Antiquarian Interests Research Articles

What is a Swedish Ethnology in Finland?

In his article Five ethnologies – the rise of Finnish ethnology from a Finland-Swedish point of view, prof. Nils Storå has characterised the development of Ethnology in Finnish and in Swedish not as dichotomised striving for two unique kinds of ethnology based only on two languages in Finland but as five paths that together make the history more diverse and sometimes overlapping, sometimes not. The article looks for the roots in different spheres: antiquarian interests, languages, regionalism, an interest in cultural history and in anthropology. Prof. Storå takes us up to the 1960s. The starting point is of course language based disciplines where the need for this emphasis was felt very strongly. In Finland almost 5.9% of the population has Swedish as their mother tongue; in the beginning of the 20th century the percentage was 12,9. A result of the fact that the Swedish speaking also under the Russian rule until the late 19th century held important civilian and political posts, was that Finland after the independence 1917 was declared a bilingual state (1919). This meant and means that the Swedish speaking have a strong guarantee when it comes to their linguistic rights. Also strong institutional support make a Swedish or bilingual life especially in the Swedish coastal regions and towns possible. My intention is to look to what has happened in ethnology since 1960 in this Swedish context and what actors where and are working and also in which scientific context one can look at the ethnology that is carried out at the Åbo Akademi University in Åbo (Turku), that is the Swedish university in Finland. But I will also consider the ethnological work at the Folk Culture Archives in Helsinki, since a similar documentation and research work has been made there. A third actor is the Scientific section of the Brage Society also situated in Helsinki.

Antiquarianism and orientalism from Limerick: The Ouseleys, 1739–1842

Abstract: This paper suggests how the antiquarian interests of Captain Ralph Ouseley, resident in Limerick from the 1760s until his death in 1803 and a founder member of the Royal Irish Academy, shaped the careers of his three sons. Each travelled to India and two, Gore and Joseph Walker, found long and profitable employment there. The third and eldest, William (1768–1842) is the main focus of this account. As a youth, William Ouseley accompanied his father on antiquarian excursions in the west of Ireland where he applied his talents as a topographical artist. Soon, however, his curiosity shifted towards India and Persia, translating and publishing works in their languages, and becoming a voracious collector of manuscripts, artefacts and texts originating in the sub-continent. William Ouseley, although respected for his expertise by contemporaries and being knighted, failed to gain any remunerative official appointment. His sole visit to Asia only occurred in 1810. Nor did he participate in the fierce controversies generated by Vallancey about the possible linkages between the peoples and languages of Asia and of Ireland. Ouseley's later life was passed in England, Wales and continental Europe, but the formative influence in Ireland of his father's tutelage and collections, which included oriental elements, is suggested.

The Earl of Buchan's Second Summer: Dryburgh (1785–1829)

After over a century of relative neglect, the activities of David Steuart Erskine, the eleventh Earl of Buchan, on his Dryburgh estate between 1785 and 1829 have come under increasing academic scrutiny. The Earl’s retirement to Dryburgh has been seen less as a retreat from his high public profile as the founder of the Society of Antiquaries and more as a continuation both of his antiquarian and political interests. Indeed, landscape features such as the Temple of the Muses to the poet James Thomson and especially the giant statue to William Wallace have been viewed recently as part of a highly political nationalist-historic romantic landscape. While confirming the essentially political nature of these monuments, this article will explore an alternative whig and unionist reading of them. At the same time, although highlighting the continuity of Buchan’s antiquarian agenda, it will attempt to show how this gradually merged with a wide range of the Earl’s more personal enthusiasms such as Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, classical antiquity and the beaux arts of London’s Royal Academy to form a distinctive second summer to his career.

