The Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices

Author(s): James M. Robinson

Source: The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 42, No. 4, The Nag Hammadi Library and Its
Archeological Context (Autumn, 1979), pp. 206-224
Published by: The American Schools of Oriental Research
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3209514 .
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James M. Robinson Our informationconcerningthe Hammadiin the late spring of 1946.

The modern search for the
findspot of the Nag Hammadi
codices: patient investigation
has led to a reconstruction of
the intriguing events that
brought this important Coptic
collection to light.
discovery of the Nag Hammadi Some of the specific resultsof the
codices has been derived, until investigationsof Doresse and Tano,
recently, almost exclusivelyfrom apparentlymediatedthrough ltienne
publishedreportsbased on the Drioton, Directorof the Egyptian
investigationscarriedout by the Departmentof Antiquities,were
Frenchscholars,Jean and Marianne recordedin a memorandumof a
Doresse, from September1947 GermanEgyptologistresidingin
through January 1950. Phocion J. Cairo, LudwigKeimer,dated
Tano, a Cypriotantiquitiesdealer of 5 August 1950and conveyed to Gilles
Cairo, alreadyhad visited Nag Quispel on 13 April 1955. Subsequent

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 Jabal al-Tirif near Nag Hammadi.

visits to Nag Hammadi by Soren

Giversen, accompanied by Edward F. The
Wente from the Chicago House in
Luxor early in 1958, by Robert North
in 1959, and by Martin Krause in the
early 1960s did not add to the
information already obtained. My
visits on 3 March and 23 April 1966
produced a few leads, but I was not
of the Nag Hammadi Codices
able to follow them up for some time
because of the inaccessibility of the

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 Egyptian countryside to foreigners
from the Six-Day War in June 1967
until 1 November 1974. But I did get
back to Nag Hammadi for a few days
toward the end of November 1974,
for visits of some days in January and
September 1975, and for about a
month each of the next three winters
I' in connection with archeological
excavations related to the provenance
of the codices.
'-

Abtial-Majd,MuhammadcAlT's younger
brother,who claimsto be the one who
foundthejar, thoughMuhammadcAll
brokeit (top left).
'IIi
'Umm Almad, motherof the
discoverers(top right).
MubammadcAll withJabalal-TIrifin
backgroundat leftandthe Coptic
Monasterywithits churchtowersin the
backgroundat right(bottom).

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208 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979

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The Story of the Discoverers
The date of the discovery of the Nag
Hammadi codices can be established
by two murders-not altogether
uncommon happenings in the blood
feuds still found in rural Egypt! CAIT
(son of) Muhammad (son of)
Khalifah of the al-Samman clan of
al-Qasr (Chenoboskia), a village near
Nag Hammadi, was a guard of
irrigation machinery in the fields
about a kilometer from the village.
One night he killed and beheaded a
person, taken to be a thief, from
Hamrah Dom, the hamlet at the foot
of the cliff where the discovery was
made. By the middle of the next
morning cAli's son, Muhammad
(nicknamed al-Jamil, "handsome")
found his father shot through the
head lying next to the head of the
person he had killed. Muhammad
CAll (al-Jamil) recalls that this
happened about the time of the
Egyptian festival at the beginning of
the grain harvest, christianized as the
Coptic Easter Monday festival of
Sham al-NasTm("breathing the
air"-on the way to Emmaus). This
comes a week later than the church
calendar in the West. Muhammad
CAll dates the discovery of the jar
containing the Nag Hammadi codices
some six months after this family
tragedy. The discovery was made
while digging sabakh, soft soil used to village of 'Izbat al-Baisah lies near the
fertilize the hard ground of the grain
fields. This is usually done in
December. When pressed, Mu-
hammad CAlI thought the discovery
took place before the Coptic
Christmas, 7 January. Since the
Registry of Deaths in the Nag
Hammadi Real Estate Taxation
Office gives the date of the death
of CAll Muhammad KhalTfahas 7
May 1945, one may move from a
relative to an absolute chronology of
some precision. The date of the
discovery of the Nag Hammadi
codices was about December 1945, a
time that harmonizes with subsequent walled and fortified village of Hamrah
relative and absolute chronological
indications.
The site of the discovery is at the its dependent hamlets to the northeast
cliff called Jabal al-Tarif, some
11 km northeast of Nag Hammadi.
Here the Nile flows from east to west, noble race of Arabs directly descended
and there is a small bend south before from the Prophet. Hence, though the
curving around to the north. Nag
Hammadi lies on the left bank,
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The site of the discovery is at
the cliffcalled Jabal al-Tarif,
some 11 km northeast of
Nag Hammadi.
outside the bend, on its southwest
flank. The railroad tracks and paved
highway cross from the left to the
right bank over the bridge at Nag
Hammadi and run diagonally toward
the northeast, enclosing the fertile
land in the bend. The blood feud
involving al-Qasr, south of the tracks
inside the bend, and Hamrah Dim,
north of the tracks beyond the bend,
polarized this tiny area and made
access to Jabal al-Tarif, the site of
the discovery, very dangerous. The al-
Samman clan is numerous enough
inside the bend for cAli's family to
feel relatively secure as long as they
remain in the villages and farmlands
near al-Qasr.
Where the railroad and highway
pass through the narrows at the
northeast corner of the river bend,
i.e., where the Nile and the cliff are
only 2 km apart, a dirt road built on
an elevated irrigation dike turns left
off from the highway in a northwest
direction toward a gravel quarry and
a wadi in the cliff. The peaceful
cliff on the left, northwest of the
road. This road approaches the Jabal
al-Tarif where the face of the cliff
runs from south to north. The road
then turns and itself bends north,
running at ground level parallel to the
cliff some 200 m out from the foot of
the talus, the inclined plane of fallen
stone and dirt at the foot of the cliff.
Only at the road does the arable land
begin. But both the arable land to the
east of the road and the desert land
between the road and the cliff (legally
belonging to the Department of
Antiquities) are controlled by the
Dim, some 2.5 km northeast of
cIzbat al-Bfisah. Hamrah Daim and
are inhabited by the Hawwdirl,a
fierce clan conceiving of itself as a
some six families in the village also
feud among themselves, they have a
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979 209
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more basic sense of hostile alienation
from the surrounding population.
Thus, on reaching the cliff, one loses
continuity with the center of
population along the river. This area
is more related to the wadis in the
cliff, which recedes around an arc as
one moves northeast. This creates a
small inland empire that is sufficiently
isolated for the inhabitants often to
have taken the law into their own
hands without very effective govern-
mental intervention. It is from this
cliff area, as it arches back from the
Nile in full view of the Basilica of St.
Pachomius at Faw Qibli lying nearer
the river, that both the Nag Hammadi
codices and-farther east and a de-
cade later-the bulk of the "Bodmer
Papyri" seems to have come.
In order to ensure law and order
in al-Qasr, a strong man from the
Hawwarah, ismacil Husayn of the al-
Sayyid family of Hamrah Dim, had
been imposed as sheriff. In al-Qasr,
IsmaTil'sson Ahmad is thought to be
cAlT'smurderer, though this was
denied by the al-Sayyid family, which
said that the location of the body
near Ahmad's home was a plant
precisely to arouse such suspicion.
Sometime between a few days and a
month after the discovery of the
codices, Ahmad was sitting beside the
road near Muhammad 'AlT's home in
al-Qasr. He was asleep with his head
between his knees and a jug of
sugarcane molasses for sale beside
him. On learning that their victim
slept defenceless nearby, CAll Mu-
hammad Khallfah's widow, Umm
Ahmad-who had told her seven sons
to keep their mattocks sharp-handed
these instruments to her sons to
avenge her. They fell upon Ahmad
IsmT'il pitilessly. Aboi ai-Majd, then
a teenager, brags that he struck the
first blow straight to the head. After
having hacked Ahmad Ism2iil to
pieces limb by limb, they cut out his
heart and consumed it among them-
the ultimate act of blood revenge. A
Coptic neighbor, Andariwus, the son
of the priest CAbdal-Sayyid, called
upon them to stop killing, whereupon
they threatened to kill him if he
interfered. They added that if the
Christians wanted to intervene, the
best thing they could do was to bury
the remains. At the police investiga-
tion Andariwus and other villagers of
al-Qasr denied being witness to the December 1975, he affirmed that he at the discovery. It seems clear to him
crime because of the wide-spread then considered peace iestored, would that the discovery was under a large
hatred of the sheriff and also fear of feel free to go to the weekly bazaar at boulder in the flatland at the foot of
cAli's family. Though six of the sons al-Qasr, and assumed that Mu- the talus (the inclined plane of fallen
of CAli were detained by the police hammad CAll could come to Hamrah stone and dirt at the foot of the cliff).
and interrogated, the crime went Doim without harm, though not to But it has become equally clear that
officially unsolved. the dependent hamlet of Najc al-'Adi he did not actually know which
Under these circumstances it is where Muhammad Ahmad now lives. boulder. On two occasions, 3 March
not surprising that the sons of CAlI Muhammad Ahmad would not speak 1966 and 15 September 1975, he
did not go near the Jabal al-Tarif for to him but would walk on the other identified one or another of the
the next 30 years. Their prudence was side of the street. Yet two days earlier boulders almost 200 m (and on
realistic. Blood feuds have their own when Muhammad CAll had been 19 November 1974 a boulder 600 m)
momentum. Three months after interviewed on the same topic, he south of the actual site of the
Ahmad Ismacil's death his brother held a very different view. He discovery. When the two latter of
Abi al-Hamd killed two from the al- reported the casualties in the attack these boulders were excavated with
Samman clan in revenge. But as 14, proudly pulled open his sterile results, he somewhat apologeti-
Ahmad's I1-year-old son Muhammad jallabiyah (the cotton robe worn by cally said (on 11 December 1975) that
did not feel thereby personally the fellahin), and showed the scar of he did not want to produce further
vindicated and so, on reaching the wound just above his heart to inconvenience by proposing others
manhood, he looked for his own boast that Muhammad Ahmad failed among the various boulders nearby.
chance. It came in 1957-11 years to get him. He further asserted that if Thus, his information may have been
after his father's death. There had he could ever lay hand on Muham- based only on an oral report rather
been a death in the al-Sammi~nclan, mad Ahmad, he would kill him. than an on-site identification,
which meant that a funeral procession This presumably defines the status especially in view of the fact that
in which cAli's family would partici- of the blood feud from the point during the period when he was guard,
pate would move to the Muslim of view of the al-Samman clan. the source of his information
cemetery on the near (northeast) Against the background of this (Khalifah) would hardly have dared
edge of al-Qasr before the sun feud the nature of the meager to return to the site to point it out.
went down. At dusk Muhammad information concerning the site of the A member of the same al-Sayyid
(son of) Ahmad Ismd'Tlwith six men discovery becomes more intelligible. family of Hamrah Dfim as was
to support him slipped to the edge of CAbdal-Majid Muhammad Badarri, Ahmad Ismacil reported on 2 De-
al-Qasr unnoticed. With the auto- then of al-Qasr, was guard for the cember 1975 that he had been near
matic weapons usually carried as side- Department of Antiquities at the the tomb of Thauti to the north at
arms by Hawwarah, they shot down a Jabal al-Tarif during the period 1947- the time of the discovery, but that his
score or more. Muhammad Ahmad 67. CAbdal-Majid maintained that cousin,,. Abd al-NazTrYdsTncAbd al-
estimated the figures as 27 shot, of shortly after the discovery he learned RahTmwas, at the time, farther south
whom 9-11 were killed. When where the site was from Khalifah, one at the actual site of the discovery. The
interviewed at Hamrah Dim on 13 of the sons of cAli who was present next day CAbd al-Nazir stood some

