by Marc Masurovsky
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| Part of the Khmunu Manuscript |
One of HARP’s goals is to break down the research silos that separate Holocaust researchers from cultural heritage protection specialists and experts on “indigenous” and “colonial” objects. For that reason, we endeavor periodically to showcase items which do not fit into the “Nazi-era paradigm” and see what we can learn from their fragmentary and oh so incomplete histories. Can the methods used to tease out ownership details from items displaced during the Nazi era help us with fleshing out the fragmented stories surrounding archaeological, indigenous and colonial objects?
Every object with cultural, artistic, and/or religious value and significance, has a history as it travels through space and time with human assistance. Ownership trails are difficult to reconstruct in the absence of written documents. Yet, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Strategies developed in the course of several decades to elicit the troubled past of countless objects displaced during the Nazi era are readily applicable to other objects displaced under different circumstances but nevertheless suffer the same fate as they become commodified and monetized on the international art market.
In the case of papyri, ancient handwritten scrolls produced thousands of years in ancient Egypt. If we scratch the surface of the international papyrus trade, we note similarities with the trade in Old Masters and similar art objects.
Let’s now take a look at one such manuscript, referred to as the “Khmunu Manuscript” while scholars have described it as a “Handbook of Ritual Power.”
The “Khmunu Manuscript” or “codex” consists of love spells and other incantations. It was published in its deciphered and annotated form in 2014 as the “Handbook of Ritual Power," the first volume in a series entitled “The Macquarie Papyri” released by Macquarie University in Sydney (Australia). In 2018, another researcher who worked on a papyrus fragment at Macquarie University discovered that it too was a love spell. He wondered whether this fragment could have also come from the “Handbook of Ritual Power.”
The manuscript’s author(s) is (are) unknown. It is estimated to be approximately 1300 years old and handwritten in ancient Coptic script. The use of language traces its origins back to Upper Egypt, possibly near Hermopolis Magna, modern-day Al-Ashmūnayn.
One blogger alleges that the manuscript was discovered during the German Expedition of 1929-1939 (Black dates its discovery to 1929) while exploring around the temple of Thoth at Hermopolis Magna (“Khmunu”, the City of Eight). If so, how and when did the manuscript reach Europe? If the manuscript was discovered during the German Expedition, how and when did it reach Anton Fackelmann and his nephew Michael in Vienna (Austria)?
The “Khmunu Manuscript” or “codex” consists of love spells and other incantations. It was published in its deciphered and annotated form in 2014 as the “Handbook of Ritual Power," the first volume in a series entitled “The Macquarie Papyri” released by Macquarie University in Sydney (Australia). In 2018, another researcher who worked on a papyrus fragment at Macquarie University discovered that it too was a love spell. He wondered whether this fragment could have also come from the “Handbook of Ritual Power.”
The manuscript’s author(s) is (are) unknown. It is estimated to be approximately 1300 years old and handwritten in ancient Coptic script. The use of language traces its origins back to Upper Egypt, possibly near Hermopolis Magna, modern-day Al-Ashmūnayn.
One blogger alleges that the manuscript was discovered during the German Expedition of 1929-1939 (Black dates its discovery to 1929) while exploring around the temple of Thoth at Hermopolis Magna (“Khmunu”, the City of Eight). If so, how and when did the manuscript reach Europe? If the manuscript was discovered during the German Expedition, how and when did it reach Anton Fackelmann and his nephew Michael in Vienna (Austria)?
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| A view of Hermopolis Magna |
There is no indication of the date of exportation of the manuscript from Egypt. Neither is there any evidence as to when the manuscript crossed into Austria and reached the Viennese market.
It suffices to say that the provenance record for this and many other papyri is sadly lacking. In the case of the Khmunu Manuscript, we can establish for certain that the manuscript was in the hands of Michael Fackelmann (Vienna) as late as 1981. He may have come into possession of it in the 1970s.
