Oxyrhynchus Gospel fragment bought in?

Looks like the early fragment of the Gospel of John did not sell at Sotheby's December 3rd sale. Press release here; Sotheby's catalog entry here; sale results here.

The other highlight of the sale, an historical compendium including Marco Polo's travelogue, did sell. Catalog entry here; hammer price was £937,250. Excerpt from the description:

This is evidently the long-lost manuscript of historical tracts used by the scribe of the Burghley transcripts, last seen in the sixteenth century, and containing the only substantial Marco Polo manuscript to come to the auction market in nearly a century, as well as the only medieval manuscript of the Encomium Emmae (a contemporary biography of the wife of King Cnut) in the version revised for her son Edward the Confessor, and a number of other important and rare historical texts including accounts and assessments of medieval Islam and the Near-East

Posted by David on December 8, 2008 4:27 PM