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 Xf, 50 m southeast of the gigantic broken
boulder lying on the talus in the
photograph of "the site of the
discovery" in the original French
edition of Jean Doresse's Secret
Books of the Egyptian Gnostics. This
is in the undulating terrain where the
AM. talus gradually merges into the
flatland. He conceded that he could
not be sure he was standing on the
precise spot but knew that he was
within a dozen or so meters of it. He
was some hundred meters south of
the point from which Doresse
photographed, yet within the area
zj photographed. He was, in fact, in the
midst of the area pitted with the
7j.
depressions resulting from a clandes-
tine excavation led by the Mayor of
Hamrah Dfim, Abai of the HindSwiT
family. This is presumably the same
mayor whom Doresse mentioned as
having identified on 27 January 1950
.1A this pitted area as the site of the
discovery. Since there was some
skepticism among other villagers of
Hamrah Dfim whether CAbd al-Nazir
had even been with the discoverers,
and since Muhammad CAlThad
maintained that none of the camel
drivers with him at the time of the
discovery was from Hamrah Dfm,
what CAbd al-Nazir identified may be
no more than the site of the illegal
digging in which he may be assumed
to have been involved. It also
apparently gave him a convenient
point of reference by which the
location would have been kept in
mind. Since this pitting extends into
the flatland and is more noticeable
there than in the more undulated
terrain midway up the talus itself, at
least when seen from below, this
referent would have tended to focus
the memory onto the bottom of the
talus and out into the flatland, as
Doresse seems to have thought. This
demarcation is not, in fact, very sharp
at this location. The choice of this
area for the illicit excavation, if not
derived from CAbd al-NazTr,could
have been derived from Muhammad
CAll, who continued digging sabakh
Scenefromthe tomb of Thauti(T 73). at the cliff for a few days or weeks
Sixth Dynasty(top). prior to avenging his father's death.
Scenesfromthe tomb of Idu(T 66). Sixth Or it may have come from those of
Dynasty(middleand bottom). the seven involved who were not sons
of cAll and whose return to the cliff
later would pose less of a threat to
their safety.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979 211

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 Ludwig Keimer located the
discovery in a "grotto"; Henri-Charles
Puech had listed among options a
"tomb, cavern, niche"; and Doresse
had alluded to a "sepulcre"or
"tomb." The cliff, both at the top of
the talus and in outcroppings of live
rock on its flank, is honeycombed
with over 150 caves. Many of these
are natural niches, but many are
square shafts cut just large enough for
a sarcophagus to pass, in theory
descending to a burial room below,
although many tombs of this type in
the cliff were unfinished. A few were
preceded by an entrance room for
worshipers, with the shaft leading
down from the back of this square,
room-sized chapel. It was in terms of
such alternatives that the initial
interview with Muhammad CAlThad
been conducted at al-Qasr on 16
September 1975, although he main-
tained the discovery had not been in a
cave. When interrogated about the
size of the area of the discovery, he
said that one could stand up,
conceding a comparison with the size
of the room in which the interview
was taking place. He also conceded
that there was stone overhead
and behind but mentioned no
walls. Since it was neither at the
top nor at the bottom of the talus,
but somewhere in the middle, only
the tombs of Idu and Thauti (T 66
and T 73), from the 6th Dynasty,
though caves, seemed in any way to
fit such specifications.
In view of the ambiguous
outcome of this interview, I tried to
get Muhammad CAlI to return to the
cliff. His flat refusals finally were
overcome with the help of a financial
consideration. It was agreed that we
would ride past the cliff without
stopping in order that he be given an
opportunity to point out the location,
but even this on the conditions he
laid down: he would be camouflaged
in my American clothes, seated on the
cliff side of the back seat of an
official, governmental, Russian-made
jeep of the Sugar Factory familiar in
the area as that of the Director,
Hanny M. al-Zeiny, who was to ride
in the front seat. I was to ride on the
Hamrah Dfim side of the back seat,
getting out of the jeep to trade places
with Muhammad CAlTat the turn-
around point. We would go toward
212 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979
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the end of the day when the hunger
and thirst of the Ramadan season
would have rendered the inhabitants
of Hamrah Dfim lethargic in the
relative cool of their homes.
The clandestine excursion took
place the next afternoon near dusk. It
was explained to Muhammad 'Ali in
driving past the tombs of Idu and
Thauti that they had changed their
outward appearance since he was last
#it the cliff 30 years before, in that
cement walls with iron gates had been
installed to replace the facades long
since robbed away for the antiquities
market. Thereupon he pointed to the
larger tomb, that of Thauti, as the
site of the discovery.
After the rubble on the floor of
the upper chambers of this tomb had
been cleared to bedrock on 26-30
November 1975, Muhammad CAlT
was confronted on 30 November at
the Sugar Factory with the absence of
any confirming evidence. He was
shown a floor plan of the tomb of
Thauti, in part to inquire if he had
ventured down the shaft to the
darkened rooms below. He started
( tethered on the southern side of the
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afresh in trying to describe the site by
taking a potsherd and leaning it at a
45" angle as the shape of the area.
But this did not further clarify the site
in view of the fact that neither this
tomb nor any others in the area had
such a sloping wall or ceiling. On 11
December 1975 Muhammad CAITwas
induced, by challenging his courage,
to return on an unofficial visit to the
cliff at dusk in a private car and go
on foot to the site. So as not to
influence his choice, the car was
stopped where the dirt road first
reaches the southern part of the cliff
area at the wadi and quarry. Muham-
mad CAITpromptly got out and
marched unhesitatingly and directly
north ca. 400 m to the broken
boulder visible in Doresse's photo-
graph midway up the talus. On
reaching the nearer, southern edge of
the boulder, he walked and crawled
through the break between the two
main parts, testing the ground and
beginning to vacillate. But on
reaching the far northern side he
turned down along the flank of the
barrel-shaped main part of the
boulder, beneath whose curving
overhang he fell to digging with his
hands, announcing this to be the spot
(at D:5 on the map, p. 210).
He excused his identification of
the tomb of Thauti as due to fear and
pointed out the overhang of the
barrel-shaped boulder as what he had
sought to describe and even to
illustrate with the potsherd back at
the Sugar Factory. He furnished the
supplemental details that he broke the
jar a few meters farther down the
talus and that his camel had been
boulder. At the initial interview he
had said that they had been afraid the
rock might tumble down on them.
The room-sized caves gave no cause
for such fear, but our subsequent
excavation under this overhanging
boulder was limited by the workmen's
fear that it might fall on them. Thus,
MulBammadcAll's drawing of the jar in
whichthe codiceswereburied,alongwith
his signature(left).
Thebowlusedas the lid of thejar in
whichthe codiceswereburied.Other
thanthe codicesthemselves,this is the
only artifactto havesurvived(opposite).

