Tattered papyrus scrolls are increasingly sought items in the world of online auction trading. Typical of the fierce battle in online auction trading is a rectangular papyrus scrap measuring 4.5 inches by 1.5 inches with 15 partial lines of Homer’s “The Illiad” written by a 4th-Century Egyptian scribe sold this month to a European buyer for 16,000 pounds.

St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans was bought at Sotheby’s for 301,000 pounds. The price stunned auctioneers and is indicative of a burgeoning online trade that unscrupulous sellers are interested in cashing in on.

There is a free-ranging trade on eBay where documents are carved up for sale. Traffickers dismembering papyrus books to sell page-by-page items and forgers flourish here. One of the most famous cases was a fragment known as the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife that made headlines after overturning nearly two millennia of theological teaching that Jesus was unmarried but is now viewed as a forgery.

There are concerns that the old documents aren’t handled well. The Gospel of Judas was stored by one of its owners in a safe-deposit box for sixteen years before being placed in a freezer by a potential buyer who that that this was one way to preserve it.

There are fears that ancient manuscripts are crumbling and will soon be lost forever.