Dion, aged 45, farewell

Gilded mummy case of Dion
Manchester Museum 2179, Ancient Worlds Gallery

The gilded cartonnage upper-body mummy case of Dion is on display in the Manchester Museum Ancient Worlds Gallery. We know the name of the dead and his age at death because of a Greek inscription on the back of the head: ‘Dion, aged 45, farewell’.

As Artemidoros and his family, Dion was a member of the Hellenised elite that administered the Arsinoite nome under the Roman rule. His family wanted him to be buried in Hawara, following traditional Egyptian funerary practices.

The mummy case has been dated to the first century AD. The face mask resembles the traditionally Egyptian, gilded ones but at the same time, following a new Greek and Roman taste, individual features are introduced, such as the black hair and the inlaid eyes. The upper part of the body is protruding from the mummy case. Dion holds an intense pink flower wreath in his right hand and a papyrus roll in the left. Below his bust, on the case, a mummy, possibly that of Dion, is guarded by two mummified rams.

Garlands and wreaths: flowers and their possible meanings

Not differently than in other parts of the ancient world, flower garlands and wreaths were commonly used in Egypt for different celebrations and rituals, as these lines from a 2^nd century AD papyrus letter from Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. 44 3313) informs:

‘Apollonios and Sarapis to Dionysia, greetings. Your wonderful announcement about the wedding of the most excellent Sarapion has filled us with joy, and we would have come straight away to serve him on a day long-awaited by us and to take part to the celebration; but because of the prefect’s court sessions and because we are just recovering from being sick, we were unable to come. There are not many roses here yet; on the contrary they are few and from all the estates and the garland makers we were barely able to collect the thousand that we sent to you with Sarapas, even by picking those that should have been picked only tomorrow. We had as much narcissus as you wanted, so we have sent four thousand instead of the two thousand…’

Remains of flowers and garlands have been found in many tombs of the Roman period in Hawara and other Egyptian sites. Petrie mentions them often in his notebooks and excavation reports, a well-preserved example of a wreath can be seen at the British Museum and the Manchester Museum have some too (5371.c-d). As many others, the British Museum sample was made by immortelles (Helichrysum stoechas), a perennial flower imported to Egypt from Italy or Greece that now seems to grow especially on canal banks and in cemeteries (S. Walker et al., Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt, London 1997, p. 207).

The shape and colour of the garland’s flowers represented on Dion’s mummy case recall rose buds and may have a connection with Isis and Osiris cult. In Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, a Latin novel written in mid-second century AD, Lucius returns to his human nature thanks to a complex ritual in which a garland of roses carried by a priest in his right hand (the same as our Dion) and later ingested by the protagonist has a central meaning (XI, 6; 13). The ritual has been linked by scholars to the so-called ‘Spell of the Crown Justification’ contained in the Book of the Dead and preserved on papyri and temple walls (P. Derchaine, ‘La couronne de la justification: Essai d’analyse d’un rite ptolémaique’, Chronique d’ Égypte 30 (1955), 225-87). This ritual was transformed and integrated with Greek practices in the Ptolemaic period and linked with Isis and Osiris religious rites. We may wonder then if the papyrus roll in Dion’s left hand was actually a copy of this book or of the spell.

We will try to have a look at the back inscription of Dion soon, stay tuned!

Life and Death in Roman Egypt: Artemidoros and his family

Artemidoros junior, Artemidoros senior and Thermoutharin

Artemidoros junior, British Museum EA 21810

I spent last Bank Holiday weekend in the British Museum and paid a visit to Artemidoros junior. This spectacular mummy case of the Roman period (ab. 100-120 AD) was found by Petrie in Hawara together with other two, that of an older Artemidoros, now in Manchester (1775), and another of a woman, Thermoutharin, now in Cairo (33231). The three were maybe members of the same family. They were not only buried together, but the style of their cases looks very similar, probably coming from the same workshop. A Greek inscription on the cases wishes them a safe trip to the underworld. ‘Farewell Artemidorus!’ — with a misspelling here, Ἀρτεμίδωρε εὐψύχι (instead of εὐψύχει).

The inscription: Farewell Artemidoros!

While the two men have a typical Greek name (Artemidoros, ‘the gift of Artemis’), the woman has a name that although written in Greek derives from the Egyptian goddess’ name Thermouthis (Renenutet, later Thermouthis a fertility goddess connected with Isis). This offers an interesting insight into questions of identity in Roman Egypt. Under the Roman rule, the Hellenised elite maintained the privileged status acquired during the Ptolemaic period, so it was important to publicise your ‘Greek’ face. However we can see through papyri that men often had double names, a Greek or Latin one and an Egyptian, while women were often given names connected with native deities. Moreover despite their Roman togas, jewellery and portrait style, it is Egyptian funerary religion that these people chose for assuring their souls an afterlife.

