Jillian French – News Editor

On Tuesday, September 24, students flooded Cleghorn to hear Dr. Mike Sampson’s guest lecture, entitled A Sapphic Scandal and Scholarly Ethics. As professor of classics at the university of Manitoba, Prof. Sampson discussed controversy surrounding poems written by Ancient Greek author Sappho, discovered in 2014 on dubious grounds.

In 2014, Dr. Dirk Obbink, a papyrologist at Oxford University, announced the discovery of a fragment of parchment with two newly discovered Sappho poems. Sappho was a renowned archaic female poet in Greece, regarded as one of the greatest lyrical poets of ancient times. Her written adoration of women has further cemented her legacy through words like “sapphic” and “lesbian”, derived from her name and place of birth (Lesbos), respectively. The discovery makes reference to her brothers Charaxos and Larichos, which are names referenced in other documents by separate authors. This, as well as stylistic similarities to Sappho’s works, asserted Dr. Obbink’s claim over Sappho’s authorship.

Prof. Sampson, however, raises concerns over Obbink’s secrecy about the origin of the material. In 2014, Obbink remained vague about how the anonymous buyer came across the papyrus, but assured the public that it was completely legal. These kinds of details are referred to as proveniance. One year after the discovery, Dr. Obbink revealed that the papyrus had been bought by an anonymous collector in 2011 at a London auction. However, Prof Sampson noted that this same origin story had been used for another papyrology fragment, but was later confirmed to be a lie, instead having been sold on eBay by a Turkish antique dealer. With such secrecy surrounding the true source of Sappho’s poems, it’s not unreasonable to question whether the fragments have passed through the black market. Prof. Sampson also points out that most parysuses come from Egypt. If it did not leave Egypt before 1984, the papyrus is property of the government, and therefore was removed illegally. Rumours of theft are far from impossible: Dr. Obbink was arrested in 2020 for the theft of biblical fragments in Oxford’s papyrus collections, although he remains clear of any court conviction. All of this, of course, raises concerns of authenticity and ethics in the procuration of the recovered poems.

In concluding the lecture, Prof. Sampson emphasised the “priority of proveniance”. These two recovered poems were received very happily by the media in 2014, and the matter of origin was brushed aside in the excitement of new sapphic poetry. However, he says, “it’s not just about reading Sappho, it’s about knowing where Sappho came from”. Without legitimate origins, scholars have difficulty approving the authenticity of these recovered works, and risk violating ethical codes in scholarship. When looking at these works, he adds, it’s important to “keep a bright light on questionable objects and behaviours”.