> While reserving respect for Holmes’s reforming efforts, Mazza did not pull her punches. The Greens have “poured millions on the legal and illegal antiquities market without having a clue about the history, the material features, cultural value, fragilities and problems of the objects,” she said. This irresponsible collecting “is a crime against culture and knowledge of immense proportions – as the facts unfolding under our eyes do prove.”
That’s an interesting charge. The article repeatedly points out that the Bible Museum didn’t know anything was stolen, and cooperated to return things when they found out. But its the Oxford classics department that is keeping these artifacts hidden, inaccessible to the public or even other researchers for the last century. It was an Oxford professor that tried to sell them illegally, but that was made possible by the secrecy of and opaqueness of Oxford’s stewardship of the collection. Who exactly is the villain?
> The article repeatedly points out that the Bible Museum didn’t know anything was stolen, and cooperated to return things when they found out
What the article repeatedly points out are circumstantial reasons for thinking the Bible Museum very much knew that they were not engaged in legitimate trade. 99.6% of the papyri the museum owns lack provenance and are still inaccessible to researchers and the public, even digitally. Artifacts were declared as "tile samples" when shipped to the US. The museum only returned pieces after years of controversy whose resolution came about without their cooperation (proof that the papyri were stolen was assembled without cooperation from the Greens).
In case anyone else is interested, I found that the org that handles the the papyri has a really cool write-up about how they handle the digitization process.
According to the article: . Over the past century, just over 5,000 of the half-million Oxyrhynchus papyri have been published.
So between the large data set and scanning process, I'm hopeful that all of these (and other) ancient manuscripts will be shared publicly. I love imagining all the potential studies we can do with proper machine learning once we have the data set.
> At present, just over 20 papyri are displayed on the museum’s website, out of 5,000. I asked Holmes whether one can therefore conclude that the Greens own around 4,980 papyri that lack reliable provenance. “In general, yes,” said Holmes.
I think the Greens get off way too easy in this article.
"In 2017, for example, a consignment of ancient Iraqi cuneiform tablets they had purchased was found to have been smuggled into the US as 'tile samples'."
To be more precise: The Green family bought over 5,000 ancient artifacts (mainly cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals from Iraq) -- at one point, wiring money to seven separate bank accounts to do so -- at a cost of $1.6 million. And they did this despite having been warned by their own legal counsel that the transaction was probably illegal.
They subsequently paid a $3 million fine.
They continue to insist that all of this was "inexperience" on their part. I think it was simple greed, combined with their certainty that any part of the cultural heritage of the world that pertains to Christianity properly belongs in the hands of American evangelicals.
I appreciate Holmes's candor, but let there be no mistake. He was hired to cover their asses.
> which would make it the oldest surviving manuscript of the New Testament, copied less than 30 years after Mark had actually written it.
I thought it was well understood that 'Mark' didn't write this, at least not the Mark the book is named after, and that we're not really sure who did write that first story, or indeed precisely when or where.
Nowhere in the Gospel of Mark is there a claim of authorship. The book is commonly attributed to John Mark, an associate of Peter, but this is just an (admittedly very early) church tradition.
That being said, it had to have been written by someone, and shorthand that person is often referred to as “Mark”.
Fascinating stuff. Brings to mind the fact that much of earlier antiquity artifacts were plain looted into museums, etc. Mummies were made into artists' paint, for instance.
[+] [-] rayiner|6 years ago|reply
That’s an interesting charge. The article repeatedly points out that the Bible Museum didn’t know anything was stolen, and cooperated to return things when they found out. But its the Oxford classics department that is keeping these artifacts hidden, inaccessible to the public or even other researchers for the last century. It was an Oxford professor that tried to sell them illegally, but that was made possible by the secrecy of and opaqueness of Oxford’s stewardship of the collection. Who exactly is the villain?
[+] [-] pulisse|6 years ago|reply
What the article repeatedly points out are circumstantial reasons for thinking the Bible Museum very much knew that they were not engaged in legitimate trade. 99.6% of the papyri the museum owns lack provenance and are still inaccessible to researchers and the public, even digitally. Artifacts were declared as "tile samples" when shipped to the US. The museum only returned pieces after years of controversy whose resolution came about without their cooperation (proof that the papyri were stolen was assembled without cooperation from the Greens).
[+] [-] Doctor_Fegg|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudosteph|6 years ago|reply
http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/imaging/imaging.html
According to the article: . Over the past century, just over 5,000 of the half-million Oxyrhynchus papyri have been published.
So between the large data set and scanning process, I'm hopeful that all of these (and other) ancient manuscripts will be shared publicly. I love imagining all the potential studies we can do with proper machine learning once we have the data set.
[+] [-] fernly|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pulisse|6 years ago|reply
> At present, just over 20 papyri are displayed on the museum’s website, out of 5,000. I asked Holmes whether one can therefore conclude that the Greens own around 4,980 papyri that lack reliable provenance. “In general, yes,” said Holmes.
[+] [-] sramsay|6 years ago|reply
"In 2017, for example, a consignment of ancient Iraqi cuneiform tablets they had purchased was found to have been smuggled into the US as 'tile samples'."
To be more precise: The Green family bought over 5,000 ancient artifacts (mainly cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals from Iraq) -- at one point, wiring money to seven separate bank accounts to do so -- at a cost of $1.6 million. And they did this despite having been warned by their own legal counsel that the transaction was probably illegal.
They subsequently paid a $3 million fine.
They continue to insist that all of this was "inexperience" on their part. I think it was simple greed, combined with their certainty that any part of the cultural heritage of the world that pertains to Christianity properly belongs in the hands of American evangelicals.
I appreciate Holmes's candor, but let there be no mistake. He was hired to cover their asses.
[+] [-] Jedd|6 years ago|reply
I thought it was well understood that 'Mark' didn't write this, at least not the Mark the book is named after, and that we're not really sure who did write that first story, or indeed precisely when or where.
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GlenTheMachine|6 years ago|reply
That being said, it had to have been written by someone, and shorthand that person is often referred to as “Mark”.
[+] [-] jimhefferon|6 years ago|reply
No Oxford comma?
[+] [-] htfu|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pnathan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danharaj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ngcc_hk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Merrill|6 years ago|reply