Stolen Fragments is written for a broad audience by an academic and expert in papyrology. The book examines how Hobby Lobby, the American company owned by the Green family, acquired primarily ancient manuscripts, along with other antiquities such as cuneiform tablets. Many of these objects were later discovered to have been stolen from known collections, looted and smuggled—primarily from Egypt and Iraq—or identified as forgeries. Given its focus, it is evident that this book mainly discusses objects that were acquired after November 14, 1970; there is no evidence of their documentation before that date or their legal export from the country of origin. Overall, this book recounts the most recent major scandal concerning illicit antiquities—one that has profoundly impacted the antiquities market, the museum world, and academia, particularly the field of papyrology.
At the heart of the narrative are key figures in the antiquities market who engage in the trafficking of cultural artifacts: dealers specializing in the sale of unprovenanced and fragmented papyri, the auction house Christie’s—infamous for its role in selling looted antiquities—and the clientele of this illicit trade: museums and private collectors. However, the book particularly highlights the involvement of both prominent and lesser-known academics affiliated with leading universities. These scholars emerge as the true protagonists of the story, having been approached and/or financially incentivized by the Green family to study and publish primarily unprovenanced and illicit material—an endeavor that ultimately tarnished their academic reputations. A few of these prolific scholars were even directly involved in the trade of such material for personal financial gain, thereby actively facilitating the market in multiple ways. Their publications further contributed to raising prices within the antiquities trade.
Religious faith and financial gain were the driving forces behind the Green family’s acquisition of antiquities with no documented provenance. These objects were donated to the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., an institution newly founded by the Green family, with the aim of becoming “the Museum of the American Christian Evangelical Bible” (p. 32). The acquisitions were intended to be appraised at values at least three times higher than the purchase price, ultimately resulting in significant tax deductions. This scheme, which exploits relevant U.S. tax laws, has long been known within North American museum circles and has previously led to various scandals involving looted and unprovenanced antiquities.[1] Even the establishment of a Bible-related museum by individuals engaged in the handling of looted artifacts was not unprecedented; the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, founded in 1992 by the illicit antiquities dealer and archaeologist Elie Borowski,[2] continues to house unprovenanced artifacts from countries across the Mediterranean.
In addition to Christie’s, the narrative includes individuals involved in the illicit antiquities trade, such as Frieda Tchacos-Nussberger and Bruce Ferrini. Both are notorious for their roles in the case of the so-called ‘Gospel of Judas’; however, Tchacos, in particular, built a career as a dealer of looted and smuggled antiquities during the last quarter of the 20th century.[3] The online antiquities market, especially eBay, also plays a significant role in this illicit trade, serving as the primary platform for dealers of unprovenanced artifacts to sell fragmented papyri. Recently, eBay deserved its share of negative publicity as it hosted the account from which antiquities stolen from the British museum were sold undetected for two decades.[4] These notorious actors represent well-documented red flags discussed by the author and serve as key reasons why private collectors and museums should avoid acquiring any object whose provenance includes one or more of these figures.
Nevertheless, the Green family and the Museum of the Bible proceeded with the acquisition of these looted, stolen, or (as later proven) fake objects. Roberta Mazza rightly argues that none of those involved made any serious effort to exercise due diligence before these acquisitions were made or to hire expert provenance researchers to do so on their behalf. Had they done so, they could have avoided involvement in criminal activities, substantial financial losses, and subsequent international embarrassment. Given that such acquisitions continued at least until the mid-2010s, it is difficult to believe that none of those actors, often expert archaeologists and other academics, had ever heard or read—over the past two decades—about the thousands of cases involving illicit antiquities. Many of these cases, widely reported in the international press, implicated the same dealers and auction houses, as well as some of the world’s most prominent museums and private collectors. Although this reality removes any excuse from those responsible for the scandal recounted in the book, the author surprisingly does not emphasize it strongly enough. This omission may create the misleading impression that such cases are not as frequent as they actually are,[5] and that to some degree those responsible for this scandal had an excuse; they did not.
The book follows a narrative structure similar to that of successful predecessors published over the last 25 years by well-known journalists. It begins with a prologue detailing a relevant and shocking incident, followed by the first chapter, which presents the historical background of certain famous collections of ancient manuscripts and, alongside them, the development of papyrology as an academic field. The next chapter introduces the Green family’s business and objectives, as well as the key academics involved in the story. Subsequent chapters examine the problematic provenance of most of the manuscripts acquired and describe how other academics were approached to study this material.[6] The remaining chapters recount the emergence of specific papyrus fragments, including the well-known case of the Sappho Brothers Poem fragment, detailing the individuals involved, their actions, and how the entire scandal was eventually exposed. The book concludes with updates on each of the key figures and a passionate, yet fully justified, personal reflection by the author on the profound lack of provenance in the field and the continued involvement of fellow academics in the publication of such material.