in spite of efforts to have him identify
a cave, which he had accommodated
with a false lead, in addition to other
instances of not impeccable veracity
on his part, Muhammad CAll seemed
to have made a serious effort to
describe and then to point out what
he recalled as the site of the discovery
of the Nag Hammadi codices.
When the site was excavated on
14-15 December 1975, no confirming
evidence was found. Muhammad CAli
maintained that a corpse with
abnormally elongated fingers and
teeth and legs lay on a bed of some-
thing like charcoal beside the jar
and that it was reburied there. But he
denied a rumor from earlier years
that a staff and a rug were at the site.
His younger brother AbUial-Majd
denied that anything other than the
jar was found. Whatever evidence
there must have been-perhaps a
leather cover or so, papyrus
fragments, and sherds of the broken
jar-may well have been eliminated
by illegal digging and the passage of
time; or the precise position on the
flank of the boulder may have been a
few meters from that identified and
excavated, especially in view of
Muhammad CAli'sinitial vacillation
as to the precise spot once he was
actually at the boulder.
Nonetheless, this boulder may
with reasonable probability be
considered the site of the discovery in
that it alone makes intelligible the
various locations proposed. For this
site could well have been identified
orally at al-Qasr as "under" a
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boulder, which would then have led
to the various boulders pointed out in
the flatland as that "under" which the
jar was found. Yet it is not burdened
with the improbabilities they share;
namely, that the jar would hardly
have been buried, or sabakh dug,
literally underneath such boulders too
heavy to move, boulders moreover
that lie in the flatland. For a
burial in the flatland is improbable
since the annual inundations of the
Nile are reported to have approached
the foot of the talus before the High
Dam had its effect. There are also no
surface indications of a cemetery
visible in the flatland. The results of
the proton-magnetometer and resis-
tivity survey conducted by Philip
Hammond on 10-18 September 1975
in a section of the flatland nearby
(though not in the pitted rocky
terrain unsuited to the instrumenta-
tion) were likewise negative. Although
Muhammad CArl headed directly for
the tremendous broken boulder on
the talus from a distance too far away
to be able to see the pitting of the
illegal digging, he in fact confirmed
the general correctness of the clandes-
tine excavation midway up the talus
as well as the photograph in the
French edition of Doresse's book,
though he was not familiar with
either.
The talus itself proved to be a
reasonable place for the jar to have
been buried. A first small crude cave
with a scattering of bones and sherds
is ca. 20 m southeast of the boulder,
and somewhat lower on the talus (T 1
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979 213
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on the map, p. 210). Some 800 m
farther north midway up the talus,
fragments of burial cloth were found
in another cave (T 117). Carbon 14
dating yielded a date of the 5th
century A.D. Thus, at least the talus
was used as a burial site at the time
in question. The nearest cave to the
boulder in question, one that has a
room-sized chapel at the front, is the
well-cut but undecorated and
unfinished tomb with a Coptic
inscription of the opening lines of Old
Testament psalms scrawled in red
paint on the wall (T 8). The floor was
strewn with a meter or more of
rubble, near the top of which, at
the height from which the inscription
was written, a quantity of Byzantine
coins was found. They date from the
reigns of Anastasius I (A.D. 491-518)
and Heraclius (A.D. 610-641). Thus,
the talus would seem to have been
frequented well down into the Coptic
period by "holy men" from the non-
Christian period of Greek Sarapis
graffiti in the same kind of red paint
in the tombs of Idu and Thauti.
The account of the actual
discovery given by Muhammad CAIT
is as follows: Three of the sons of
cAli and 'Umm-Ahmad-Muham-
mad, Khalifah and Aboi al-Majd-
were digging sabakh with four
other camel drivers at the time the
discovery was made. Aboi al-Majd
actually unearthed the jar, but
Muhammad, the oldest brother (he
was 26; Abii al-Majd was 15), had
assumed the role of paternal authority
over AbN. He took control. The
pottery was red slip ware, distinguish-
ing it from the creamy color of the
modern Qindiware common in the
region, and had four small handles
near the opening. The jar was also
large, with dimensions roughly illus-
trated by Muhammad CAli as 60 cm
or more in height and an opening
of some 15 to 20 cm widening to
some 30 cm in the flank. The jar had
been closed by fitting a bowl into its
mouth. Khalifah had taken this bowl
with him to the home in al-Qasr
where he was a servant for the Copt,
Salib CAbdal-Masih, who preserved
the bowl intact. It is Coptic red slip
ware of the 4th or 5th century with a
rim decorated with four fields of
stripes. The diameter at the outer
edge is 23.3-24.0 cm, with a diameter
inside the bowl of 18.2-18.7 cm,
adequate to close a mouth large
enough to admit the codices, whose
broadest leaves, in Codex VII,
measure up to 17.5 cm. There are a
few black tarlike stains about 2.0 cm
from the outer edge on the under side
of the rim, perhaps vestiges of a
bitumen used to seal the bowl into
the jar. Thus, the jar probably could
not be opened readily to investigate
its contents, which would explain why
it was broken by its discoverers. This
also would explain the excellent state
of preservation of a number of the
codices and suggest that much of the
deterioration of the others may have
taken place prior to their burial or
subsequent to their discovery.
At first Muhammad CAli feared to
break the jar, thinking there might be
a jinn inside. But on reflecting that it
might contain treasure, he regained
his courage. Raising his mattock, he
smashed the jar. He described a
strange material, like sand but
perhaps capable of turning into gold,
swirling up and disappearing into
the air. This would seem to be a
conflation of the jinn and the
treasure, perhaps a mythopoeic
experience of papyrus fragments. For
when Muhammad CAl opened a
codex, he experienced its being
transformed into very small pieces
that disappeared into the air.
Muhammad CAlI decided to
divide the codices on the spot among
the seven camel drivers present.
Evidence of only 12 codices survives
today. What is called Codex XIII
consists of only eight leaves, which
were removed from the center of a
codex in late antiquity in order to
separate out a tractate inscribed on
them and then laid inside the front
cover of Codex VI. These leaves
probably would not even have been
noticed by the discoverers, much less
considered a separate codex. Yet
when pressed, Muhammad CAli
maintained that the number of
codices in the jar was not 12 but 13.
Thus it is possible, though uncon-
firmed, that a quite fragmentary
codex was completely lost at the cliff.
Since the number of codices was
fewer than enough for each camel
driver to receive 2, Muhammad CAll
prepared seven lots each consisting of
a complete codex and parts of the
214 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979
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others torn up for this purpose.
Muhammad CAll has maintained that
covers were abandoned at the cliff,
which would account for the missing
cover of Codex XII as well as for that
of any unattested codex. The other
camel drivers, ignorant of the value
inherent in the codices and fearing
both sorcery and Muhammad CAlT,
renounced their claims to a share. He
then stacked the lots back together in
a pile, unwound his white headdress,
knotted them in it, and slung the
whole bundle over his shoulder.
The account of the actual
discovery of the Nag Hammadi
codices was given by
Muhammad CAli.
Unhobbling his camel, he rode back
to his home in al-Qasr, in the
courtyard of which the animals were
kept and bread baked in the large
clay oven. Here he dumped the
codices, loose leaves and fragments,
on the ground among the straw that
was lying by the oven to be burned.
'Umm Ahmad has conceded that she
burned much of the ripped-out
papyrus and broken covers, perhaps
parts of the covers of XI and XII, in
the oven along with the straw.
The removal of leaves from their
cover at the cliff and the subsequent
burning of some in the oven may be
correlated to some extent with the
condition in which the material was
first examined and recorded in detail.
If another codex existed, no trace of
it has been brought to light, since the
surviving unplaced fragments either
seem to have the same scribal hands
as do the codices that survive, and
hence, presumably, to have come
from them, or are too small or
preserve too little ink to provide a
basis for conjecturing the existence of
further codices. The cover of Codex
XII and the vast majority of the
leaves of Codex XII, and probably of
Codex X, are missing. Since, in both
cases, the extant material is from
different parts of the codex and of
different sizes and shapes, the loss
cannot be wholly attributed to natural
causes such as rot, worms, or rodents
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
but is best explained in many
instances as having taken place after
the discovery. The same is true of
individual missing leaves (one in
Codex II, nine in Codex III, one in
Codex VI, three in Codex VIII, and
two in Codex IX) and of large and
small fragments missing from
otherwise intact sequences of frag-
ments having continuing contours.
Although relatively minor losses may
well have taken place even before
burial or at later stages-after the
discovery-in the transmission of the
material (most seriously apparently in
the case of Codex III), the massive
losses must have taken place right
after the discovery in 1945, as the
principals concede. Thus, hopes of
identifying more materials from this
discovery in private or public collec-
tions are reduced correspondingly.
The Story of the Middlemen
The initial disappointment that the
hoped-for buried treasure turned out
to be only a stack of old books was
confirmed by Muhammad CAli's
inability to sell them among the
villagers for a few piasters or
cigarettes. A Copt of al-Qasr,
Zakhari Hannan, refused to buy any,
though he observed that they were
books of the church, a comment
probably based on no more than the
recognition that the writing was not
Arabic but Coptic. The early efforts
to dispose of the books seem thus to
have been directed primarily to
Copts. A codex would be offered for
an Egyptian pound, to show what
they were like, with the assurance that
the others would be brought if this
one would be purchased; then, the
price would go down to no more than
15 or 25 piasters, still without a sale.
Since Muhammad CAli drove a camel
for Ilyas Balimin Ghubriyal of al-
Qasr, he left three or four codices
with him for a couple of days, but
Ilyas refused to buy them; his son
Milik recalls laughing together with
Muhammad CAli over their worthless-
ness. Sahygn Gaddfs was offered one
for sale but refused, assuming that it
was a Coptic Bible which he thought
the church already had. The priest
from al-Qasr, living at al-Rahminryah
Qibli, "al-Qummus" Matti SarjTyis,
already of a very advanced age at that
time, turned down an offer for ?E 3.