The Poet and the Antiquaries: Chaucerian Scholarship and the Rise of Literary History, 1532–1635

The Poet and the Antiquaries: Chaucerian Scholarship and the Rise of Literary History, 1532–1635

Gli autografi di Aquiles Estaço (1524-1581) nella Biblioteca Vallicelliana di Roma tra contenuto epigrafico e annotazioni antiquarie

This study focuses on the epigraphic content of Aquiles Estaço’s autograph codices preserved in the Vallicelliana Library, except for the most conspicuous ms. B 104 which has been the subject of a recent publication, thus deserving a separate discussion. Most of the recorded material concerns Italic, Latin and Greek inscriptions of the Roman age, but there are also Christian and medieval epigraphic texts. The analysis of each manuscript, with their extremely heterogeneous content, also made it possible to identify useful elements to determine the chronology of their use, allowing us to propose a first periodization of Estaço’s manuscript production. Attention has also been paid to the evolution of antiquarian interests, as well as to the correspondence of the humanist.

Two Huguenot Brothers: Letters of Andrew and James Coltée Ducarel, 1732–1773. Ed. Gerard de Lisle and Robin Myers.

<i>Two Huguenot Brothers: Letters of Andrew and James Coltée Ducarel, 1732–1773</i>. Ed. Gerard de Lisle and Robin Myers.

Two English Travellers in France in the 1760s: Laurence Sterne and James Ducarel

Andrew and James Ducarel were Huguenots brought to England as children in 1721; Andrew remained his entire life, working as an ecclesiastical and maritime attorney alongside antiquarian interests. James, less successful, returned to France (probably to avoid debts) in 1761 and during the next decade corresponded with his brother, describing the France that Sterne sojourned in twice during these years. The correspondence undergirds the ‘realism’ of Tristram’s and Yorick’s experiences: e.g., on his arrival, James immediately hires ‘a very Compleat Valet de Chambre […] who […] Combs my wigs, shaves me. Goes 2 leagues &amp; back again to Carry a letter’. Also, James and Sterne meet some of the same travellers abroad, encounters that help further to identify Sterne’s subscribers.

From Liguria to Sardinia. Notes about some incunabula in the Biblioteca Universitaria of Cagliari

The text examines some incunabula now in the Biblioteca Universitaria in Cagliari and their ex libris, which belong to the library collection of Giulio Salinero (1574-1612), a lawyer born in Savona, and also to the Dominican Convent of Savona. These books, formerly part of the Simon collection, settled in in Alghero, and of the Library of the Piarist Order in Cagliari, were given to the Biblioteca Universitaria in the second half of XIX century. They relate to the antiquarian interests growing in Sardinia between the end of XVIIth and the beginning of XVIIIth century.

Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan: Class, Culture and Consumption in the Meiji Period by Taka Oshikiri

