specialists in papyrology, bookbinding, and conservation met in Graz to examine the papyrus. Together with the Graz team, we took a close look at several different aspects of this papyrus. It was an eye-opening experience.

Before I get to the take-aways from the meeting, here’s a quick summary for those who haven’t read the essay by the Graz team: After multispectral photography and further study, the authors maintained their overall conclusion that we have a bifolium of a codex, but they also adjusted some key details of the earlier announcement. In terms of new evidence: The multispectral imaging significantly increased the amount of legible text on the papyrus and also showed that ink transfer had taken place between the two sides of the papyrus, suggesting to the authors that the papyrus was folded closed while the ink was still wet. In terms of changes: The thread that was at first thought to be part of the binding was reinterpreted as one of four tackets that had at one point sealed the folded papyrus (see images below), and the original proposal of binding through the central fold was adjusted in light of what the authors take as evidence for a stab binding (two holes on either side of the central fold). This short description simplifies the authors’ detailed discussion of a series of holes and evidence of folds in the papyrus. In the end, the authors explain the physical evidence of the present condition of the papyrus by discussing its “lives” in 12 steps in their nicely illustrated Figure 14, which I reproduce below with their captions:

1. A blank papyrus sheet (formed of two kollemata joined by a kollesis)
2. The piece is folded to form a bifolio
3. Multiple bifolios are stacked together
4. The bifolios are stab sewn
5. The notebook is written upon
6. The binding is dismantled and the bifolios are separated
7. The bifolio is secured with tackets
8. Significant damage occurs to the bifolio
9. The bifolio is reused as mummy cartonnage alongside further papyrus waste and textile
10. The cartonnage surface is plastered
11. The cartonnage is painted
12. The bifolio is taken from the mummy and becomes a museum object.

Coming in to the meeting I was a bit skeptical of parts of the authors’ reconstruction (specifically, steps 3-7) and wanted a closer look at the many holes in the papyrus. But I have come away with a sense that we are looking at something quite interesting here, even if I’m not fully on board with the idea that we have the remains of a codex. Because I had never seen a document folded and tacketed in exactly the way the authors describe, I was doubtful about this point, but I’m now inclined to agree that this seems like a good explanation of the physical remains, namely the fold patterns, the presence and position of the thread, and the directions of puncture shown in the various pairs of holes. The fold patterns in particular were clearly visible under raking light.

P.Hib. 113 under raking light, showing horizontal fold on the lower half of the papyrus that took place after the vertical fold

None of us who were present could point to any parallels for this sort of thing (Ptolemaic accounts produced on a bifolium that was subsequently sealed and tacketed in this manner). But then again nobody would have thought to look for evidence of such parallels before now.

Whether such a document was ever one of several bifolia joined together to form a codex was a matter of considerable debate. Essentially, that portion of the authors’ argument depends upon the interpretation of a single pair of holes in the papyrus, which the authors read as evidence of a stabbed binding that went through the folded papyrus from front to back (the corresponding pair of holes in the upper half of the papyrus would have been in a portion of the papyrus that is now lost). Are these holes evidence of a stab binding? I think more work is needed to clarify this point. But after having had a close look at the papyrus, I would say that I’m open to being persuaded.

The meeting raised many questions: What visual evidence is left by the pressure of a thread against the edge of a hole in papyrus? Can we have a “clean” typology of holes in papyrus (what if an insect has a go at the edges of a hole that was originally created by a needle?)? Under what circumstances does ink transfer occur? Could the process of making cartonnage cause it? More generally, what do we actually know about the process of making cartonnage? And what do we actually know about early twentieth-century processes of dismantling cartonnage? How, exactly, did they do it back then? And, maybe most interesting for me: How much can we really rely on analogies from the behavior of modern, commercially produced papyrus (in terms of folding, piercing, and interacting with thread, for example)?

In short, we have more thinking to do.

As I reflect on the discussions of the last couple days, I’m reminded of Grenfell and Hunt’s early encounter with the remains of a single-quire papyrus codex, which I’ve mentioned here before. Grenfell and Hunt were at first puzzled by a papyrus fragment containing just bits of the very beginning and the very end of the text of the Gospel of John, but they eventually settled on what seems to be (now, in retrospect, to us) the obviously correct conclusion: Their papyrus was the surviving fragment of an outer bifolium of a codex containing the gospel composed of a single, thick quire. But to Grenfell and Hunt, this kind of construction was a surprise:

“Such an arrangement certainly seems rather awkward, particularly as the margin between the two columns of writing in the flattened sheet is only about 2 cm. wide. This is not much to be divided between two leaves at the outside of so thick a quire. But as yet little is known about the composition of these early books.”

My takeaway from this was that “as usual, Grenfell and Hunt were willing to be surprised and recognized that many of their expectations might be overturned by the vast amount of new evidence they were uncovering in those early days.”

Examining this papyrus in Graz together with a diverse group of experts encourages me to remember not to stifle my own willingness to be surprised when a critical evaluation of the evidence warrants it. It’s important to keep an open mind when presented with a confounding piece of evidence.

Posted in Book binding, Codices, Codicology, Ink, Mummy cartonnage, P.Hib. 113 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Storing Scrolls

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

I have papyrus rolls on my mind right now, but I’m also interested in parchment rolls. I’ve been reading an excellent new book by Bruce Holsinger, On Parchment: Animals, Archives, and the Making of Culture from Herodotus to the Digital Age (Yale University Press, 2023). There are loads of interesting observations in the book and many, many striking images (from a production standpoint, YUP did a superb job on this book). One image that really resonated was a picture from the Parliamentary Archives in Westminster. Until 2017, Acts of Parliament had to be recorded on parchment scrolls. This large production of rolls has of course led to a need for large scale storage of rolls. Lots and lots of rolls. What does that look like?

The Act Room, Parliamentary Archives, Victoria Tower, Westminster; image source: Bruce Holsinger, On Parchment.

Seeing the endless shelves of rolls, each with their index tag for identification hanging out makes me wonder if this is how we ought to imagine the larger library spaces of Roman antiquity. And of course the picture also immediately brings to mind the drawing of the lost relief from Trier showing a man working with rolls on a shelf:

Image source: Christoph Brouwer and Jakob Masen, Antiquitatum et Annalium Trevirensium (Liége: Jo. Mathiæ Hovii, 1671), vol. 1, p. 105.

I have not yet finished reading Holsinger’s book, but I can definitely recommend it already for those who are interested in the materiality of manuscripts and book history.

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