;I
M. A. Mansoor Antiquities shop,
IbrahimPashaStreet(top left).
Zaki Basli (bottom left). He was the main
middlemanof the regionwho took Bahij
cAll (right) with Codices II and VII to
Cairoand sold them to Tano.
At the time of the murder of
Ahmad IsmaclT1, one or more of the
codices were put on deposit with
Muhammad cAli's neighbor who was
the priest serving the village church of
al-Qasr at the monastery of St.
Palamon. This priest, "al-Qummus"
Basilyfis CAbd al-MasTh,stored them
in a drawer of the chifferobe in his
bedroom, but after a month they were
retrieved. His wife, Rtimah, today the
matriarch of the family at al-Qasr,
was the daughter of Andarawus "al-
Quss" CAbd al-Sayyid.
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do
4.
4jww~
,
1A,
Andarawus' son Raghib taught
history and English from village to
village on a circuit of Coptic
parochial schools. At the time,
he lived in Dishna, 22 km upstream
from al-Qasr. When he came to al-
Qasr, he usually visited in his sister
ROmah'shome. On being shown one
codex (Codex III, as it turned out),
he recognized its potential value,
which he proudly attributes to his
being a teacher of history. He asked
"al-Qummus" Basilyis if he might
have it, a request readily granted.
When he took it to the home of his
father Andarawus, he was immediate-
ly told to leave, since the police
investigation of the murder which
Andarawus had witnessed was taking
BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST/FALL 1979 215
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
?"
40
.e!
*AM
place, and he wanted to have nothing
to do with those involved. But Raghib
inquired of the youngest of the sons
of 'Umm Ahmad whether he could
acquire any other codices. He was
told that he would have to wait since
the police were detaining the other
brothers. A day or so later this
brother brought a second codex
(probably Codex I). Righib had paid
nothing for the first codex since, he
has explained, it had been a gift to
"'al-Qummus"Basilyis, but he
offered some 50 piasters for the
second. The offer was declined with
the comment that, after all, he was a
neighbor. Righib, no doubt recog-
nizing the hollowness of such a
gesture, offered him a coat, where-
 upon the lad said he wanted a
for which purpose Raghib
gave him a small amount of money.
.allabiyah,
He added that Rdghib should not tell
his brothers, from which Raghib has
inferred that the boy had in effect
stolen it from them. Since Rdghib
lived on the ground floor and feared
that mice might damage the codices,
he deposited them in the room of his
housekeeper Bahiyah Jirjis on the
floor above.
At the end of March 1946,
Phocion Tano, the Cypriot antiquities
dealer at Cairo, mentioned to Zaki
Basta, a well-known antiquities dealer
at Qind, that a week earlier he had
acquired two codices from peasants of
al-Qasr working at Giza. Since Zaki
was given no name, they may
remain
Bast. unidentified. "Abfin~" Dd'9id
has spoken of a carpenter selling a
codex in Cairo at such a profit that
he was able to remain there. Or, the
seller may well have been Fikri
Jibr7il Khalil. Muhammad cAli has
reported that Fikri acquired two
codices, for which he paid with sugar
and tea from his al-Qasr shop. Bahij
CAli Muhammad Adam, Zaki Basta's
contact in al-Qasr, also identified
Fikri as having acquired a codex.
Fikri's brother cAziz is reported to
have maintained that Fikri had a
codex, though he did not see it.
Kamal Fu'Bd of Nag Hammadi,
Fikri's brother-in-law, recalls FikrT
having told him on his return from
Cairo that he had just sold one or
more codices-he does not recall the
specifics. Fikri, originally proprietor
of a small store in al-Qasr, improved
his situation by moving his business
to Nag Hammadi at about that time.
A decade later he moved to Cairo,
where he is proprietor of the Nag
Hammadi Store of food staples on al-
Qubaysi Street in the al-Zahir district.
This success story is attributed by
R~ghib to the start provided by the
sale of the codices. When interviewed
at his Cairo shop on 26 December
1975, he denied having owned any of
the material, though he did recall that
Muhammad CAll and his brothers
were offering codices to any Copt for
a piaster or so and that N~ishid
Bisada, a grain merchant at Nag
Hammadi, had one or two which he
sold for next to nothing. When
pressed on these matters in
216 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979
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On his returnfrom Cairo Bahij
CAliacquired all that was left
of the codices from OUmm
Ahmad.
December 1976 by Righib, Fikri
became angry, conceding that he had
been offered some of the material but
not that he had acquired any. Thus,
Fikri seems to be the only one among
the interviewed discoverers and
middlemen (or, if deceased, their sons
or other relatives) to be unwilling to
confirm what the other party of the
transaction and other middlemen
have affirmed and what Fikri himself
had earlier confided in his own family
circle. Such'hesitancy may well be
motivated by the long-standing fear
of the authorities with regard to such
transactions.
Zaki Bastd had a one-fourth
interest in Qinm'sCinema Firydl until
it closed, but his main business has
been to circulate among the villages
and antiquities sites of the region
collecting antiquities for the small
shop upstairs in his home and for the
antiquities market of Cairo. His
contact person at al-Qasr was Bahij
cAli, notorious there as a one-eyed
outlaw. He acquired some of the
codices from 'Umm Ahmad, cAlT's
widow, shortly after the discovery.
Bahij Alli wrote to Zaki Bastd and
then took two codices to show him in
Qind. ZakT bought one from
him, which sale
Bast.seems in substance to
have amounted to an agreement to
divide the costs and the profit.
Accompanied by a jeweller of Qind
named Ayyfib, they went to Cairo,
where they stayed three or four days
at the Port SacTd Hotel. They went to
the "M. A. Mansoor" antiquities shop
of Mansur CAbd al-Sayyid Mansur
on IbrdhTmPasha (now Opera)
Square in the same building as
.Shepheards Hotel. Zaki Bastd recalls
that Mansur telephoned a foreigner
to come and see the codices. Since
the foreigner did not speak Arabic,
they did not talk with him but
observed from the back of the shop.
The foreigner insisted on buying not
just the two codices but the whole lot
which they should go and bring, but
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
would not pay the LE 700 that they
asked for the two codices. Since Bahij
cAli did not produce the others, the
negotiations were not completed.
Mansur then telephoned Tano, who
came to Mansur's shop and acquired
the two codices for ?E 200 each,
which Zaki BastAand Bahij cAll
divided equally.
Jacques Schwartz, fellow at the
Institut franqais d'archeologie orien-
tale du Caire in 1945-48, now the
papyrologist of the University of
Strasbourg, reports having been
telephoned by Mansoor (as Schwartz
spells the name) one afternoon late in
March 1946 to the effect that he
would like to show him two codices
that he had on 48-hour consign-
ment. Schwartz went late that same
afternoon and was shown Codices VII
and II:
The name of Seth recurredratherfre-
quently[VII]. In one thereoccurredthe
title "Apocalypseof Peter"[VII]. The
leathercover of anothercarriedthe im-
age of a serpent[II].
Since they were in Coptic, Schwartz
himself was not interested but
reported the same evening to the
Director of the French Institute,
Charles Kuentz, who accompanied
him to the shop the next morning.
Though disparaging the codices as
just books of spells, as is appropriate
in such haggling, Kuentz did recog-
nize their value and offered ?E 100
per codex for the total of seven
codices reported to be involved.