Roberta Mazza has meticulously gathered and presented extensive information on this story. Over several years, she has collaborated with fellow academics, traveled abroad to visit exhibitions, studied some of the materials discussed, and conducted in-depth research on a vast and significant dataset. In doing so, she has also named and detailed the activities of the academics implicated in the scandal. Some of the most striking evidence she presents concerns the devastating consequences of this trade, both intellectually and materially. Particularly shocking is the account of how the pursuit of rare manuscripts—well into the previous decade—led to the destruction of Egyptian cartonnage mummy masks by immersing them in a warm, soapy water solution, sometimes in the sinks of buildings belonging to Departments of Classics at renowned universities. Equally alarming is how this same process was used to obscure the true provenance of other manuscripts, which were deliberately mixed in the same sink, despite having been stolen from entirely different sources. Another significant aspect of Mazza’s investigation is the role of technology in exposing the truth. She highlights how a tech-savvy scholar dissected a PDF of a Christie’s brochure to determine the precise time at which the images it contained were produced—an insight that proved crucial in understanding the timeline of the emergence of the depicted antiquities and other related artifacts.
Although the book includes detailed notes at the end, providing references to some published articles and books, the absence of a dedicated bibliography section is rather unhelpful. At the very least, a bibliography listing the works cited should have been included—if not a more extensive one incorporating key publications in the field. Despite the author devoting half a page before the Notes section to a section titled Bibliography and Sources, it contains no actual bibliography and instead directs readers to her blog. As the author is well aware, academics value a printed and comprehensive bibliography as a readily accessible resource that can be consulted repeatedly at their convenience. Unlike an online source, which may disappear or become inaccessible for various reasons, a printed bibliography remains a permanent and reliable reference. As a scholar of papyrology should appreciate, scripta manent. Notably, even the author’s blog does not contain a bibliography of the book. [7]
Despite this omission, Stolen Fragments remains highly engaging for non-experts, reading almost like a novel, though it is entirely a true story. It effectively introduces readers to the field of papyrology and the market for (illicit) manuscripts in an informative and accessible way. However, the book is equally valuable for academics, particularly those in forensic archaeology studying the antiquities trade; by naming a range of dealers and scholars involved in this illicit market, it enables researchers to draw connections with trafficking networks dealing in different types of antiquities and to analyze the common strategies used to sell our shared—but stolen—cultural heritage across borders, often with deliberately incomplete or falsified collecting histories.
Contents
Prologue
- Out of Egypt
- Biblical Beginnings
- The Provenance Problem
- A Ghostly Fragment
- The New Sappho
- eBay Papyri
- Turning Point
- Caves of Deception
- Mark, Born Again
- Oxford Thefts
- Back to Christie’s
Epilogue
Notes
[1] See, for example, the appraisals scandal at the antiquities department of the Getty in the 1980s, in Peter Watson and Celia Todeschini, The Medici Conspiracy: the Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities from Italy’s Tomb Raiders to the World’s Great Museums (New York: Public Affairs, 2006:81) and especially in Felch and Frammolino, Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2011: 32–45).
[2] Apostolides, Andreas. 2006. Αρχαιοκαπηλία και εμπόριο αρχαιοτήτων (Athens: Ikaros Publishing, 2006: 29–43).
[3] For the latest research on the involvement of Frieda Tchacos and her husband Werner Nussberger with illicit antiquities, see Gill, David W. J. and Christos Tsirogiannis, “Fragmented Pots and Dietrich von Bothmer”. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 2024, Vol. 69 (2024): 535–594.
[4] E.g., Lawson-Tancred, Jo. 2024. “British Museum Recovers Nearly Half of Its 1,500 Missing Objects”. artnet, 20 May (available at https://news.artnet.com/art-world/british-museum-recovery-program-2489764, last accessed April, 2025).
[5] On the state of the field see, Charney, N. (ed.) Art Crime: Terrorists, Tomb Raiders, Forgers and Thieves (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); Hufnagel, S. & Chappell, D. (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019); Gill, David W.J. Context Matters: Collating the Past (ARCA Publications, 2020); Mackenzie et al. Trafficking Culture: New Directions in Researching the Global Market in Illicit antiquities (London and New York: Routledge, 2020).
[6] In this regard, it is worth noting that, as early as 2013, some academics were invited to study manuscripts with fully documented provenance, originating from established collections, later acquired by the Green family. However, some of these scholars declined the invitation after receiving advice from expert archaeologists and provenance researchers, who warned them against involvement, due to the notoriety of the rest of the acquisitions which lacked proper documentation. Notably, years later, when the publication of this provenanced material was released, its acknowledgments section included at least one of these academics, falsely stating that they had “provided academic advice at different points in the project.”
[7] Checked April, 2025, https://facesandvoices.wordpress.com/ ‘Stolen Fragments: The Book’ and at https://www.sup.org/books/history/stolen-fragments/excerpt/table-contents.