Breathing Life into Mummified Texts: Prof. Scott Carroll talks about his research on ancient texts, (I)Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Scott Carroll, an American scholar of ancient languages and texts and director of the Manuscript Rese

He was in Jos doing textual criticism training with professors and PhD students from the University of Jos, Nassarawa State University, Jos ECWA Theological Seminary (JETS), St. Augustine’s Major Seminary, and the Lagos-based West Africa Theological Seminary. The workshop was two years in the planning, and, although the ASUU strike complicated his visit, JETS provided […]

He was in Jos doing textual criticism training with professors and PhD students from the University of Jos, Nassarawa State University, Jos ECWA Theological Seminary (JETS), St. Augustine’s Major Seminary, and the Lagos-based West Africa Theological Seminary. The workshop was two years in the planning, and, although the ASUU strike complicated his visit, JETS provided space for his lectures. He presented the material, which included fragments from the Greek poet Homer, the Greek comedian Menander, and several biblical texts in such an exciting way, that I almost wished I could jettison my PhD on Hausa literature and film and jump into the analysis of literature from the ancient world. I will run the interview I conducted with him for the next two weeks.
Could you introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about your work?
My name is Scott Carroll, and I have a PhD in ancient languages, ancient studies, and archeology. I have a deep professional passion for studying unknown ancient manuscripts. I have had the privilege of doing that for 30 years. I direct an independent research group, called the Manuscript Research Group, and it consists of the leading text, language, and manuscript specialists in the world. We work with private collections predominantly and also with museums to identify unknown ancient texts in a variety of languages. We seek to prepare those documents for publication. Because we have a deep passion as professors and teachers to see those documents have a meaningful impact on the community, students, and professors, we also incorporate them into university life, mentoring professors, mentoring students, and providing opportunity for them to participate in the publication and dissemination of information.
What does publication of these documents involve?
Well, these are completely unknown documents, so it means identifying them, validating that they are legitimate and verifying that they are legally owned according to international law. It means once they are identified, understanding exactly what they date to, where they came from, and how they relate to any other fragment in the world. So when we are done with our work, we know that not only is an item maybe the earliest or third earliest, but that there are these many others, this is how it fits together.
What are some of the texts you’ve worked on?
We’ve worked with some of the earliest texts of the most important documents written in the ancient world and the early medieval world. The most popular and widely disseminated author was Homer. In the last year we have identified probably 30 new texts of Homer, including some of the earliest known most significant passages. One of the most beloved female poets of the ancient world was Sappho. Her texts are highly elusive. Very few survived. We have a number of texts from Sappho, and other famous authors, philosophers, playwrights, and of course religious writings: Jewish works, Christian works, biblical texts in Hebrew and Greek and even Arabic texts, very early texts of the Qur’an. We are happy to find anything. You name important literature, we are finding the earliest or more significant texts of these things in private collections. So a wide variety.
You’ve actually found new texts from Homer and Sappho?
We’ve found fragments of unverified texts of Homer. These are texts that we’ve never had verification for, just later verification, that happens frequently because it’s such a big work. Sappho, yes, filling in the gaps of her texts. Menander, a famous comedian, we have a text of his to fill in the gaps of things we just don’t know. Many of these texts date to the time of the great African library of Alexandria.
You said you’ve found these texts in private collections? Where?
These collections geographically range throughout Europe, and they were amassed during the early 20th century, when items were purchased freely and openly on the art market. There are families that have substantial collections of interest and have not studied and invested in research. They need the assistance of research groups such as our own, to help them understand the value of what they have. Otherwise collectors will just go in and buy things from them blindly. So we see ourselves as really assisting people who lack resources, so if they should choose to sell them or donate them somewhere, they know exactly what they have.
Could you tell me about the texts you’ve found in mummy masks?
In Egypt in their burial process, they mummified the body and they covered it with ritual coverings. They are plaster with paintings and sometimes gold, but the infrastructure of how they did the inside of that varied. One way that they made the inside of the mummy covering, known as cartinage, is actually with discarded ancient papyrus paper. They would send someone out to the garbage dump to pick up fragments of discarded paper. It was very valuable material in the ancient world, so it was discarded with writings. They picked it up and they molded it wet and it dried and they applied the plaster over it. Other scholars have been doing this for many decades, but we have developed techniques to extract the inside writings while preserving the external art, and in doing that we’ve found encased texts that can date back to the library of Alexandria. These come from private collections of this mummy cartinage. It was very collectable, so there are large collections of it throughout Europe. We work with those.
What sort of texts did you find in these mummy masks?
On any given occasion, somewhere around 5% of the texts are what we would call literary and the other 90-95% are documentary. They are letters, they are accounts, they are receipts, they are notes of one sort or another. All are important to tell us about the culture and societal background, but the literary texts are of greater value, so you find an assortment of those. We try to be very systematic as scholars, so it is not like a treasure hunt. Sometimes you find nothing inside the cartinage. At the end of the day we end up finding whatever we find, and we find all sorts. When I talk about the range of materials we covered, it’s all sorts of things, from biblical texts to classical texts.
 How old were these masks?
Of course, it’s not just the mask, it’s a whole body covering—they go back thousands of years BC, but we target ones that date somewhere around 250 BC. Earlier and even during this time, they would sometimes use linen and also sometimes make them kind of solid on the inside, so they had other processes as well. But 250 gives us the date for the use of Greek and the emersion of the Greek language. The process died out in the first and second century AD. We know that when we are working with cartinage that dates to that time, we have strong likelihood of finding Greek texts. Greek texts yield the kind of literary texts we are looking for. But you may have Homer and the Bible and a love letter and an account, someone complaining about their taxes, all together in one mummy covering. They could range over several hundred years. It’s like a mini-excavation.
Have there been other writings systems and other languages in the cartinage the earlier you go?
Yes, it’s in variations of Egyptian languages. The scripts are called Hieratic and Demotic. They tend to be more accounts, and if they are literary texts, they are burial rituals
So for your own interests you’re looking particularly for Greek…
Yes, we all have to settle on something. For me, it’s Greek literature, Biblical literature.
To be continued.