Mansoor seemed to think this was a
reasonable opening offer, for he
agreed to negotiate on their behalf
and let them know the outcome. A
fortnight later Schwartz, having heard
nothing, contacted Mansoor, who
reported that the owners had taken
back the two codices, and though he
had sent a representative to negotiate
with them further, up to a price of
some ?E 150 per codex, he could not
make a deal. Tano finally made the
purchase for what was said to be
?E 7,000 for the whole lot. Kuentz
has reported that he followed up
the lead by going to Tano and
unsuccessfully seeking the necessary
funding from Paris. He reported the
matter to the Abbot ltienne Drioton,
then the Director of the Egyptian
Department of Antiquities.
 .f-1-
'44
?i
f~~~-b-'
iN
?
.
-.?r
On his return from Cairo, Bahij
cAll acquired all that was left of the
codices from 'Umm Ahmad. He
recalls the amount as four further
codices, plus the material torn up at
the cliff, though he estimates that
over half of this had already been
burned. Since Muhammad cAl had
spoken of the ripped-out leaves as
having been stuffed into a cover by
BahTjCAli to make a book or so, and
'Umm Ahmad reported that the
second time BahTj AlTiobtained five
books (indeed Bahij cAll had
originally spoken of having acquired
a total of four books in good and
four books in bad condition), this
miscellaneous unit may have included
not only leaves without their cover,
such as Codex XII, but a cover
without most of its leaves, such as
Codex X. Bahij CAli recalls the price
he paid as some ?E 12 to ?E 18,
whereas Muhammad CAli recalls the
payment as ?E 12 plus 40 oranges.
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.o:?'-
+c
Io
BahTjCAlTthen returned to Cairo
alone, since he now knew the way, as
he puts it, or, as Zaki Basta puts it,
so that he would not have to divide
the profit. He went directly to Tano
and sold them for a rate he will not
divulge. ZakT Basta takes it to be the
same rate of ?E 200 per codex. Since
the remainder of the material torn up
at the cliff that was acquired by Bahij
cAll seems to have been lumped
together as a single unit (even though
it may well have consisted of
ingredients of more than one codex),
one reaches a total of seven, which is
the total number mentioned to
Schwartz. But the price of ?E 7,000
for the lot cited by Mansoor may
have been inflated to justify his not
having acquired the lot for the French
Institute. Since neither ZakT
Basta. in
nor Mansoor was directly involved
the second transaction, neither may
have been privy to the actual figures.
Bahlj CAlTbought farm land with his
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979 217
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
-"0,-
,
!
Cameldriversfromthe regionaround
Nag Hammadifrequentlydig for
fertilizer(sabakh)at the baseof the Jabal
al-Tirif(background).
profit and has been on bad terms
with Muhammad CAli ever since.
Now that the value of the codices
had become evident to the brothers at
al-Qasr, three of them went armed to
Rdghib at Dishnd several times to
retrieve the two codices he had
obtained for practically nothing. They
threatened his life and that of his
three daughters living at al-Qasr and
demonstrated their seriousness by
shooting at his house. On their first
visit he returned the second codex he
had acquired from the youngest
brother and would have returned the
first if he could. But he had already
sent it to Cairo with YannT Buqtur, a
fellow-teacher in Dishni, to see if
some learned person there could tell
anything about its worth.
R.ghib
immediately telegraphed to Yanni to
return the codex. When YannT
returned without the codex, having
left it in Cairo with a relative and
refusing to return to Cairo to get it,
R~ghib seized him by the collar and
said: "You must go back to Cairo and
bring the book or else I will kill you
or you me, since otherwise the
brothers will kill me!" Raghib gave
Yanni ?E 5 to go back to Cairo to
fetch the codex. The Mayor of al-
Qasr, "al-Muqaddis" Tanyis CAbd al-
MasTih,a neighbor and relative of
Raghib, warned the brothers, whom
he had aided somewhat at the time of
the police investigation, not to resort
to violence. Before Yanni came back
with the codex, RSghib had to make
a financial settlement of some ?E 15
to ?E 20 with the brothers. YannT,
now living in Cairo, does not recall
these details still so vivid in the
memory of Righib, who reports that
YannTshowed the codex to the
Patriarch of Alexandria, the Coptic
Pope residing in Cairo, then to Yassa
CAbd al-Masih, curator of the Coptic
Museum, who wished to keep it;
YannThimself reports that he only
showed it to Georgy Sobhy (see
below). YannTalso recalls mailing the
codex back to Rdghib. Righib thinks
the codex was returned with five or
six leaves missing. This would
account for the fact that Codex III,
among the codices in relatively good
condition, lacks the most leaves (six
inscribed and three uninscribed, as
well as others of which little sur-
vived). Righib also reports that in
the process of housecleaning Bahlyah
found one or two leaves which she
did not preserve. These may also
have come from Codex III.
One may already observe an
unmistakable inflation in the market
for the codices at al-Qasr. After the
other camel drivers at the cliff had
turned down their share of the
discovery, offers from the family of
'Umm Ahmad to sell for a few
cigarettes or piasters, for an Egyptian
pound or the lot for ?E 3 had also
been refused. One codex became, in
effect, a gift to "al-Qummus"
BasTlyis and from him to Raghib. If
Raghib responded to a second "gift"
of a codex with a "gift" of a few
piasters to buy a jallabTyah, the actual
sales began as barter for sugar and
218 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979
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tea at the local shop of Fikri. Then it
progressed to 40 oranges and a cash
amount of ?E 12, according to
Muhammad cAll, or a cash purchase
of from LE 12 to LE 18 according to
Bahij CAli, which would mean
a price per codex of some ?E 2 or
?E 3. Reflecting the impact of Bahij
CAll's success in Cairo and the threats
to Raghib's life, his settlement
reached from ?E 15 to ?E 20 for
Codex III. Zaki recalls Righib
Bast.
Codex I, the only multiple-quire
codex, is also the only surviving
manuscriptto have been trans-
mittedin more than one lot.
offering him a codex for a price too
high to pay. Thus, in terms of market
value it must be at about this juncture
that a purchase by Nashid Bisada
was made for a price that is reported
by Muhammad CAlI to have been
?E 11, though Nashid's family speaks
of ?E 30, ?E 50, or more. However,
Bahij had purchased all that was left
with the family of Muhammad cAll
and sold them to Tano. If the
purchase by Nashid followed that
sale, the codex he purchased must
have been that which had been
recovered from Righib.
Though born at al-Qasr, Nishid
Bis~da was a grain merchant in Nag
Hammadi at the time. Nishid, now
deceased, is reported by BahTjCAll to
have bought some torn leaves with
their covers from 'Umm Ahmad, and
Fikri JibrZiTlalso recalled Nashid
having bought a codex. Nashid's
younger son Husni, a cobbler now
working in his uncle's shop at Nag
Hammadi, is less well informed than
an older brother Jamail, who has
continued his father's business as a
grain merchant at al-Qasr. Whereas
Husni guessed that there might have
been 7 or 8 leaves, Jamail, who did
not actually see the codex either,
thought there might have been some
25 loose leaves, complete except at
the margins, so soft that if rubbed
they would come to pieces, with a
leather cover. Nashid paid a price
that Jamal did not recall exactly but
initially estimated at almost LE 200.