Reviewed by: Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan: Class, Culture and Consumption in the Meiji Period by Taka Oshikiri Meghen Jones Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan: Class, Culture and Consumption in the Meiji Period. By Taka Oshikiri. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. 208 pages. Hardcover, £95.00/$130.00; softcover, £29.99/$40.95. Why and how did chanoyu, the formalized preparation and consumption of powdered green tea, survive after it lost the patronage of the Tokugawa shogunate? This is the central question of Taka Oshikiri’s Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan: Class, Culture and Consumption in the Meiji Period. Oshikiri acknowledges previous explanations—that by the mid-Meiji era, chanoyu as traditional Japanese culture provided a sense of national unity; that, for women, the state initiated instruction in its practice; and that iemoto (family heads) played key roles in its continuance. In contrast, Oshikiri contends that a rather scattershot array of individuals and groups carried the mantle of chanoyu through the transformative decades of the Meiji era and that the variety of people responsible reflects the fragmentation of Meiji society itself, as well-known tea masters and nonprofessionals alike maneuvered through shifts in class structures and other challenges of the period. Based on a dissertation and article on related topics, her book reveals how chanoyu remained an elite practice while also incorporating a new constellation of actors thriving within modern systems of institutional support.1 Oshikiri’s emphasis is on the social nature of Meiji chanoyu, rather than its ritual-istic or aesthetic aspects. Rejecting the translation of chanoyu as “tea ceremony,” she defines it as “a highly formalized sociocultural activity elaborated from the consumption of powdered green tea (matcha)” and involving a “whole set of customs . . . organizing the space in which to socialize, as well as to wine, dine and drink tea” (p. 1). Assuming readers are aware of chanoyu basics, Oshikiri does not address its somatic aspects or the difference, for example, between the physical engagement expected of a Japanese guest at a gathering of cultural elites in Tokyo and [End Page 198] that expected of an American guest at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Rather, her book mainly concerns the details of events and the motivations of their organizers. A range of well-cited primary sources presents, in Oshikiri’s words, a “montage of various spaces” (p. 11) and documents the activities of middle-class intellectuals and the elite within those varied settings. These individuals and groups represent, as Oshikiri states, “the evolving relationships amongst the state, industrial society and the culture of chanoyu” (p. 16). Chapter 1 focuses on early Meiji government policies for material culture as they related to chanoyu. Oshikiri identifies tensions between policies concerning culture and those concerning industry, as exemplified by the contrast between the Jinshin Survey of 1872 and the Vienna World Exhibition of 1873. In the former, which took place following the 1871 Decree to Conserve Aged Artefacts and Old Objects, officials from several agencies traveled to temples, shrines, and family residences in the Kinki region to identify and document objects worthy of conservation. Oshikiri shows how antiquarian interests drove the survey team’s approach, leading them to highlight chanoyu utensils; in the Vienna World Exhibition, on the other hand, the private interests of government officials did not translate to any particular emphasis on displaying such items. Instead, organizers selected large, eye-catching ceramics to dazzle European audiences; the few chanoyu utensils on display exemplified particular craft mediums or were placed in the agricultural products section. Clearly, early Meiji officials privately valued chanoyu but did not see in it the potential to develop Japan’s export industry, a major aim of the nation’s participation in international expositions. Chapter 2 examines the commercial exhibitions sponsored by the Kyoto Exhibition Association. Starting in 1871, this group of Kyoto merchants coordinated displays of objects from China, Japan, and the West in order to boost the local economy. From the outset attendees could appreciate tea utensils owned by merchants and heads of tea traditions and see staged services that expanded chanoyu away from a limited elite base. From 1875 onward, for example, female entertainers from Gion served tea in the table...

The 3rd Duke of Alcalá and his epigraphic interests. Notes on his lapidary collection in Seville (XVII Century)

In the first decades of the 17 th century Fernando Enriquez de Ribera (1583-1637), 3 rd Duke of Alcala de los Gazules, reformed the Casa de Pilatos, constructing a library and an armory, as well as a large chamber (Camarin Grande). Sessions were periodically held here, creating one of the most important literary and academic gatherings in Seville, attended by painters, poets and art collectors; among them, Francisco Pacheco, Juan de Arguijo and the antiquarian Rodrigo Caro. The Duke also had his antiquarian interests and was an important antique collector. Inventories of his collection were made between 1637 and 1642. This work analyses the lapidary or epigraphic pieces; in particular three modern copies carved in slate of Roman inscriptions from Tarragona, the Isis pedestal from Acci (Guadix), as well as two honorary pedestals from Siarum (Utrera) and Hispalis (Seville). Fernando Enriquez also produced a study on the inscription and reliefs of the pedestal from Guadix, which was given to him by the 3 rd Marquis of Estepa, Adan Centurion, another Andalusian nobleman interested in antiquities and their study.

Print, Manuscript, and Oral Literary Cultures: The Case of Eighteenth-Century Irish Song