The finding

The three mummies were discovered in 1888 while the famous German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann was visiting Petrie in Hawara, as recorded by the same Petrie with a note of pride: “By the time they [Schliemann and his two companions] have lunched a procession of three gilt mummies is seen coming across the mounds, glittering in the sun. These are of fresh style, three painted portraits, but the body covered with a bright red-brown varnish and scenes in relief gilt all over it. The name on each mummy across the breast. These I must bring away intact, they are so fine and in such good condition.”[1]

Life and death: Artemidoros and his family

Artemidoros senior, Manchester Museum 1775

The mummy of Artemidoros junior had been at the centre of scientific research, which has established he died when he was about 19-21 years old. The Manchester Artemidoros will be soon processed through CT-scanning and other inspections that will tell us more about his life and death. He has a beard that made scholars infer he was older than the other Artemidoros when he died, but on the basis of these data we cannot be sure about the relationship between the two men and the woman. A scientific study of the three mummies would be ideal since it would definitely help answering questions about the eventual family relationship between the three that some scholars have questioned.

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[1] Petrie, MS Journal, 16 December 1887-12 May 1888, pp. 80-81 cited from S. Walker and al. (eds.), Ancient Faces. Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt, London 1997, 57.

Land and Power in the Ancient and Post-Ancient World

3rd International Conference of the Research Network Imperium & Officium: Land and Power in the Ancient and Post-Ancient World, University of Vienna, 20–22 February 2013

In addressing the theme of ‘Land and Power’ we wish to examine the power base of office-holding élites in pre-modern societies. As a tool of analysis we frame our questions in Weberian terms, distinguishing between exercise of power in a bureaucratic mode (ex officio) and power based on economic wealth and privilege in a patrimonial setting, with office being conferred as a consequence. Our focus will be on the interplay between economic power and bureaucratic rationality. In most pre-industrial societies, power and wealth was based on landownership and the control of food production: landownership as the basis of power of an office-holding élite is a recurring phenomenon in ancient states. We also seek to question whether such élites (especially in the periphery) were a force for cohesion or disruption from the point of view of the state, and to investigate the means by which the state sought to integrate and control office-holding élites, e.g. by the use of parallel and/or overlapping chains of command, or by co-optation through court offices and privileges.

Programme (provisional)

Wednesday, 20 February 2013

9–9.30 a.m. Welcome address by Jursa, Michael and Palme, Bernhard (Vienna)

Section 1: Elite Formation

Chair: Jursa, Michael

9.30–10 a.m. Garfinkle, Steven J. (Washington): Landownership and Office-Holding: Pathways to Privilege and Authority under the Third Dynasty of Ur

10–10.30 a.m. Kaiser, Anna (Vienna): Flavius Athanasius, dux et Augustalis Thebaidis

10.30–11 a.m. coffee break

11–11.30 a.m. Scheuble-Reiter, Sandra (Chemnitz): Military Service and the Allotment of Land in Ptolemaic Egypt

11.30–12 a.m. Paulus, Susanne (Münster): The System of Landownership in the Middle Babylonian Time (1500–1000 BC)

12 a.m.–2 p.m. lunch break

Section 2: Feudalisms

Chair: Baker, Heather

2–2.30 p.m. Sarris, Peter (Cambridge): Land and Power in Byzantium c. 700–1000

2.30–3 p.m. Moreno García, Juan Carlos (Paris): Land, Elites and Officialdom in Pharaonic Egypt: Land Tenure Strategies in Elite Building and State Reproduction

3–3.30 p.m. Mazza, Roberta (Manchester): Land and Power in Late Antiquity: The Egyptian Point of View

3.30–4 p.m. coffee break

4–4.30 p.m. Reculeau, Hervé (Paris): Patrimonial and Official Land-Tenure in 2^nd Millennium Upper Mesopotamia

4.30–5 p.m. Tost, Sven (Vienna): The riparii domorum gloriosarum: Police Power and Large-Scale Landholding in Late Antique Egypt

5–5.30 p.m. Selz, Gebhard (Vienna): Land, Property and Rights of Disposal: A Glimpse at Mesopotamian Sources of the 3^rd Millennium

Keynote address:

