Re:What We Know of Sappho
by hcayless on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @09:01AM
(#25358494)
The fragments may or may not be fake (consensus seems to be that the poem is probably genuine), but the provenance was certainly covered up. See https://eidolon.pub/the-murky-provenance-of-the-newest-sapph.... It's all quite scandalous and is connected to the theft and sale of biblical papyri to the Museum of the Bible. See also https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jan/09/a-scandal-in-ox... and https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/16/oxford-profe...
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Yes, the guardian article is great.
I went down that rabbit hole a while ago and I found convincing arguments that the Sappho poems were fakes (though the Bible fragments are genuine but stolen). I can’t find the source again. I thought the Atlantic article explained it, but they stop at the Turk who provided them to Obbink. So I’ll settle for “likely forgeries”.