In late 1981, the Museum of Ancient Cultures at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, acquired the manuscript from Michael Fackelmann. The relationship between Macquarie University and the Fackelmann family dates back to the 1960s and 1970s during which time the University acquired many papyri.
By Anton Fackelman’s own admission, he dealt directly with “mummy looters” in Cairo and perhaps elsewhere in Egypt. This fact alone has raised eyebrows about the ethics of Fackelmann’s collecting habits and whether it is safe to acquire any papyri from the Fackelmann family. If “mummy looters” represent one of the few ways by which to acquire papyri in Egypt, then the bulk of the international papyrus trade should be questioned as a hotbed of illicit activity.
One of the Fackelmann family’s strongest critics is Dr. Michael A. Freeman, who describes himself as a “Greek historian and manuscript researcher” working at Duke University. [link to Freeman’s page at Duke] Freeman reports how, in January 1969, Anton Fackelmann acquired papyri from a “mummy looter.”
“Dr. Anton Fackelmann claims, for example, that he extracted P.Duk.inv. 34 and 16 other pieces of early Ptolemiac papyri from the chest of a mummy purchased from a mummy looter in Faiyum, Egypt in January 1969. Among these papyri are five documents verifiably dateable to the early Ptolemaic period, ca. 256 BCE (P.Duk.inv. 23, 24, 25, 26, 28). If one takes Fackelmann at his word—that is, that his papyri were all extracted from the same Ptolemaic mummy—this would date all 17 pieces of the cartonnage archive to the mid-third century BCE.” Freeman’s critique is largely based on the dating methods Fackelmann used to prove that some of the papyri were from the early Ptolemaic period, which would increase their value. As Freeman states, “Early Ptolemaic papyri were exceptionally rare and difficult to acquire in the 1960s-70s.”
A closer look at the ownership histories (provenance) of papyri acquired by Duke University reveals that from the 1960s on many papyri either came directly from the Fackelmann family or one of the Fackelmanns appears in the fragmentary chains of custody either in first or second position. More often than not, Anton Fackelmann appears after an “unknown source”. These provenance gaps (missing information in the chain of custody) beg questions like:
By Anton Fackelman’s own admission, he dealt directly with “mummy looters” in Cairo and perhaps elsewhere in Egypt. This fact alone has raised eyebrows about the ethics of Fackelmann’s collecting habits and whether it is safe to acquire any papyri from the Fackelmann family. If “mummy looters” represent one of the few ways by which to acquire papyri in Egypt, then the bulk of the international papyrus trade should be questioned as a hotbed of illicit activity.
One of the Fackelmann family’s strongest critics is Dr. Michael A. Freeman, who describes himself as a “Greek historian and manuscript researcher” working at Duke University. [link to Freeman’s page at Duke] Freeman reports how, in January 1969, Anton Fackelmann acquired papyri from a “mummy looter.”
“Dr. Anton Fackelmann claims, for example, that he extracted P.Duk.inv. 34 and 16 other pieces of early Ptolemiac papyri from the chest of a mummy purchased from a mummy looter in Faiyum, Egypt in January 1969. Among these papyri are five documents verifiably dateable to the early Ptolemaic period, ca. 256 BCE (P.Duk.inv. 23, 24, 25, 26, 28). If one takes Fackelmann at his word—that is, that his papyri were all extracted from the same Ptolemaic mummy—this would date all 17 pieces of the cartonnage archive to the mid-third century BCE.” Freeman’s critique is largely based on the dating methods Fackelmann used to prove that some of the papyri were from the early Ptolemaic period, which would increase their value. As Freeman states, “Early Ptolemaic papyri were exceptionally rare and difficult to acquire in the 1960s-70s.”
