In December 1993, when Pierre Bikai, director of the the American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) in Amman, Jordan, and his team discovered a cache of burnt papyrus scrolls in a Byzantine church in Petra, he wanted to avoid the kind of publication scandals that surrounded the Dead Sea Scrolls. He decided the best way to do this was with a written contract drafted by a lawyer, spelling out in detail the rights and responsibilities of all parties involved—ACOR (the excavator), Jordan’s Department of Antiquities and the papyrologists who would conserve and decipher the fragile texts. The contract Bikai […]