Tipton Panel: “The Case of the Purloined Papyrus” and “The Case of the Missing Mummy”

Christine Thomas
Calendar
When:
December 5, 2019 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm America/Los Angeles Timezone
2019-12-05T17:00:00-08:00
2019-12-05T18:30:00-08:00
Where:
Old Mission Santa Barbara
2201 Laguna Street
Contact:
Christine M. Thomas
Email
“Ancient Archives and Public History: Dispatches from the Papyrological Lost and Found”
Roberta Mazza, Tipton Distinguished Visiting Professor in Catholic Studies
“The Case of the Purloined Papyrus”
Anna Uhlig, Associate Professor, Classics, UC Davis
“The Case of the Missing Mummy”
Cavan Concannon, Associate Professor, Religion, USC, moderator
Followed by a reception with light refreshments
Sponsored by the J.E. and Lillian Byrne Tipton Endowment in Catholic Studies, the Department of Religious Studies, the Department of Classics, and the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group
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From the poetry of Sappho to the New Testament, texts written on papyrus have been preserved for millennia by arid conditions in Egypt, excavated, and collected in archives. This timely colloquium examines the legal and ethical problems surrounding these papyrological archives. Roberta Mazza will tell the story of how ancient papyri of unknown provenance were acquired by the Museum of the Bible and are now at the center of a scandal and police investigation. Anna Uhlig will discuss how Egyptian mummies have been destroyed in the quest to “recover” ancient texts and how we can use the Tebtunis archive at UC Berkeley to honor the “missing mummies” lost to us in the name of scholarship.