I’ve just discovered that Scott Carroll, aka Hey Doc, has posted and made publicly available two powerpoint presentations, one on “Dismantling a mummy mask”, the other on scanning mummy masks for retrieving papyri at this address: http://www.slideshare.net/heydoc1/presentations
The “dismantled” mask as well as the texts recovered are certainly Ptolemaic. An event of this kind and lead by Scott Carroll took place at Baylor University and involved professors and students of the Department of Classics on September 9, 2011, as reported in the Bulletin of the Department (pp. 1-2).
According to the American law, owners of antiquities are free to dispose of their items as they wish. This can be legal, but for me it is a highly questionable practice from an ethical and cultural point of view. Moreover, and once again, where do all these masks come from?
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I don’t know where Carroll gets his masks from, but this article sheds some light on the booming eBay trade.
Here’s the link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/31/egyptian-tomb-robbing-market-explodes-on-ebay.html
Thank you Rodney, I’d add also this interesting video on the illegal, very well organised, antiquity market featuring Monica Hanna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4debjEurDu8