'Ancient manuscript found in Brisbane

[Melvadius]

As reported in the Brisbane Times a really important discovery has been made by an Egyptologist visiting the Queensland Museum in Brisbane to open an exhibition on ancient Egypt.

 

The Queensland Museum has been revealed as an unlikely resting place for the missing pieces of a rare manuscript from ancient Egypt.

 

Archaeologists had been searching for the missing fragments of the rare Book of the Dead for 100 years when a visiting Egyptologist stumbled across them while in Brisbane to open a mummy exhibition.

 

Fragments from the rest of the papyrus, more than 3000 years old, lie in the British Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

 

The religious parchment is believed to have been buried with a top Egyptian official who lived in 1420 BC.

 

Parts of it were discovered in the late 19th century, but archaeologists have never found it all.

 

 

[Crispina]

That's amazing.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

Melvadius, at the time of the original discovery it was mostly the sellers of papyrus who did the cutting. Papyrus were found in mounds and were used by locals as fertilizer. Then they became aware that the westerners were ready to pay big money, so they began to sold papyrus by weight, just cutting the mass with shovels. Then, also, some sellers began to dig for intact pieces and sold them in pieces which they deliberately cut. Archeologists themselve did not usualy cut their discoveries in pieces, so that what they did discover are usualy the most intact pieces of parchements.

[Melvadius]

Melvadius, at the time of the original discovery it was mostly the sellers of papyrus who did the cutting.

 

Possibly they were but if you look at the fragments shown in the photograph attached to both articles you should realise that they are highly unlikely in this instance to have been the result of cutting.