6.30–8 p.m. Morony, Michael (Los Angeles): Issues and Opportunities in the Study of Land and Power

Thursday, 21 February 2013

Section 3: Centre and Periphery I

Chair: Tost, Sven

9.30–10 a.m. Waerzeggers, Caroline (Leiden): The Persian State in Babylonia: Integration and Control of Office-Holding Élites

10–10.30 a.m. Malczycki, W. Matt (Auburn): Caliphal Policy and the Baladiyyūn of Ifriqiya 757–800 CE

10.30–11 a.m. coffee break

11–11.30 a.m. Pirngruber, Reinhard (Vienna): Land and Power in Late Achaemenid Babylonia

11.30–12 a.m. Palme, Bernhard (Vienna): From City Council to Senate: Landlords from Late Antique Egypt Becoming Imperial Aristocrats

12 a.m.–2 p.m. lunch break

Section 4: Control and Taxation of the Country and its People

Chair: Procházka, Stephan

2–2.30 p.m. Varisco, Daniel Martin (Hempstead): Why the Sultan is Rich: A Case Study of Bureaucracy in Rasulid Yemen (13th–14th centuries)

2.30–3 p.m. Kehoe, Dennis (New Orleans): Urbanization, Land, and Political Control in the Roman Empire

3–3.30 p.m. Frantz-Murphy, Gladys (Denver): Environment and History in the Early Islamic Middle East

3.30–4 p.m. coffee break

4–4.30 p.m. Manning, Joseph (New Haven): Patrimonial Power, State Power, and Land in Greco-Roman Egypt

4.30–5 p.m. Heidemann, Stefan (Hamburg): The Seljuq Form of Government in Northern Syria and Northern Mesopotamia

Friday, 22 February 2013

Section 5: Centre and Periphery II

Chair: Palme, Bernhard

9.30–10 a.m. Mathisen, Ralph (Urbana): The Settlement of Barbarians in the Late Roman World: Barbarians Who Got Something

10–10.30 a.m. Baker, Heather (Vienna): Land and Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire

10.30–11 a.m. coffee break

11–11.30 a.m. Bsees, Ursula (Vienna): The Partition of Land and Power at the Periphery: Some Notes on the Agreements between St Catherine’s Monastery and Surrounding Bedouin

Conclusion

11.30 a.m.–13.00 p.m. Résumé by Keenan, James (Chicago) and general discussion

Curator’s Diary: CT-scanning Demetria with the BBC

A report of Campbell Price, the curator of the Egyptian collection in the Manchester Museum, on CT-scanning of the mummy of Demetria, a woman buried in Hawara in the first century AD.

Curator’s Diary: CT-scanning Demetria with the BBC.

The Coptic Manuscripts of Monsieur Dujardin and the Crawford Collection in the John Rylands Library, Manchester

The Coptic Manuscripts of Monsieur Dujardin and the Crawford Collection in the John Rylands Library, Manchester.

Posted by Alin Suciu, you can read about the formation of the John Rylands Library Coptic manuscripts collection via the Earl of Crawford’s acquisitions on the antiquity market.

Portraits of women

Manchester Museum inv. 2266 (Hawara, Fayum, 138-160 AD) The woman is wearing a purple tunic maybe similar to that of the daughter of Herakleos (P.Ryl. 151)
© The Manchester Museum

Last week I had a meeting with Campbell Price and Bryan Sitch at the Manchester Museum to discuss a project for enhancing the use of artefacts in the teaching of Roman history. We were looking for objects that enlighten the life of ancient individuals and I complained about the lack of women from our list. In fact, if we turn our attention to papyri, women do appear in surprising ways; papyri offer views on women’s life as no other kind of sources do.

Petitions are intriguing. In these one-sided accounts we would expect to find women as the victims of violence and injustice, but we do actually find them acting on both sides, as victims and perpetrators.

 Herais attacks the daughter of Herakleos

P.Ryl. 151: http://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.ryl;2;151/

P.Ryl. 151 recto
© The John Rylands Library

To Gaius Iulius Pholus, head of the policemen (epistates ton phylakiton), from Herakleos, son of Pathermouthis, from Euemeria in the district of Themistes. Herais, the wife of Heraklas, son of P…., of the same village, having entered into my house in the village and seized my daughter, gave her many blows all over the body, stripped and tore off her purple tunic and carried away 100 drachmas from those of the gymnasiarch[1] which I administer. For this reason write to the chief of the police (archephodos) …

(second hand) To the chief of police (archephodos): send them up!

