Professor Gilles Quispel, distinguished historian of religion at Utrecht, in Thirteenth codex, containing five extraordinary texts, was smuggled out ofĮgypt and offered for sale in America. Ten and a half of the thirteen leather-bound books, called codices, andĭeposited them in the Coptic Museum in Cairo. ThroughĬircumstances of high drama, as we shall see, they bought one and confiscated Soon attracted the attention of officials of the Egyptian government. Sold on the black market through antiquities dealers in Cairo, the manuscripts Having received one from al-Qummus Basiliyus, Raghib sent it to a Local history teacher, had seen one of the books, and suspected that it had 'Alí and his brothers were being interrogated for murder, Raghib, a ripped out his heart, and devoured it among them, as theįearing that the police investigating the murder would search his house andĭiscover the books, Muhammad 'Alí asked the priest, al-Qummus BasiliyusĪbd al-Masih, to keep one or more for him. Warned her sons to keep their mattocks sharp: when they learned that theirįather's enemy was nearby, the brothersseized the opportunity, "hacked off his 'Umm-Ahmad, admits that she burned much of the papyrus in the oven along withĪ few weeks later, as Muhammad 'Alí tells it, he and his brothersĪvenged their father's death by murdering Ahmed Isma'il. On the straw piled on the ground next to the oven. To his home in al-Qasr, Muhammad'All dumped the books and loose papyrus leaves Jar, and discovered inside thirteen papyrus books, bound in leather. Realizing that it might also contain gold, he raised his mattock, smashed the The jar, considering that a jinn, or spirit, might live inside. Digging around a massive boulder, they hit a redĮarthenware jar, almost a meter high. Shortly before he and his brothersĪvenged their father's murder in a blood feud, they had saddled their camelsĪnd gone out to the Jabal to dig for sabakh, a soft soil they used toįertilize their crops. Thirty years later the discoverer himself, Muhammad 'AlíĪl-Sammán told what happened. Originally natural, some of theseĬaves were cut and painted and used as grave sites as early as the sixth Of Naj 'Hammádì at the Jabal al-Tárif, a mountain That he was a blood avenger another, that he had made the find near the town Years even the identity of the discoverer remained unknown. The discovery was accidental, and its sale on the black market illegal. Rumors obscured the circumstances of this find-perhaps because IN DECEMBER 1945 an Arab peasant made an astonishing archeological discovery in Of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont Graduateīookstore for a complete selection of translations and books about the (Above image of the Gospel of Thomas courtesy
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