Something that we tend to forget about time is that it can slip right by you when not paying attention. Paying attention to time is all I have been doing while processing the IAC Nag Hammadi collection. But not in the same way that people do while sitting in a classroom or at work. I have been paying close attention to the time that has been captured inside of these files and boxes.
This past week I have been processing the IAC’s museum records. The files contained item lists for all things that were once displayed, including the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. It was a featured exhibit here on the Claremont Colleges campus on June 12, 1965. The tremendous amount of work that went into making the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibits a possibility for the public to see. This included the shipment of materials to Claremont and the delicate process of unpacking priceless materials and to present them in a non-objective manner. The entire exhibit was considered an incredible success with over 1,700 people visiting on the first day alone and a total of 51,852 persons for the whole time. A memo was drafted that gave an amazingly detailed report of everything that went on; including the very few complaints and numerous praises from museum goers, a trip to Disneyland for the Curator of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, and praise for the LA County Sheriffs who were able to handle the large crowds in the summer heat with a smile.
Another interesting find within the Museum records was a piece of cloth. Now this is no ordinary piece of cloth that we would wear. It was a piece of cloth that wrapped the Nag Hammadi codices, meaning it is nearly two thousand years old. The small piece (now pieces) was placed in an Egyptian newspaper with Arabic writing on it. Now there is quite a bit of cloth dust as much of it has disintegrated due to the long passage of time that the lack of preservation efforts. My part is to now find what to do with this random material from a time I have only read about in books. I am excited to see where this all goes!
Thanks for reading!
Jason