Nashid entrusted the codex to the
gold merchant of Nag Hammadi,
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Masc~d who would know
better itsIsk.aros,
value, to take to Cairo and
sell. Mascid went to Cairo without
Nashid, sold the codex for a price he
said was ?E 350, reimbursed Nashid
the ?E 200 he said he had paid, and
divided the profit with him. Another
version of the figures is to the effect
that Nashid paid ?E 50 and received
?E 200, whereas Mascid sold in
Cairo for ?E 350, making a profit of
?E 150, indicating that they divided
equally a profit of ?E 300. Jamil
NSshid Risada lives in Ahmad
Ism•cil's home that his father
purchased after the murder of
Ahmad. This was about the time
Nashid's share of the profit became
available for investment.
Mascid Iskiriis died in a cholera
plague in 1947 and was succeeded by
a son, Shawql, who became wealthy
enough to move to Cairo, whereupon
Nabih, an older brother who had
become a lawyer, took over the
goldsmith shop. He recalls the story
in considerable detail. In his view
only ?E 100 had been provided by
N~shid, the other ?E 100 having been
funded by his father. He recalls with
irony what may well be the same
incident reported above concerning
"al-Qummus" Matti SarjTyfis:Ten
codices (which would be the whole
collection, counted in terms of leather
covers, once Codex III had been left
with "al Qummus" Basilyfis) had
once been offered to Mascid for only
?E 3, but he did not buy them, since
a Coptic priest sitting with him at the
time said the writing did not look old
and the books must hence be recent-
actually they looked different because
they were so much older than the
oldest books he had ever seen.
Nashid's codex had a cover made of
the hide of a gazelle (which term
seems to function in the region as a
generic way to refer to leather). He
could tell that it was not a complete
codex, since he could see where leaves
had been ripped out at the spine.
There were about 40 leaves, which he
copied out by rote (though he did not
know Coptic) in hopes someone
would be able to identify it. Unfortu-
nately, he no longer has his copy.
He later heard that the Coptic
Museum had seized nine and a half
codices and inferred that this included
the other half of the codex. It was no
The Nag Hammadi Library on Peter's Confession
Jesus said to His disciples, "Compare me to someone
and tell Me whom I am like."
Simon Peter said to Him, "You are like a righteous
angel."
Matthew said to Him, "You are like a wise
philosopher. "
Thomas said to Him, "Master, my mouth is wholly
incapable of saying whom You are like."
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you
have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the
bubbling spring which I have measured out."
And He took him and withdrew and told him three
things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they
asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things
which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw
them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn
you up."
The Gospel of Thomas
II, 2: 34, 30-35, 14
The Nag Hammadi Library on Peter's Sermon
at Pentecost
And Peter opened his mouth, he said to his disciples,
"Did our Lord Jesus, when he was in the body, show us
everything? For he came down. My brothers, listen to
my voice." And he was filled with a holy spirit. He spoke
thus: "Our illuminator, Jesus, came down and was
crucified. And he bore a crown of thorns. And he put on
a purple garment. And he was crucified on a tree and
was buried in a tomb. And he rose from the dead. My
brothers, Jesus is a stranger to this suffering. But we are
the ones who have suffered at the transgression of the
mother. And because of this, he accomplished every-
thing according to a likeness in us. For the Lord Jesus,
the Son of the immeasurable glory of the Father, he is
the author of our life. My brothers, let us therefore not
obey these lawless ones .. ."
The Letter of Peter to Philip
VIII, 2: 139, 9-29
The Monastery Library
In each house the house manager or his assistant kept
all the surplus clothes locked in a cell until they needed
to wash and to wear them. The books also were within a
little enclosure under the care of these two officials.
He also taught the brothers to pay no attention to
the loveliness and beauty of this world, whether it be
beautiful food or clothing, or a cell, or an outwardly
seductive book.
The Life of Pachomius, chaps. 59 and 63
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The Consecration of the Basilica of St. Pachomius
The legend of the consecration of the basilica was
composed in Coptic and is preserved in an Arabic
manuscript of the 14th century. It recounts that the
Pachomian Abbot Victor went to Constantinople and
revealed himself to Emperor Theodosius II as his
natural son, whereupon he received unlimited authori-
zation to build the basilica. It was completed under his
successor, Abbot Martyrius, who went to Constantino-
ple and requested Emperor Leo I to authorize its
consecration. Leo wrote the patriarchs of Alexandria,
Antioch, Rome and Ephesus to attend. They, together
with 880 bishops, 6,000 monks of the Monastery of
Pabau where the basilica was located, and 2,300 monks
from the other Pachomian monasteries, not counting
lay persons, assembled for the consecration which was
to be performed by Patriarch Timothy of Alexandria:
While I was in bed, the night of the fifteenth [11 XII
459 A.D.],dreamingof the angel in the field, he againcame
towardme,hadmearise,andsaidto me:"Ariseandgo to the
church,for behold,the Lord has come to consecrateit, he
who consecratedthe heavenlyJerusalem.Hastento go, for it
is the Lordwho sent me to you who callsyou to this place
with his angelsand his saints."I raisedmyselfand followed
the angel;I was terrifiedandtrembled.Havingarrivedat the
church,I saw that its doors were open; I smelt a powerful
odor the likes of whichI had neversensed.I sawthe church
full of thrones,all aroundthe dome.Whentheangelsawme
trembling,it dissolvedmy fear, conductedme to the altar
and took my hand. I sawa magnificentthroneraisedabove
all the thrones,on which a man was seatedin splendor-
whom I could not behold because of the light and the
fear-extremely beautiful.Nothingamongcorporealbeings
could expresshis nobility.I fell down, I, on my face before
him. He had me arise, encouraged me and said: "Oh
Timothy,Timothy,do not have any fear. It is I, Jesus the
Messiah,your King!I havecome to consecratethe earthly
Jerusalemso thatthosewhoservemeon earthmaycelebrate
here,just as I haveconsecratedthe heavenlyJerusalemfor
my servantswho are in heavento celebratethere."On the
spot Michaelbeganto take up the basinof water;the Lord
consecratedall the church.I myselfsawit withmyowneyes!
And he said to me:"Behold,I haveconsecratedit at firstin
secret,but you againwill consecrateit openlyfollowingthe
canons of the apostles. Behold,I have put in it a powerful
force.Threeangelswillabidehereat all times,watchingover
thosewho prayherein everymoment.Theywillgivesightto
the blindandwill makethelameto walkandcausethelepers
to be purified,the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear and
Satansto beexpelled.Theywillhealeverysickness.If people
takewaterfromits resevoirand oil fromits lampandanoint
themselveswithfaith,theywill obtainhealing.... Whenthe
Lord had finished telling me these things, he ascended
gloriouslyto heavenwithhisangelsandsaints,andtheangel
who hadconductedme led me to my bedanddepartedfrom
me.
Arn. Van Lantschoot, "Allocution de
Timoth6e d'Alexandrie prononc6e a l'occasion
de la d6dicace de l'6glise de Pachome &
Pboou," Le Musion 47 (1934) 13-56.
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979 219