Year 5 of Gaius Caesar Emperor Augustus Saviour, the 20 of Sebastos (= 17 October 40 AD).

(On the verso the editors read traces of an address ‘ To the chief of police (archephodos) of Euemeria’ and date now disappeared)

Among many other things, the papyrus informs us on the way public order worked in the early Roman period. Herakleos, the father of the woman attacked, petitioned the head of the police at the nome (regional district) level to intervene on the village police highest authority, the archephodos. But isolated as it is, the petition does not allow us knowing if the story is true and how the quarrel ended up. We may wonder about the reasons behind the attack. Herakleos administers the treasure of the local gymnasium: were there shortfalls in the gymnasiarch account that he had to explain, and then he made up a story? Or was Herais mad at the girl for some reasons?

Soueris, a runaway girl

P.Ryl. 128: http://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.ryl;2;128/

To Serapion, head of the policemen, from Hatres, son of M…, oil-maker of those who are in Euemeria, in the division of Themistes, of Gaius Iulius Ethenodoros and Tiberius Calpurnius Tryphon. Soueris, daughter of Harsuthmis, olive-carrier that works with me under contract changed her mind, left the mill, and escaped persuaded by her father Arsuthmios as long ago as the 19^th of Mecheir of the 16^th year of Tiberius Caesar Augustus (= 13 February 30 AD), her father being oblivious of what he with his wife owes me according to a contract of engagement (paramone). And she carried off from my house a cloak worth 4 silver drachmas and 40 silver drachmas, which I was keeping for payment of the rent. Therefore I have suffered not a minor damage. For this reason I ask the accused persons to be brought to you for the ensuing punishment. Farewell.

Hatres, aged 35, with a scar in the middle of the forehead.

Soueris, daughter of Arsuthmios, was due to work as olive-carrier with Hatres at an oil-mill probably for repaying the interests on a debt contracted by her parents. This seems alluded by the mention of a paramone contract (l. 20), usually a contract of service to fulfill the payment of interests (or the capital) of a loan, meaning that a loan was fulfilled by staying at the service of the creditor. But Hatres complains that the girl ran away on suggestion of her father bringing with her a cloak and a sum of money. We can exercise our imagination on the reasons behind the escape, in view of the very weak position the girl must have had at the factory. How was life for a girl at the house of a 35 years old man with whom her family was indebted?

Aplounous, Thermis and Eudemonis, a day at the village baths…

P.Ryl. 124: http://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.ryl;2;124/

Through this illiterate petition we enter into the village baths of Euemeria and see women quarrelling and fighting. The text of the petition begins on one side of the papyrus, continues on the back; it has mistakes and corrections, and is incomplete, which indicate that it was a draft.

From Hippalos, son of Archis, farmer of public land inhabitant of the village of Euemeria in the division of Themistes. On the 6^th of Tubi (1 January), as my wife Aplounous and her mother Thermis (were bathing?), Eudemonis, daughter of Protarchos, Etthutais, daughter of Pees, Dius, son of Ammonios, and Heraclous attacked them and gave my wife Aplounous and her mother in the bath of the village many blows all over the body, so that she is laid up in bed, and in the struggle she lost a golden ear-ring weighing three quarters, a bracelet of unstamped metal weighing sixteen drachmae, and a bronze bowl worth twelve drachmae, and Thermis her mother lost a golden ear-ring weighing two and a half quarters, and … (here the text stops)

The three papyri here discussed belong to a larger group of petitions, all dated to the first half of the first century AD, acquired on the antiquity market by B.P. Grenfell and A.S. Hunt and then assigned to the John Rylands Library. The documents (P.Ryl. 124-152) were published in the second volume of the Catalogue of the Greek Papyri in the John Rylands Library at Manchester (1915). Few other papyri belonging to the same lot are now dispersed in other collection. These petitions concern people from the village of Euemeria (Fayum), but are addressed to the head of the police or other officers in the nome capital, Arsinoe. Through them we can observe the early Roman administration at work in Egypt. The distance between the two localities was of about 40 km. The first petition here reported reveals details of the process. It was endorsed and addressed on the verso to the archephodos in Euemeria, therefore it seems reasonable to think that the document was written in or sent to the capital of the nome, Arsinoe, presented successfully to the head of the police there, and then sent back to the village police authority in order to bring the people involved to the capital.

If you want to know more about petitions in Roman Egypt I recommend B. Kelly, Petitions, Litigation and Social Control in Roman Egypt, Oxford 2011.

