Ancient Biblical text discovered in an Egyptian mummy mask Dated to the first century AD, what could be the earliest fragment of the Gospel of Mark has been discovered in a rather unusual place - covering the face of a mummified Egyptian civilian. A fragment of what could be the earliest copy of the Gospel of Mark - the oldest of the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and central to the belief system of Christianity - is set to be published after being discovered in the face mask of an Egyptian mummy. Not all mummies were created equal - we’re used to seeing them contained by stunning sarcophagi and masks coated in gold, but only Egyptian royalty were honored with such finery. When regular citizens died and were mummified, their masks were made from simple papyrus - a plant-based, paper-thin material - which was glued together in layers and painted. And while papyrus was obviously a whole lot cheaper to produce than gold, it came in limited supply, so people often recycled it, just like how kids use old newspapers to make Papier-mâché. Now, researchers have figured out how to loosen the glue that holds these papyrus layers together, thousands of years after it was applied, so they can be extracted from the mask with the original ink writings still intact. Evans says that the text was dated through a combination of carbon-14 dating, studying the handwriting on the fragment and studying the other documents found along with the gospel. These considerations led the researchers to conclude that the fragment was written before the year 90. With the nondisclosure agreement in place, Evans said that he cant say much more about the texts date until the papyrus is published.” Publication is expected to happen sometime this year. sciencealert/ancient-biblical-text-discovered-in-an-egyptian-mummy-mask
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 01:18:48 +0000
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