The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College
The Ethics of the Egyptian Antiquities Trade and the Acquisition of Papyri Caitlin Mostoway Parker, University of Winnipeg, Class of 2020
Abstract
This paper will explore the ethical dilemma of illegally acquired papyri, as well as the illicit trade surrounding it. This includes the issue of papyri without provenance, the destruction, looting and exploitation of archaeological sites where these papyri have been found, and the historically inadequate documentation and conservation of papyri fragments. I will explore the ongoing debate that is centred around the Sappho fragments, the controversial biblical fragment known as P. Oxy 15.1780, and the suspect involvement of Dr. Dirk Obbink, the Green family, and the Museum of the Bible in the acquisition of these undocumented papyri fragments. I will conclude by discussing the role of today’s scholars in the ownership, examination, preservation, and subsequent publication of papyri.
The study of papyri occupies an immensely important role in our understanding of Egypt under Roman rule, but it does not come to us without its own set of consequences and ethical problems. Much of what we know about Roman Egyptian society, culture, administration, and religion has been discovered through the contents of papyri found within the geographical boundaries of what is now modern Egypt. The nature of papyri as evidence is itself highly incidental, as its survival is almost entirely dependent on surrounding environmental conditions and contingent upon intentional disposal or safekeeping.1 Parts of the Egyptian desert, notably the Fayyum region, have provided the dry, arid conditions necessary for preservation, and have subsequently yielded many thousands of papyri.2 Because of these papyri, we are able to peer intimately into the lives of ordinary people whose brief existences would have otherwise been lost to time without the aid of these exceptional environmental circumstances. In this paper, I will discuss the ethical dilemma of illegally acquired papyri, including the associated illicit trade networks. This includes (but is certainly not limited to) the issue of papyri without provenance; the destruction, looting and exploitation of archaeological sites where these papyri have been found; and importantly, the historically inadequate documentation and conservation of papyri fragments. Alongside this discussion, I will look at the current debate concerning the Sappho fragments, as well as the controversial biblical fragment known as P. Oxy 15.1780. I will then discuss the suspect involvement of Dr. Dirk Obbink regarding the Sappho fragments, the Green family and the Hobby Lobby Corporation as private collectors and sellers, and the Green family’s Museum of the Bible. Lastly, I will discuss the importance of involvement of today’s scholars in the ownership, examination, preservation, and subsequent publication of papyri. These issues are ongoing, and the continuous emergence of new information might one day highlight the different ways in which we as scholars can better 1 Roger Bagnall, Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East (Berkerley: University of California Press, 2011), 33. 2 Paola Davoli, “Papyri, Archaeology, and Modern History: A Contextual Study of the Beginning of Papyrology and Egyptology” The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 52 (2015), 92.
The Haley | Volume I | Issue II | July 2020
tackle them. The methods in which papyri were acquired, starting in the late nineteenth century, have unfortunately left the academic community embroiled in numerous ethical and legal battles regarding the provenance and rightful ownership of these documents. This decontextualization is the result of excavations that were undertaken throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where the predominant goal of excavators was to find and remove as many papyri fragments as they could, as quickly as possible, with little to no attention paid to the surrounding archaeological material.3 A piece of papyrus without any provenance or contextual information greatly diminishes our understanding of not only its place within the archaeological record, but of its textual contents as well.4 Additionally, many papyri were unintentionally found or destroyed by local farmers, or looted by people who intended to sell them on the black market to travellers or scholars for a quick profit.5 Oxford papyrological scholars B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt carried out excavations at Oxyrhynchus between 1896 and 1907.6 The methods they used were self-created and selective, and consequently, their excavations became “less about archaeology than the hunt for papyri.”7 The separation of papyri from their original physical contexts, as well as their disassociation from other similar fragments and pieces of evidence, has helped create a considerable disconnect between the fields of archaeology and papyrology.8 Over time, the study of Roman Egypt has separated itself into a number of highly specialized fields — including archaeology and papyrology — which for a considerable length of time operated autonomously. The systematic removal of papyri alone has destroyed countless archaeological sites that can no longer be 3 Ibid., 105. 4 Ibid., 88. 5 Ibid., 91. 6 Naphtali Lewis, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 3. 7 Traianos Gagos, et al., «Material Culture and Texts of Graeco-Roman Egypt: Creating Context, Debating Meaning” The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 42 (2005), 177. 8 Ibid., 173.
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