Oxford University is probing claims that one of its lecturers bought historical fragments of the Bible from a charity’s archive to a US employer.
Classics professor Dirk Obbink has been accused, with the aid of the Egypt Exploration Society (EES), of selling 11 portions from its Oxyrhynchus Collection.
The objects, held at the college’s Sackler Library, ended up at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.
Prof Obbink, who has been contacted for remark, remains at the university.
Historic Greek texts written on fragments of papyrus were first observed in the early twentieth century inside the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus.
In an announcement on its website, the EES says the museum has advised it that the fragments have been offered by a papyrology lecturer.
The charity stated: “The MOTB [Museum of the Bible] has informed the EES that eleven of these portions came into its care after being sold to Hobby Lobby stores through Prof Obbink, maximum of them in two batches in 2010.”
It introduced it had not reappointed the professor as a wellknown editor of the gathering in 2016 due to “issues which he did now not allay” over his alleged involvement in advertising ancient texts.
The EES stated it additionally banned him from getting entry to the gathering in June this 12 months “pending rationalization”, after a 2013 agreement reportedly for the sale of 4 texts from him to Hobby Lobby Stores – an arts and crafts employer – become made public using education at an Australian university.
The MOTB has agreed to set up pieces to be returned to the EES.
In an announcement, the museum said Hobby Lobby had acquired the objects in good faith between 2010 and 2013 from an “acknowledged professional from Oxford University” and that it’d continue to assist the EES in “getting better other gadgets that could have been removed.”
Hobby Lobby declined to comment.
In 2017, Hobby Lobby was pressured to forfeit hundreds of smuggled artifacts it had offered for the MOTB. The agency stated at the time that it “did now not absolutely recognize the complexities of the manner of the acquisition” and that it had relied on sellers’ information.
Hobby Lobby’s president, Steve Green, additionally serves as the museum’s chairman. The museum opened in 2017 and has changed since its founding.
An Oxford University spokesman said: “We can verify that we’re engaging with the Egypt Exploration Society regarding the allegations regarding papyri from the Oxyrhynchus collection.
