research update
Discovering Ancient Near Eastern Texts in Japan Kerry Hull and Lincoln H. Blumell KERRY HULL (kerry_hull@byu.edu) AND LINCOLN H. BLUMELL (lincoln_blumell@byu.edu) ARE PROFESSORS OF ANCIENT SCRIPTURE AT BYU.
W
hile teaching in Japan over the space of about
eleven years, I (Kerry) often visited museums
a list of all known museums in Japan, principally art and archaeological museums but also others that one would
throughout the country. I saw many remarkable objects
never expect to have such items, and to contact each of
from the ancient Near East and often wondered if they
them by email or phone to inquire about their collections.
had received proper scholarly attention. After I came
For our first project in April 2018, we spent about seven
to Brigham Young University, Dr. Lincoln Blumell (a
months searching out new museums, contacting them,
Greek and Coptic specialist) and I began discussing this
arranging permissions for visits with curators, and viewing
topic and whether it might be productive to study which
their artifacts. We eventually worked out a two-week
ancient Near Eastern texts had made their way to Japanese
research plan that would have us visiting two to three
museums or private collections. That was the genesis of
locations most days. We highlight in this article just a few
our research in Japan—a project that contained more twists
of the most exciting moments during the trip.
and turns of fate, and moments of serendipity and disap-
Our first visit was to a small, private museum in Chiba
pointment, than we could have imagined. The result was a
Prefecture that had two Egyptian mummy cloths bearing
trove of previously unknown texts.
an identical Greek text that we were particularly excited
The principal goal of this effort was to find unpub-
to see (figs. 1a–b). The text was easy to decipher, except for
lished texts in ancient languages that we had abilities to
a few peculiarities—the very thing that makes epigraphic
translate (Greek, Coptic, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Aramaic,
research such an adventure. After a careful analysis,
Latin, Mayan hieroglyphs, and a few others). The immedi-
however, we came to the decision that both were most
ate challenge was to find out which museums had objects
likely clever forgeries. But the story certainly did not end
from the ancient Near East on display or in storage.
there. After returning to BYU, we were later able to find the
Therefore, in 2017, we began the arduous process of trying
exact same text on an unpublished Egyptian piece of cloth
to locate archaeological relics with textual data in Japan.
(likely from the Fayum) housed in the Schøyen Collection,
This consisted of various approaches. First, we contacted
which was authentic and had at some point served as the
several dozen Japanese scholars we knew and asked if they
source for the two forgeries sold to that museum in Japan.
had any information on texts in the languages in which we
We were able to reconstruct some of the backstory of that
had interest. This provided some leads. The second, and
process and presented our findings at a papyrological
without a doubt the most time-consuming, was to compile
conference in Italy. We eventually published an article on
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