Print, Manuscript, and Oral Literary Cultures:The Case of Eighteenth-Century Irish Song Moyra Haslett (bio) When the "Meeting of the Harpers" was organized in Belfast in the summer of 1792, its principal aim was to record and thus preserve Irish tunes that might otherwise disappear with the deaths of the harpers themselves. While the impetus was shaped by antiquarian interests of the late century, the context of the 1790s provided obvious political motives too. (The meeting was held in the Belfast Exchange Rooms from 11–13 July so as to coincide with commemorative celebrations of the fall of the Bastille.) The Irish language tutor who was to transcribe the lyrics of the songs did not attend (we don't know why), but the musician who transcribed the tunes, Edward Bunting, would go on to publish three volumes of what he called the "ancient music of Ireland" (1796, 1809, 1840), the product of many decades of research transcribing and notating Irish melodies from performances in rural Ireland and the first sustained attempt to document Irish-language song. Beyond the three published volumes, then, are the more extensive manuscripts, held by Special Collections in the library of Queen's University Belfast, and beyond those manuscripts the vanished performances themselves, which the print and manuscript records shadow. This essay reflects on issues arising directly from the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded "Irish Song Project" conducted at Queen's [End Page 349] University (2012–2015), which, in seeking to investigate the historical development of the different repertoires of Irish song, drew upon the evidence offered by print and manuscript cultures and supplemented these with an attempt to catch something of oral culture through performance practice as late as the emergence of audio technology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.1 As full a survey as possible of song before 1850, with a particular focus on song-tunes, was made in order to see if there were continuities of tradition and cultural practice between songs and song traditions. Although the Bunting collection at Queen's University provided the core resource, a systematic survey of songs in manuscript and print held in many libraries was attempted. The resulting online database (www.irishsongproject.qub.ac.uk) offers an indicative sample of just over two hundred songs. Selecting songs for inclusion brought difficult issues of weighting and balance into question. How could we ensure that the vibrant culture of Irish-language song in particular would be properly represented? Stretching the parameters of the survey to 1850 allowed the project to draw upon early-nineteenth-century interest in Irish song, represented most significantly in the collections by Bunting, James Hardiman, George Petrie, William Forde, Henry Hudson, John Edward Pigot, and James Goodman. Quite a few songs got published by wending their ways into Anglophone culture, particularly in the form of ballad operas or in collections of song-tunes in the eighteenth century. The tune specification for "Eibhlin Aruin" in Charles Coffey's ballad opera The Beggar's Wedding (Dublin, 1729) indicates its existence thirty years before its first appearance in a Gaelic manuscript. The popular song "Come haste to the wedding" was included in the Dublin-performed pantomime A Trip to the Dargle or the Irish Wedding (1762).2 And the tune "Cremona" is one of many Irish airs included in the London-printed Aria di Camera (c. 1730). Since musical notation is rare in early manuscripts, certainly until Bunting's project of transcribing traditional airs, these sources are particularly significant. Engraved sheets of musical notation were often too costly for Dublin printers: while prestige publications of psalms and several notable prints of Irish tunes did include printed music, the vast majority of song-texts, including ballad opera texts, appeared without their accompanying melodies. And no Dublin printer in the early eighteenth century owned a Gaelic font, so Irish-language texts had to be anglicized unless they were published abroad. Increased attention to bilingual crossings in eighteenth-century Ireland is evident in a number of recent works.3 But while previous studies of music in eighteenth-century Ireland have noted a number of songs and airs that traverse the traditionally perceived divisions of religion and...

The Early Royal Society and Visual Culture

Recent studies have fruitfully examined the intersection between early modern science and visual culture by elucidating the functions of images in shaping and disseminating scientific knowledge. Given its rich archival sources, it is possible to extend this line of research in the case of the Royal Society to an examination of attitudes towards images as artifacts—manufactured objects worth commissioning, collecting, and studying. Drawing on existing scholarship and material from the Royal Society Archives, I discuss Fellows’ interests in prints, drawings, varnishes, colorants, images made out of unusual materials, and methods of identifying the painter from a painting. Knowledge of production processes of images was important to members of the Royal Society, not only as connoisseurs and collectors, but also as those interested in a Baconian mastery of material processes, including a “history of trades.” Their antiquarian interests led to discussion of painters’ styles, and they gradually developed a visual memorial to an institution through portraits and other visual records.

