Thursday 31 August 2023

Spotted on eBay



Spotted on eBay.

Ancient Christianity Greek or coptic papyrus text fragment
Condition: “As you seen in the pictures”
Starting bid: US $4,000.00
0 bids · Time left d 15h left (Tue, 10:10 AM)or Best Offer from United Kingdom


Seller artimission [...] Located in: London, United Kingdom 0% Positive feedback (102)
292 Items sold 53 Followers

About Location: Turkey
Member since: Sep 26, 2018
About this item Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing.
eBay item number:355006094191
Item specifics
“As you seen in the pictures”
Date of Publication Unknown
Type Handwritten Manuscript
Language Greek
Region Egyptian
Material Papyrus
Subject Religion, Bibles
Original/Facsimile Original

Item description from the seller:
Ancient Christianity Greek or coptic papyrus text fragment

important statement!..

This piece is definitely not a replica, it is a 100% original piece, do not confuse it with similar pieces, none of our pieces are replicas or fakes, all are 100% original.

He does not know whether it is written in Greek or Coptic, can't work out if he's based in London or Turkey... but he "knows" it is genuine. Really? It looks like a load of scribble to me, not many words. Looks like
"throk topherneko nu[/
nearRef gop boxoy mot[/
Zr moher bix flip Mark[oh yeah...].
What I think is odd is that letters looking like lower case kappa and lambda are made in two different ways. But an eBay seller knowsd it's kosher, which is fine by me.
What he or she is NOT saying is where it came from, how it got on the market and how it got from the source country to wherever it is now - Turkeuy of the UK. THAT's what looks fishiest to me.

He's also got this:
Antique Egyptian Pharaonic Cartonagge Fragments

Condition: Used
“There is no any restoration as you seen in the pictures”

[...] Provenance: Ownership History Available
[...] Item description from the seller: Antique Egyptian Pharaonic Cartonagge (sic) fragmets From Europan Private collection, As you seen in the pictures ORGINAL
Note how rectangular and flat it is, and the regularly cut edges. Scratchy decoration. The linen is probably ancient. The iconography makes no sense, with the two embalmed bodies balanced on teh wings of the winged scarab. Nut, below, is sitting in an uncanonical pose. I guess it is supposed to be a pectoral, but does not make much sense. The seller should say more about where it came from.



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