Request to those who Purchased Papyri on eBay,
Sold by the "Writing and the Mind of Man" Store (mjgreyfarr)
from Robert A. Kraft, University of Pennsylvania (15 June
2007)
Now that the largescale sale of
papyri on eBay seems to be over, I'm preparing a report to be given at
the International Congress of Papyrology's forthcoming meeting in Ann
Arbor MI in August [see web address below]. I've made several purchases
myself, monitored the
sales, and collected the eBay images, since November 2005, and am
attempting to reconnect images of pieces that were cut or torn apart
prior to the sales. Nevertheless, I am missing information and images
on most purchases made between
January 2005 (when the papyri began to
be offered) and October 2005, including some important
cartonnage
painting.
The point of this note is to determine
- (1) whether you would be willing to
correspond regarding any information you might have (I note that you
made some early purchases of papyri, before I began to watch the sales and save the images), and
- (2) whether you would like to see the
results of my research (e.g. what some of the larger pieces looked like before
they were divided up and sold on eBay).
As far a I can determine, there was nothing illegal about the sales,
although from the viewpoint of an academic papyrologist such as myself
they were
unfortunate, since they have distributed potentially valuable materials
to a large number of private collectors who are not likely to make the papyri
available for scholarly study. But preserving the images in a scholarly context will be useful
-- e.g. for possible inclusion in the Advanced Papyrological
Information System [APIS; see web address below] -- and some purchasers
will
themselves make their pieces available for scholarly research.
For further information, see the Papyrology Congress circular, and the
APIS homepage:
http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/ICP25/XXVCongrCirc2.html
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/projects/digital/apis/index.html
Thank you for your
consideration!
Bob Kraft
Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies
University of Pennsylvania
kraft AT ccat.sas.upenn.edu
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/ppenn.html