“Most Active and Effectual Assistance” in the Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale and William Somner

Abstract In the Dictionarium Saxonico-Latino-Anglicum (1659), the first published dictionary of Old English, its compiler, William Somner (?1606–1669), expresses his gratitude for the “most active and effectual assistance” of the herald and antiquary William Dugdale (1605–1686) in bringing the work to publication. However, this brief mention conveys little about the long-standing working relationship between the two men, which was already in place when Somner began work on the Dictionarium and which continued after its publication. The author shows how surviving correspondence can help build a fuller picture, drawing on letters frequently cited in connection with the Dictionarium alongside less discussed material. This article situates Dugdale’s “active and effectual assistance” with the Dictionarium in the wider context of the antiquarian interests and projects he shared with Somner. In doing so, it also demonstrates how each of the two men was able to contribute his own expertise and resources to the work of the other. As such, this article emphasises both the importance of such collaboration for the development of Old English studies in the seventeenth century and the significant overlap in this period between linguistic investigation and broader antiquarian activities.

Anthropomorphism, Theatre, Epiphany: From Herodotus to Hellenistic Historians

Abstract:This paper argues that, beginning with the Euripidean deus ex machina, dramatic festivals introduced a new standard into epiphanic rituals and experience. Through the scenic double énonciation, gods are seen by mythical heroes as gods, but by the Athenian spectators as costumed actors and fictive entities. People could scarcely believe these were ‘real’ gods, but would have no doubt been impressed by the scenic machinery. Thus the Homeric theme of a hero’s likeness to the gods developed into the Hellenistic theme of the godlike ruler’s (or actor’s) theatrical success (or deceit). So in the Athenians’ Hymn to Demetrius Poliorcetes, a victorious ruler entering a city is welcomed as a better god than the gods themselves. The simultaneous rise in popularity of paradoxical stories and experiences in the Hellenistic period was grounded not in believing, but in disbelieving – a phenomenon associated with antiquarian interests, the self-publicity of religious sanctuaries, or amazed credulity. People were increasingly drawn to ‘real’ gods, leading to long pilgrimages and extensive financial outlay (in the mysteries) in order to see them. I investigate this phenomenon by focusing upon fragments of the ‘mimetic’ or ‘tragic’ Greek historians that survive from this period.

Chaucer's Gnof

Gnof, used to introduce a major theme—our need to question even our most basic assumptions—in The Miller's Tale, is, remarkably, both a neologism and a borrowing. Because this essay sets out to prove that Chaucer created this word, the linguistic evidence is considered in detail. In Middle English, gnof appears only in the opening description of John the carpenter, it lacks a convincing etymology, and it was changed by several scribes as they copied their exemplars. In Early Modern English, it was revived by a limited number of authors, many of whom were associated with antiquarian interests in Chaucer's works, during the time of the inkhorn debate. Moreover, because I also argue that Chaucer took the sound of gnof but not its meaning from the Tuscan interjection gnaffé, which he found in Decameron, III.4, I consider the larger thematic links between these two narratives. If correct, this combined evidence leads to more than an interpretation of The Miller's Tale or new evidence for the reception of the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer did not just borrow lexemes from languages such as French and Latin and echo, on occasion, specific dialects of Middle English, but created new words. And, as an unusual verbal borrowing, gnof proves his use of the Decameron.

VARRO, ATTICUS, AND ANNALES

Abstract: This paper explores the scholarly relationship between Varro and Atticus by focusing on the attribution of a Varronian fragment (Gell. 17.21.24). Taking into account Gellius's citation practices, it is argued that the fragment (concerning the execution of the tyrant Manlius) was mediated via Atticus, not taken directly from Varro. The evidence for Varro's and Atticus's friendship and scholarly cooperation undermines traditional attempts to identify any ultimate written source for this material, and prompts a re-evaluation of the relationship between the two friends' antiquarian interests to outline the consequences of scholarly and social exchange. This investigation suggests that, like many apparent points of Attico-Varronian overlap (including Rome's foundation-date), the fragment's origins might owe more to personal acquaintance than secluded book-learning. Their antiquarian choices had the potential to be politically charged, and the version of Manlius's death endorsed by Varro may thus indicate his political stance towards Caesar.