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[1] The head of the gymnasium. The gymnasium was a cultural and educative institution where boys were admitted at the age of fourteen. It was also a center for the promotion of the Greek culture, and a sort of a gentlemen club. The gymnasium had a political dimension since only the Hellenised elite was admitted in.

Spectral imaging at the John Rylands Library

The Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care (CHICC) of the John Rylands Library has experimented recently spectral imaging technologies on some papyri and other manuscripts. You can read a report on the experiment and see some images from here.

Among the pieces processed there are some samples of the carbonised papyri from Thmuis (modern Tell el Timai), which are scattered nowadays in different collections; those in the Rylands Library were purchased on the antiquity market and come from unofficial excavations (see Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, vol. II, pp. 290-292). These documents are particularly important because of the location of Thmuis in the Delta region, where few papyri were found since the humidity of the area.

Is Cottonopolis back?

The Manchester Evening News is reporting a plan to revive the textile industry in Greater Manchester, the Victorian Cottonopolis. The article explains how UK manufacturing industries are trying to revive this old tradition based in the North West.

Faces&Voices really like the idea since it was cotton that linked Manchester and Egypt. The Rylands, Haworth and other merchants and manufacturer not only bought extraordinary ancient artifacts from Egypt, but also had commercial interests there. Rylands & Sons established an agency in Alexandria in 1879, ten years after the opening of the Suez channel and three years before the establishing of the English protectorate over Egypt.

The Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894 transforming Manchester into an international city port. It is through this gate that the Egyptian cotton was distributed to the city and surrounding region mills.  Egyptian cotton became especially important during the American civil war, which caused a collapse of the import from that country.

Despite the many shadows of that era, let’s hope that with Cottonopolis some positive Victorian attitudes towards wealth, public share and the importance of the humanities will come back.

Students’ projects

A new page presenting some Students’ projects has just been added.

“Peter you’ve always been hot-tempered…” The Gospel of Mary in Manchester (P.Ryl. 463)

The case with the Gospel of Mary fragment in the Crawford room

P.Ryl. 463: The Gospel of Mary

I’ve recently realised that few people in Manchester know that one of the two extant Greek fragments of the Gospel of Mary is in the John Rylands Library, and now on exhibition. The gospel in question is an apocryphal (a writing that has not been included later in the Church canon of the Bible) where a Mary – possibly Mary of Magdala, but this is uncertain since other Christian women brought this name – has a central role in the inner circle of Jesus’ first disciples.

There’s no surviving extant copy of this book, but only three fragmentary manuscripts are preserved from antiquity (P.Ryl. 463, P.Oxy 3525 and P.Berol. 8502). On the basis of these, scholars have reconstructed the Gospel main content as follows. It started with Jesus, the Saviour, appearing to the disciples after the resurrection. He gives a speech and instructs them on how to preach the gospel, and then leaves. The disciples, however, feel discomforted and are afraid to go out. At this point Mary stands up and reassures the others. Under Peter’s invitation she reports some hidden teachings that the Saviour in a vision reserved only to her. At the end of her speech, Andrew and Peter react with disbelief, while Levi trusts Mary and goes out to preach her Gospel.

A closer look at the Rylands fragment

The Rylands fragment was purchased with others in Egypt on behalf of the library by J. Rendel Harris in 1917, but was recognised as “The Gospel of Mary” only later by C. Roberts when he published the third volume of the Catalogue (ed. 1938, pp. 18-23).

It came from Oxyrhynchus as some notes on the envelope where it was kept before edition and conservation revealed. It is tiny (ab. 8.9 x 9.9 cm) and written on both sides. This shows that it was originally part of a codex, a book composed by sheets of papyrus folded and then stitched together in a way to obtain an artefact very similar to our paper books. In fact the numbers of the pages, κα (21) and κβ (22), are still visible on top of each side. We have no idea of what the entire ancient codex-book contained originally. The Coptic version of the Gospel of Mary now in Berlin comes from a codex collecting also other three apocryphal works, the Apocryphon of John, the Sophia of Jesus Christ and the Act of Peter (P. Berol. 8502). In the Berlin papyrus the title “Gospel of Mary” is added at the end of the last page as it sometimes happens in ancient manuscripts (colophon), our fragment unfortunately breaks at the end and the line reporting the title is supplied by scholars, but actually lost.

