Oldest Gospel Found in Mummy

The oldest testament has been discovered in the inside of a buried mummy mask. Some scientists claimed that a piece of it, which is from the Gospel of Mark, is dated back to 90 A.D. Previously the oldest known copy was dated back to about 101-200 A.D. The text was written on a papyrus sheet that was later reused for the mummy mask. While the common image of ancient mummies usually involves bejeweled golden masks that level of finery was only reserved for the wealthy. The mummy mask for the average person would have been made out of recycled material like papyrus. The research team, so they could retrieve the text without damaging it, applied a method of ungluing the papyrus without obscuring the paper’s ink. About three-dozen researchers are using this technique to analyze hundreds of texts from mummy masks.

The piece of text has not yet been published, only a hand full of people has actually been able to witness this artifact. It may be the next step to having a clearer understanding of the Christian texts, along with other piece of Greek culture and literature that was also discovered.

A mummy.