The Prose ‘Brut’ and Other Late Medieval Chronicles. Books Have Their Histories: Essays in Honour of Lister M. Matheson ed. by Jaclyn Rajsic, Erik Kooper and Dominique Hoche

JACLYN RAJSIC, ERIK KOOPER, and DOMINIQUE HOCHE, eds., The Prose 'Brut'and Other Late Medieval Chronicles. Books Have Their Histories: Essays in Honour of Lister M. Matheson. Manuscript Culture in the British Isles. Woodbridge and Rochester: York Medieval Press, 2016. Pp. xxv, 246. ISBN: 978-1-903153-66-6. $99.The Prose 'Brut' and Other Late Medieval Chronicles is a lovely book. It quietly argues, through its collection of high-quality essays, for the importance of traditions to the understanding of medieval literary history and the development of Medieval Studies as a discipline, from Early Modern antiquarian interests to the present day. The volume honors the great scholar of, among much else, English Brut chronicles, Lister M. Matheson (1948-2012), and its contents evolve from papers delivered in his memory in 2013, at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo and the International Medieval Congress in Leeds. As its editors underscore in their introduction, 'exploration of ... Matheson's influence as a scholar and a teacher lies at the heart of this collection' (p. 1), and, far from just a subtitle or nominal gesture, this is true from start to finish. Julia Marvin's opening 'memoir' paints a lively and vivid portrait of Matheson as a scholar and colleague who approached everything from Middle English Dictionary entries to high-school outreach with generosity; Edward Donald Kennedy's essay on the early eighteenth-century antiquarian Thomas Hearne's uses of English chronicles includes an afterward that affectionately compares Hearne, who never completed an announced edition of the Brut, to Matheson: 'Whether speaking of a remarkable fragment of an old English chronicle or a newly found curious version of the English Prose Brut, both displayed similar delight in and enthusiasm for discovery, delight and enthusiasm evident too in the plans for projects that both left incomplete at their deaths' (p. 198); A.S.G. Edwards's useful essay at the end of the volume-on twentieth-century sales and acquisitions of Brut manuscripts, including an appendix of all such sold or donated and their current locations-is indebted to Matheson's 'detailed record of surviving copies ... supplemented in a posthumously published article' (p. 219). Beyond this, so much of the volume explicitly responds to (in footnotes) or otherwise depends on Matheson's scholarship, that it is hardly hyperbole to say that his heart beats through it. It is, frankly, quite moving to read the book in this spirit.The memorial aspect, however, is far from the only reason to read this volume. Divided into three sections-'The Uses of History,' 'The Prose Brut,' and 'Receptions and Afterlives of Late Medieval Chronicles'-the collection is comprised of very readable selections by important voices in the field of English and manuscript studies. In addition to those already mentioned, essays appear by Krista A. Murchison, Christine M. Rose, Alexander L. Kaufman, Dan Embree, Erik Kooper, William Marx, Jaclyn Rajsic, Neil Weijer, Heather Pagan, Elizabeth J. Bryan, and Caroline D. …

THE SKULL OF BEDE

In 1831 Dr James Raine excavated Bede’s tomb in Durham Cathedral, revealing a partial skeleton accompanied by a medieval ring. Three casts were made of the skull; the recent re-discovery of one of these casts provokes an examination of the authenticity of the remains and of antiquarian interests in craniology in the mid-nineteenth century.

