Gospel of Judas

Driving home this evening I listened to the BBC Radio 4 discussion of 'The Gospel of Judas' on 'Beyond Belief'.

The 'Gospel' has been brought to us courtesy of National Geographic.

And as I listened to the debate I could not help thinking that this was a 'classic' sequence of looted material with some of the well-known walk-on parts (this sequence is based on National Geographic):

a. Some sources say the Codex 'surfaced' around 1970. Always a good date to cite - 1970 UNESCO Convention.

b. It is reported that it was found at El-Minya in Egypt.

c. In 1978 the Codex was sold to a Cairo dealer.

d. Around 1980 the Codex was stolen and left Egypt. It was recovered with the help of a Swiss dealer. (No account would be complete without Switzerland as a setting.)

e. In 1984 the Codex was deposited in Hicksville, New York.

f. In 2000 the Codex was purchased by the Swiss-based dealer, Frida Nussberger-Tchacos. (She handled some of the material which the Getty is returning to Italy.) See also Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino, 'Judas Gospel Figure Has Tainted Past. A dealer credited with 'rescuing' the document allegedly played a major role in the looting of antiquities. She received a suspended sentence', LA Times April 13, 2006.

g. The 'ownership' of the Codex was transferred to the wonderfully-named 'Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art', based in Basel.

And we can look forward to the display of Codex Tchacos in the Cairo Museum. (The ambiguous naming is after Frida's father.)

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Codename: Ainsbrook

I have been watching (UK) Channel 4's Time Team this evening. The programme looked at an undisclosed field (under a potato crop) where a Viking burial had been found. The location in Yorkshire was so sensitive that it was given a codename: Ainsbrook. Here is the summary:
In late 2003 two metal detectorists were working in a field in Yorkshire. They found 'treasure' buried just beneath the surface – a collection of Viking material next to a body. Although they had been detecting on the site for a number of years, during which time they had made large numbers of finds, nothing they had uncovered previously compared with this. They decided to share their discovery with archaeologists.The programme explored the tension between metal-detectorists and the English Heritage sponsored archaeologists putting six trenches into the field based on a geo-physical survey. Finds made by the metal-detectorists did not easily map onto the archaeological features.

Part of the programme had an …

George Ortiz collection to be displayed in London

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The BBC reports:
Egypt's former antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, said the bust appeared to have been "stolen" in the 1970s from the Temple of Karnak. "The owners have given false information," he told AFP news agency. "They have not shown any legal papers to prove its ownership." Christie's maintain the history of the piece as follows:
It stated that Germany's Prince Wilhelm von Thurn und Taxis reputedly had it in his collection by the 1960s, and that it was acquired by an Austrian dealer in 1973-4. However the family of von Thurn und Taxis claim that the head was never in that collection [see here].

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"Christie's would not and do not sell any work whe…