% ~
doubt in the same connection that he
learned that the codex had to do with
the first Christians in Egypt. Nabih is
sure that, had Mascuid known this, he
would not have sold the codex.
Masctd hid the codex under the
floor of his home for a few months
and then in July or August went to
Cairo, taking his son Nabih with him.
They went to a gold merchant whom
Masctd knew, Jurji Andarawus, who
220 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979
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or.,
IAr
141.
tat.
?r ~ vC i41At?
r12
'?. ~ t --
It.i
sent for an antiquities dealer named The inside of the leathercover of Codex I
Tawfiq. The negotiations were carried (the Jung Codex).
on in the shop of Jurji Andarawus.
The final figure was ?E 300. Nabih
recalls that it was he who put the
codex into the hands of Tawfiq. He Since Codex I is also the only multiple-
heard that the codex was later sold to quire codex, it most readily could
a foreigner for ?E 5,000. have given the evidence of leaves
This may well have been Codex I, having been ripped out, in that one or
the only surviving manuscript to have more binding thongs could be seen to
been transmitted in more than one lot. be empty. Furthermore, on 18
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
February 1949, Albert Eid wrote to
Warner G. Rice, Director of the
University Library of the University
of Michigan:
In spite of the fact that I have at present
an offer in Egypt of ?E 5,000 from a
donorthroughthemediationof Professor
J. Doresse, I prefer to give up the
manuscripthere, for I do not desireto
returnthis moneyto Egypt.
Thus, the figure of ?E 5,000, though
never actually paid, became associated
with Codex I. Eid wrote Father B.
Couroyer, the Coptologist at the
Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, that the
number of leaves in the codex was 40,
"with its leather cover," and on 13
January 1947 Eid wrote to Rice that
there were 41, though one was "in
very bad condition," which may well
have meant that it was simply a
collection of miscellaneous fragments,
since three leaves classified as only "in
bad condition" were described as
having "a fourth of the text missing."
Thus, the number of leaves would
seem to agree with the report of
NabTh. Furthermore, Eid reported
that the material "has been entrusted
to me by one of my customers for
sale." This suggests that it was still
owned by Tawffq and only on
consignment with Eid.
A. and Ed. C. Anawati were
proprietors of a shop in Alexandria
called Khan Khalil. On 20 January
1947, Ed. C. Anawati wrote to Rice:
The writerhas beenentrustedby the
ownerof the manuscriptto disposeof it
in the regionof the Delta, and Mr. Eid
was to market it in Cairo and Upper
Egypt.
This is beingwrittento you afterthe
consentand approvalof Mr. Eid.
A brother of Ed. C. Anawati is
Father Georges Anawati, today
Director of the Institut dominicain
des &tudesorientales in Cairo.
Couroyer returned to Jerusalem from
a visit to the Cairo Dominican house
at the end of the spring semester of
1946. He assumes, with some
uncertainty, that it was shortly after
his return, but in any case the same
year, that he received two photo-
graphs from Father Anawati for
identification. He requested enlarge-
ments, which were hardly an
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improvement, but on the basis of
such photographs of Codex I (pp. 7,
8, 43, and 44) and after consultation
with H. J. Polotsky, he returned the
following report, which Eid sent to
Rice on 13 January 1947:
The language used is not pure
Akhmimicnor even Sub-Achmimic(the
language of the Manichaeanwritings),
butratheran intermediary betweenthese
two forms. It is a dialect still poorly
enough known that the presentmanu-
scriptcan contributegreatlyto its study.
One finds oneselfin the presenceof two
differentworks, the second in a more
cursivehand.
The contentof pp. 7-8 is a dialogue
of our Lordwith his disciples,especially
with St. James. The vocabulary and
content are relatedto the literatureof
whichPistisSophia,andthedialoguesof
Jesusafterhis resurrection,are the most
strikingrepresentatives.One finds one-
self on the border between orthodox
theologyand Gnosticism.In the case of
the presentmanuscriptI do not believe
that one is in the presenceof a purely
Gnostic work. Our Lord speaks to his
disciples,butclearly,not in parables.The
"logos"is like a grainof wheat,etc. But
since one has no subscription(I do not
know if such exists in the manuscript),
one is reducedto approximations.
Thus, within a year of its discovery,
Codex I had been subjected to a first
scholarly assessment, in that the
dialect was defined, the two hands
and Tractates 2 and 4 were distin-
guished, and Tractate 2 was provided
with a remarkably accurate analysis.
When Doresse first visited Eid's
shop in October 1947, only the first
lot of 40 or 41 leaves and the cover
were there. But by the time Eid
arrived in New York in January 1949,
he had gained access to a second lot
of 11 leaves from the same codex-
and had purchased both. The reason
for the delay of the second lot and
the channel through which it reached
Eid are not known. But Ludwig
Keimer's report of 1950 presumably
presupposes both lots:
The book in the possessionof Mr.
AlbertEid had beensold first of all to a
Copticgrainmerchantof Nag Hammadi.
Tano was informedthat the merchant
was in possession of this book. The
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979 221
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merchantand Tano reachedan agree-
menton the sumof ?E 300as the priceof
this book. But the merchantchangeshis
mind;he demands?E 800-the agentof
Tano had notifiedthe latter.The agent
andTanothinkthattheCopticmerchant
wouldgive up the book at ?E 300, in any
case at a pricesignificantlyinferiorto ?E
800. Tano and his agent do nothing.
Tano returnsto Cairo.The Copticgrain
merchantfrom Nag Hammadi comes
some time laterto Cairo.Therehe meets
anotheragent who takes him to Albert
Eid who buysthe book for ?E 500 or ?E
600. This book, it would seem, is at
present in the USA. Michigan had
offered $12,000, but Albert Eid de-
manded$25,000.The book of Mr.Eid is
composed of about 50 leaves (= 100
pages).
Bahij cAll has reported that Nishid
Bisada had only 12 leaves and with
Mascafd sold them to Tano on one of
two trips Tano made to Nag Ham-
Withina year of its discovery
Codex I had been subjected to
a first scholarly assessment.
madi looking for whatever was left,
which suggests that Tano was not
completely unsuccessful in Nag
Hammadi, where he may have
acquired some or all of the 19 leaves
of Codex I that he owned. In
Keimer's report the Coptic grain
merchant might be Naishid Bisida,
Tano's agent, perhaps Bahij cAll,
whose commission was circumvented
by Masc~id selling directly on the
Cairo market to Tawffq. The refer-
ence to the grain merchant going to
Cairo would either be due to over-
looking a link in the chain, MascGfd,
or it may be that Naishid took the
second lot directly to Cairo so as to
bypass the commission of Mascld.
For the reference to the trip as "some
time later" than Tano's visit to Nag
Hammadi may point to the last lot of
11 leaves. (Since Fikri Jibri'Tl was
also a grain merchant, he could be
considered here.) If Eid paid ?E 500
to ?E 600, this sizable markup would
presumably not only reflect the
passage of time but also would have
included the final lot of 11 leaves. On
10 May 1952 Simone Eid sold the
two lots to the Jung Institute for
35,000 Swiss Francs, involving a
markup from about $2,500 to some
$8,000.
At an interview with Tano in his
shop on 20 December 1971, he
mentioned that he had obtained
codices from small dealers in several
lots. This would seem to be confirmed
by the subsequent investigations.
These tend to indicate that he may
have obtained two codices from FikrT
JibrT1l, two from ZakTBasta and
BahTjCAli (Codices II and VII), then
four plus remains of perhaps two
others (Codices X and XII) from
Bahij CAli alone, and finally part of
one (Codex I) if not also from Bahij
cAll, then perhaps from Nashid
Bisada. Thus, his total holdings were
eight codices (II, IV-IX, XI) and
parts of four others (I, X, XII,
XIII), which he would have pur-
chased as a total of little more than
nine units. If one may conjecture that
he was able to retain a stable pay
scale, his costs may not have reached
?E 2,000. When interviewed he
reported British and Swiss offers of
?E 100,000 but bitterly reported that
once the codices were sequestered
and nationalized, he received only
?E 5,000.
Codex III was not among the
codices that passed through Tano's
hands. It made its way to Cairo in a
very different manner. The Bishop of
Qina, "al-Mutran al-Anba" KTrullus,
heard that Raghib had a valuable
book and, on a visit to Dishnar,asked
Rdghib in the presence of a dozen
important personages if this were the
case. Righib was too frightened to
speak publicly, but when Bishop
Kirullus took him aside, he admitted
that he had a codex. The bishop
insisted that he take it to Cairo to
learn its value. Raghib got a tin box
to contain the codex and a bouquet
of roses for the bishop. He then went
to the station to meet the train on
which Bishop KTrulluswould be
riding when it passed through Dishinf
at 11 P.M. At the station he happened
to meet another teacher, Ahmad CAbd
al-Karim, who, on hearing that the
bishop was on the train, accompanied
Raghib to greet him. Raghib passed
the tin box with the codex and the
bouquet through the train window to
222 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / FALL 1979
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Codex IIIwas not among the
codices that passed through
Tano's hands.
the bishop, who was very angry,
thinking Raghib had brought Ahmad
along as a witness. A month or more
later Raghib heard that Bishop
Kirullus had returned to Qina, and
went to call on him, accompanied by
the headmaster of the Dishna Coptic
school, Shakir Maksi. When the
bishop inquired angrily why Raghib
had come, he said to inquire after his
health. When, after some small talk,
the bishop repeated his question,
Raghib said he had come to say
goodbye. Taking Raghib aside, the
bishop reproached him for bringing a
witness to the train station and
refused to accept Righib's explana-
tion that it was pure coincidence. He
demanded that Righib sign a receipt
for the return of the codex and tell no
one. Righib feared that the govern-
ment had seen the codex and, if
he signed, would put him in prison.
He refused to give a receipt, pointing
out that he had asked no receipt from
the bishop. Bishop Kirullus threat-
ened to dismiss Raghib from his
position as teacher, to which Righib
replied that the bishop could do as he
liked but that he would not sign. A
servant of the bishop, Sidrah,
intervened but was struck on the
cheek and sent away. Righib left in
tears, but two servants ran after him
and brought him back. Bishop
KTrulluspulled the codex from his
bag and began counting the leaves.
Raghib said this was unnecessary
since he had not counted the leaves
when he turned it over to the bishop.
Bishop Kirullus told him to take the
book and leave. Raghib replied that
he would not leave without the
bishop's blessing. Bishop Kirullus
forgave him, agreeing that Ahmad
had not been brought as a witness.
He advised Raghib to give the codex
to the Coptic Museum, laid his hand
on his head, and put the sign of the
cross upon him. Raghib took the
codex to the Qina train station and
waited for the train, sitting in the
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
coffee shop with the tin box between
his knees. When a policeman entered
the caf&,Raghib, thinking he had
been sent to capture him, trembled
and thought of abandoning the codex
in the caf&.But after getting a drink
of water, the policeman went away,
and Raghib took the train back to
Dishna .
When the summer vacations
came, Raghib went to Cairo
himself, accompanied by a relative,
a priest of Nag Hammadi, "al-
Qummus" Ishaq Hannan. They stayed
in New Cairo with the brother of
Raghib's father Anda.rawus, Diryas
"al-Quss" CAbdal-Sayyid. They first
visited a wealthy Coptic Pasha, who
was ill in bed and refused to see
them, until "al-Qummus" Ishdq
Hannan said that he wished to bless
him, whereupon after some two hours
they were admitted. When the Pasha
saw the codex, he put on his monocle
to examine it more closely and
announced that Raghib would
become very wealthy, himself a
Pasha. Raghib was so overjoyed that
he felt like a king between heaven and
earth. The Pasha said that, if they
would return in three days, he would
take them to the hotel of an
American who would pay any price
for the codex. But without waiting,
they went to Georgy Sobhy "Bey," a
Coptic physician also involved in
Coptic studies. Sobhy was so
delighted that he jumped up and
down and declared that Rdghib
would become wealthy. He suggested
that they return the next day at 6 P.M.
so he could examine the book again
and asked for their Cairo address.
"Al-Qummus" Ish•iq, who was ill and
hoped for free medical aid from
Sobhy, suggested to Rdghib that they
leave the codex overnight with him.
R~ghib, noting a telephone on
Sobhy's desk and fearing he might
telephone the police, agreed. When
they returned the next day, they were
shocked to see limousines with
chauffeurs in livery before the door.
On entering, those inside arose and
were introduced as ltienne Drioton,
Director of the Department of
Antiquities, Togo Mina, Director of
the Coptic Museum, as well as other
museum officials. Drioton interro-
gated Raghib as to the source of the
codex. When Raghib maintained that