“Bookmaking Out of the Remains of the Dead”: George Ballard’s Memoirs of Several Ladies (1752)

This article reconsiders the importance of antiquarian interests and research methods in the making of George Ballard’s encyclopedic biography of learned women, Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain who have been celebrated for their writings or skill in the learned languages, arts and sciences (1752). Ballard has a contested legacy in women’s literary history: many critics draw attention to the exemplary bias in his collection and question his rhetorical aims. However, this article presents new manuscript evidence suggesting that Ballard’s initial research for the project was much more inclusive than previously thought. The article also contends that his antiquarian approach to life-writing in the Memoirs offers a unique perspective on women’s contributions to book history, specifically suggesting that his appreciation for “artefacts of the written word” results in a text uniquely attuned to women’s role in both creating and circulating textual artifacts of the past. In the process, Ballard reveals an appreciation for the extratextual dimensions of women’s lives that significantly predates our own “modern” preoccupation with identifying the diverse cultural practices of women writers.

Rethinking the Origins of the Nag Hammadi Codices

The famous find-story behind the Nag Hammadi codices, discovered in Egypt in 1945, has been one of the most cherished narratives in our field. Yet a close examination of its details reveals inconsistencies, ambiguities, implicitly colonialist attitudes, and assumptions that call for a thorough reevaluation. This article explores the problematic moments in the find-story narrative and challenges the suggestions of James M. Robinson and others that the Nag Hammadi codices were intentionally buried for posterity, perhaps by Pachomian monks, in the wake of Athanasius's thirty-ninth Festal Letter. We consider, rather, that the Nag Hammadi codices may have derived from private Greco-Egyptian citizens in late antiquity who commissioned the texts for personal use, depositing them as grave goods following a practice well attested in Egypt.The Nag Hammadi codices, discovered in 1945, have perhaps the most compelling find-story of any ancient Egyptian book cache. When Mohamed Ali alSamman, both the hero and the antihero of this story, discovers that his brother has found a jar while digging for fertilizer, he immediately takes control of the operation. Taking the jar into his hands, the moment is tense. Should he open it? He is a cautious, superstitious man, clearly pious and afraid of jinni; yet he also loves gold, and as in those old Arabian nights tales, his curiosity gets the better of him and he smashes the jar, only to find-is it gold?!-pieces of golden papyrus, flying through the air. Little does Mohamed Ali know, when he takes them home and tosses them into the little barn attached to his mother's home, that he has discovered thirteen books of more than fifty lost Gospels representing a Gnostic library of heretical documents, carefully secreted away in the increasingly theologically oppressive atmosphere of late-fourth-century Egypt.1But what if this famous story, which has become the canonical genesis for scholars of Gnosticism, is merely a fiction? Even the earliest and most direct versions of the story reveal unsettling inconsistencies. Elements are unstable, and the key witness, Mohamed Ali, himself recants and changes his account.2 While we may speculate on the reasons for these inconsistencies, it becomes difficult to believe Mohamed Ali at all, not to mention the orientalizing fantasy of his encounter with a papyrus-filled jar somewhere in the geese-grazing territories of Chenoboskion. Indeed, two prominent Coptologists, Rodolphe Kasser and Martin Krause, long ago went on record to distance themselves from the official-that is, much publicized and disseminated-find-story.3We begin by reexamining different accounts of the find-story, noting the central instability of its narrative. We take this starting point because it matters whether this story is true: from it, scholars of Gnosticism have built up fifty years of work based on the assumption that back in the late fourth century, the codices were secreted away together in a jar in order to preserve them for posterity. We argue here that this was unlikely to have been the intention of those who buried the codices. Rather than parts of a Pachomian library that had been intentionally hidden by monks to avoid persecution by the emerging Alexandrian orthodoxy, we suggest that the Nag Hammadi codices could just as plausibly have been private productions commissioned by late ancient Egyptian Christians with antiquarian interests. The books were later deposited in graves, following a late antique modification of a custom known in Egypt for hundreds of years. Furthermore, we contend that their eventual placement in graves may not have been coincidental; the arrangement of certain volumes reflects eschatological as well as antiquarian interests, meaning that at least some volumes may have been intentionally crafted as funerary deposits, Christian Books of the Dead that only made sense in the context of late antique Egypt.I. FIND-STORIES AND SUSPICIONSA full thirty years after the initial appearance of the Nag Hammadi codices on the Cairo antiquities market, James M. …