A closer look at the ownership histories (provenance) of papyri acquired by Duke University reveals that from the 1960s on many papyri either came directly from the Fackelmann family or one of the Fackelmanns appears in the fragmentary chains of custody either in first or second position. More often than not, Anton Fackelmann appears after an “unknown source”. These provenance gaps (missing information in the chain of custody) beg questions like:
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| Anton Fackelmann studying a papyrus |
- Where, when and from whom did Anton Fackelmann acquire these items?
- Were there no other intermediaries between the Fackelmann family and the “mummy looters”?
- Have any documents been produced which detail the exportation from Egypt and importation into Austria of these papyri?
In a more general way, Prof. Roberta Mazza (University of Bologna, Italy) points out the due diligence failures inherent to the global papyrology market and wonders how thousands of papyri were removed from Egypt in the 1960s and 1970s without any questions being asked about their provenance and origin by Egyptian officials and Western experts, collectors and, most notably, the museums that acquire and house them. Prof. Mazza describes how mummy cartonnage has been exploited as a source of papyri that eventually wend their way through looters’ hands into the clutches of Western collections. The papyri extraction process destroys the mummy cartonnage and, thus, a valuable piece of Egyptian cultural heritage. What is the value of mummy cartonnage when weighed against that of a potentially priceless fragment of papyrus? Who makes that decision? Is it in the interest of science or the interest of the individual collector or museum to acquire this fragment?
Prof. Mazza charges these papyri collectors and experts with indulging in “colonial” behavior at a heavy cost to Egyptian cultural heritage: “Western papyrologists, scholars and pseudo-scholars are destroying mummy masks and panels” much like Christian evangelical collectors like the Green Family of Hobby Lobby fame whose “search for papyri from mummy cartonnage is dictated by the wish to retrieve biblical manuscripts, and through them the word of God…” a specious reason if there ever was one.
Whatever the motives behind this scholarly and pseudo-scholarly obsession with papyri, Western behavior has all the hallmarks of predation for the sake of acquisition and scholarship. How does this apply to papyri constantly appearing on the international art market? Buyer beware, chances are that they were looted.
In sum, the most reliable pieces of information in the history of the Khmunu Manuscript are:
Ancient Egypt (maybe Hermopolis Magna)
Michael Fackelmann, Vienna (Austria)
Macquarie University, Sydney (Australia)
The location of the manuscript in or near Hermopolis can be reasonably deduced based on the contextual information surrounding the papyrus.
Less reliable is the information regarding its actual find and how it came into the hands of the Fackelmann family.
Additional research requires doing a deep dive into the Fackelmann archives in order to sort out the transfer of the Khmunu Manuscript from Egypt to Austria. More generally, the international papyrus trade needs to be thoroughly investigated in order to ascertain how severe the problem is when it comes to the extraction and acquisition of papyri. A word of caution to those who have acquired papyri from the likes of Fackelmann. The absence of provenance is not a good sign and points to possible theft by “mummy looters.”
Caveat emptor.
Sources for images:
Ancient Egypt (maybe Hermopolis Magna)
Michael Fackelmann, Vienna (Austria)
Macquarie University, Sydney (Australia)
The location of the manuscript in or near Hermopolis can be reasonably deduced based on the contextual information surrounding the papyrus.
Less reliable is the information regarding its actual find and how it came into the hands of the Fackelmann family.
Additional research requires doing a deep dive into the Fackelmann archives in order to sort out the transfer of the Khmunu Manuscript from Egypt to Austria. More generally, the international papyrus trade needs to be thoroughly investigated in order to ascertain how severe the problem is when it comes to the extraction and acquisition of papyri. A word of caution to those who have acquired papyri from the likes of Fackelmann. The absence of provenance is not a good sign and points to possible theft by “mummy looters.”
Caveat emptor.
Sources for images:
- Khmunu Manuscript pages were taken by Dr. Malcolm Choat, Macquarie University
- Hermopolis Magna photo courtesy of Wikipedia
- Anton Fackelmann photo courtesy of Claremont College Digital Library.