it had come down through his priestly
family for centuries, Driotan asked
sarcastically whether Righib were a
Belgian, in that he had seen a quite
similar codex in the Cairo bazaar
Khan al-Khalll in the shop of a
Belgian antiquities dealer (thus
indicating that Codex I had already
reached Albert Eid). Drioton threat-
ened Raghib with imprisonment and
sought to obtain the codex without
payment. Raghib refused but finally
told the truth as to the origin of the
codex. Drioton was angry with
Rdghib for not having purchased all
the codices. He asked if Rdghib knew
the site of the discovery so that he
might some time come and see it.
Raghib replied that he did not know
the precise location, and anyway it
would be necessary to bring the
Egyptian army in order to excavate
there.
A meeting with the persons
authorized to settle upon a price was
set for three days later at the Coptic
Museum. Sobhy urged Raghib to
attend, but Raghib was angry with
Sobhy. Yet, since the codex had been
kept in custody, Raghib had no
choice but to go to the Coptic
Museum. Out of fear, Righib re-
fused to enter the building, so the
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i
mgI -?i?
authorities came out to negotiate with
him. He was offered LE 300, or if he
could wait some months, ?E 600. He
agreed to the price of ?E 300, but
when he returned to Togo Mina,
assuming he would receive the money,
he was told that he was foolish to
think that the money was at the
Coptic Museum. He should address
himself to the Ministry of Education.
Raghib spent the rest of the summer
vacations and all his funds in going
from office to office and giving tips to
persons he thought would help him.
His hopes of vacationing in the sea
breeze of Alexandria never material-
ized; he had to be back in Dishni for
the start of school in October. Finally
Togo Mina told him he was foolish
not to wait for the higher price, but
that if he would contribute ?E 50 to
the Coptic Museum, his name would
be inscribed on an alabaster plaque at
the museum and he would receive
?E 250 at once. Righib also wanted
to sign the Registry of the Coptic
Museum so as to become famous. He
received a check for ?E 250 from the
Ministry of Education, which he
cashed at the National Bank of Egypt
in Qind. When he visited the Coptic
Museum on 11 December 1976 and
did not find the plaque, he was
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979 223
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
-h
-IIL
PhocionJ. Tano,Cyprioteantiquities
dealerof Cairo(right).
Righib as he relatesthe middlemenstory
to JamesM. Robinson(left).
bitterly disappointed. He had long felt
that Bishop KTrullus'wrath was
responsible for his misfortune with
Codex III. But his name was recorded
for posterity in the Registry of
Acquisitions of the Coptic Museum,
which is the following entry,
neglected for a generation, perhaps
because it was written in Arabic:
4851. Papyri, manuscript in Coptic,
Sahidic, about fourth century, with
cover. Seventyleaves. Most of themare
damagedand incomplete;some of them
are very smallfragments.Price:LE250.
Purchasedfrom Righib "Effendi"An-
dardwus"al-Quss"CAbdal-Sayyid.Re-
ceivedOctober4, 1946.Archive:5/13.
Raghib has reported that an
Italian woman was caught taking the
bulk of the codices to the airport,
intending to give them to the Pope in
Rome. The Minister of Education,
Taha Husein, told her that she could
not export them; rather, the
government would purchase them
from her for ?E 300 each, the rate
established in the case of Righib's
codex. But she refused, went to
Luxor, contacted Righib, and
suggested he meet her there with a
view toward taking joint action
 against the government. But after
having consulted a lawyer who
advised him that he would not win
such a case, Raghib declined to meet
with her. This is Rdghib's version of
the role played by Maria Dattari,
who was Tano's front when his
codices were sequestered by the
government and ultimately nation-
alized.
When Righib was in the museum
in 1946, he saw Togo Mina busily
putting the leaves of the codex in
order as well as repairing them with
transparent tape. On 5 December
1946 Mina showed the codex to
FranqoisDaumasand HenryCorbin,
with whom he made plans to have the
leaves conservedbetweenpanes of
glass before Daumaswould returnthe
followingautumnto edit the codex.
Noting the title of the Apocryphonof
John on the verso of the front flyleaf,
Daumassuspectedit of being
Gnostic,and Corbinthoughtthat,
given the nameJohn, it would be
Gnosticmysticism.In Paris early in
the summerof 1947Daumastold
AntoineGuillaumontof the discovery,
at which time they discussedthe then
still-unpublished copy of the Apocry-
phon of John known to be in the
Berlin Codex 8502.
On 20 September 1947 Etienne
Drioton left Marseille for Cairo. He
was accompanied by his pupil
Marianne Doresse (nee Guentch-
Ogloueff) of the Musee Guimet and
her husband, Jean. In Cairo,
Marianne's former classmate and
suitor, Togo Mina, had already made
plans to publish the codex with her
husband by the time Daumas
returned in November. On 10-11
January 1948 both the discovery and
the publication plans for Codex III
were announced in the Cairo press,
somewhat to the distress of Georgy
Sobby, who had hoped to edit the
codex himself.
If thus the discovery had become
public and the history of research had
begun, the death of Togo Mina in
October 1949 and the resultant
decline in Doresse's role meant that
the trail grew cold regarding the story
of the discoverers and the middlemen
of the Nag Hammadi codices. The
decisive clue to the reconstruction of
the story was Raghib's name in the
Registry of the Coptic Museum. On
224 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ FALL 1979
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28 August 1975 I asked Abram
Bibdawi,then Sub-Principal of the
Boys' Secondary School of Nag
Hammadi, if he had heard that name.
He replied that he had studied under
him! Furthermore, the teacher of
English at his school, Wadic Falta•'is
CAbd al-MasTh, lived in al-Qasr and
could put me in contact with the
discoverer. Through Abram I was
introduced to MunTr"al-Qummus"
Basilyfis CAbd al-MasTh, Secretary to
the Criminal Investigation Agent at
the Nag Hammadi Court House.
Thus I was able to interview both
Munir's neighbor Muhammad 'All in
al-Qasr and Munir's uncle Raghib in
Qina, from whom came the bulk of
the story and many leads to further
details. It is primarily through the
intelligent, energetic, and loyal
assistance of these local Copts that Reporton the discoveryof the Nag
the story has been pieced together. Hammadicodices,10December1976,in
Cairoat the secondmeetingof the
InternationalCommitteefor the Nag
HammadiCodices,withwhichthe First
James M. Robinson is the Arthur InternationalCongressof Coptology
opened.Leftto right:JamesM.
Letts, Jr., Professor of Religion at Robinson,AbramBibawT (who brought
Claremont Graduate School and the Robinsonin contactwith Muhammad
Director of the Institute for Antiquity cAli and Raghib),LabibHabachi(Chief
and Christianity. He is the secretary Inspectorfor UpperEgyptof the
of the UNESCO International Departmentof Antiquitiesat the timeof
the discovery);RdghibAndardwus
Committee for the Nag Hammadi "al-Quss"CAbdal-Sayyid(whosold
Codices and the General Editor of CodexIII to the CopticMuseumin
The Coptic Gnostic Library and The October1947),HilmiSahytinGaddis
Nag Hammadi Library in English. (whosefatherwas offereda codex)
beinginterrogatedby GillesQuispel.
. ...
A
•.+
K
i-
.. .
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