Thanks to the Coptic more extensive version, we now know that what is preserved in Manchester seems to be the final part of the gospel. On the basis of the Coptic text Roberts estimated that the writing on the Manchester pages should have occupied an area of about 7.5 x 12 cm therefore we may roughly estimate an original leaf measuring with margins just a little bit more than this. The Rylands papyrus and P.Oxy. 3525 have been dated to the early 3^rd century, while the Berlin Coptic codex to the 5^th century. All the copies are dated on palaeographical ground (i.e. analysing features of the handwriting and comparing it with that of firmly dated papyri, not an infallible method but the best we have…).

I played a little with the tiny fragment, making my own translation of it. I put in square brackets words that are not clearly preserved on the papyrus. I tried to respect the line division as much as possible. If you compare my translation with that of the Catalogue you’ll see that some words were more legible at the time of the first publication. In fact the ink seemed to have deteriorated or even faded away in some part of the papyrus.

When only three fragmentary copies of a work (of which the most extensive one is in a different language) are available it is a challenge to establish ‘the text’ as it should have been. To complicate the situation further, as noticed in an excellent book on the scribes who transmitted the first copies of early Christian literature, early Christian manuscripts show a very high rate of variations and differences.[1] We should bear in mind that texts were extremely fluid in antiquity, and what we have are fragmentary texts survived by chance, even thrown away at some point as it was the case of this fragment that comes from the ancient rubbish heaps of Oxyrhynchus.

On the right top of the first line of the text on the recto (p. 21) there are some traces of ink that will be investigated next year with the help of new imaging technologies.

English translation of P.Ryl. 463, images from the John Rylands Library database: 21 (recto) and 22 (verso).

21

for the remaining of the course of time

of the aeon, [I will find] rest in silence.”

When she had told these things, Mary went silent

as the saviour had spoken thus far.

Andrew said: “Brothers,

what do you think about these discourses? As [for myself]

I do not believe that [the sa-]

viour said these words, for it seems [to contra-]

dict his thoughts. When the saviour was asked about these matters, he [2]

spoke to a woman in secret and [not open-]

ly so that all of us would have lis[ten]

[at something] more worthy of mention[…]

(papyrus breaks off here)

22

of the savior.” Levi said to Peter:

“Peter you’ve always been hot-tempered

and so now you question this

woman [as] if we were her adversaries.

If the saviour deemed her worthy,

who are you to set her at naught?

For knowing her thoroughly, he

loved her steadily. Rather let us

be ashamed and having put on

the perfect man, we will accomplish

what has been ordered to us, to preach

the gospel without divisions or rules as

[the saviour said.”] Having said this, Le-

[vi left and] began pr[eaching]

[the Gospel according to Mary]

(the papyrus breaks off here)

If you want to know more about this Gospel and the other copies, I recommend C. Tuckett, The Gospel of Mary, Oxford 2007 (with some differences in the reading and translations from what you have here and in the Catalogue) and K.L. King, The Gospel of Mary of Magdala. Jesus and the First Woman Apostle, Santa Rosa Ca. 2003.

As you may already know, professor Karen King of Harvard University has recently announced the discovery of a Coptic papyrus fragment dating to the 4^th century where according to her interpretation Jesus mentions his wife (you can read a pre-edition and interpretation of the fragment here). This gospel, if not a forgery as some scholars think, would belong to the same group of early Christian gospels as the Rylands fragment that gives us images of Jesus and his inner circle and family different from those later established as ‘normal’, ‘canonical’. Texts like the Gospel of Mary and many others did not find their way into the New Testament canon, were later declared deviant and therefore went lost till when they reappeared from the sands of Egypt. We are now more aware about diversities in the early Christian movement thanks to these discoveries.

You can have an overview on the current, lively debate on the so-called Jesus wife papyrus fragment in the excellent summary published on Rogueclassicism Blog. Challenges to the authenticity have been moved, among others, by Alin Suciu on his blog, that I recommend following.

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[1] K. Haines-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters. Literacy, Power, and the Transmission of Early Christian Literature, Oxford 2000, p. 106: ‘Among the 5,400 Greek manuscripts of New Testament texts, for example, no two are identical; more relevant, perhaps, is the fact that 52 extant manuscripts that can be dated to the period from the second century to the fourth exhibit more differences and variations than the thousands of later manuscripts.’

[2] The text here differs from the Coptic version. The Berlin papyrus reports Peter as the one who moves the following points while Peter is mentioned in our fragment only on the other side of the papyrus.  Some scholars solve this passage this way: Being asked, <Peter said>: “The saviour etc. …” However ‘Peter said’ is not in the text: was this a slip of the scribe while copying or are the two versions depending on different traditions? Maybe Peter appeared in the lines that now are lost, but this is not certain.