Manichaean and Other Ancient Christian Remains from Egypt, Kerala (India) and Fujian (China)

Department of Studies in Religion

Associate Professor Iain Gardner
Iain Gardner is a specialist in Manichaean studies, and more broadly in forms of ancient Christianity at variance to the dominant historical trajectory of the religion. He is by training a Coptic Papyrologist, and is the editor of many primary texts; as well as being engaged in the more synthetic study of the processes by and forms in which Christianity evolved. He was Chair of the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney from 1998-2004.

This area title brings together a number of discrete projects, connected by common themes and historical circumstances, but undertaken at different geographic and temporal points in the spread of ancient Christianities across North Africa and Asia. Trade routes such as the Silk Road carried these forms of belief and practice from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and a common theme of the research is the recovery of these histories that have in good part been lost or obscured compared to the dominant forms of the institutional church; especially as viewed from a western perspective. Issues of cultural variation and engagement with other religions are a central theme.

The author has been working on Manichaean documents from late antique Egypt for many years. These include the so-called Medinet Madi library of Coptic papyrus codices, which first appeared on the Cairo antiquities market in 1929, and are now housed primarily in Dublin and Berlin. Most importantly, the author and Professor Wolf-Peter Funk (Université Laval, Québec) are near completion of the editio princeps of the remains of the Berlin codex of Mani’s Epistles, a unique exemplar of one of ancient Manichaeism’s scriptures. Iain Gardner is also author of the standard English translation of another codex from the library, The Kephalaia of the Teacher.

Since 1992 the author has been the principal Coptic papyrologist for the excavations at ancient Kellis (Ismant el-Kharab) held annually by an Australian led team (field director Dr Colin Hope of Monash University) on behalf of the Dakhleh Oasis project (Director A.J. Mills), and working on site in the eastern Sahara. This has led to numerous publications, including two volumes of original Coptic, Greek and Syriac papyri; with two further volumes in advanced preparation.

In 1999 the author began a major synthetic study of the processes of social and cultural change in fourth century Egypt; this in collaboration with Professor Majella Franzmann (University of New England). A very substantial data-base has been established, with a monograph in preparation.

In 2000 the author, together with Professors Samuel Lieu (Macquarie University) and Franzmann (UNE) began a project on the Medieval Manichaean and Christian (both ‘Nestorian’ and Catholic) remains in Fujian province of the People’s Republic of China. This is now necessarily taking in the spread of ancient Christianities by the Maritime Silk Road to Kerala in South India. Various fieldtrips have been undertaken, and From Palmyra to Zayton has now been completed for 2005 publication. In April of this year the team were astounded to find direct evidence of a continuing Mani cult at village level; announcement of this has been accepted for immediate publication as the lead article in Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa.

Over the past decade these projects have been awarded five ARC Large or Discovery grants with the author as a Chief Investigator in collaboration with various other scholars, together with numerous other external and competitive research grants, to the value of approximately one million dollars.

Photo: 'Nestorian' christian tombstone from the Mongol period; currently on display at the Quanzhou Maritime Museum in Fujian (Photo by M. Wilson)

• The Dakhleh Oasis Project
• The Ancient History Documentary Research Centre (Macquarie University)
• The Centre for Archaeology (Monash University)

Books

• Gardner, I, Lieu, S.N.C., Parry, K, (eds.) From Palmyra to Zayton, Turnhout 2005.
• Gardner, I, Lieu, S.N.C., Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire, Cambridge 2004.
• Gardner, I, Alcock, A, Funk, W-P, Coptic Documentary Texts from Kellis I, (= P. Kell. V), Oxford 1999.
• Gardner, I, Kellis Literary Texts I, (= P. Kell. II), Oxford 1996.
• Gardner, I, The Kephalaia of the Teacher, Leiden 1995.

Chapters in books

• Gardner, I, ‘A Letter from the Teacher: Some Comments on Letter-Writing and the Manichaean Community of IVth Century Egypt’, in P.-H. Poirier, Mélanges Wolf-Peter Funk, (in press).
• Gardner, I, ‘A Select Catalogue of the Medieval Christian and Manichaean Remains from Zayton, principally preserved in the Quanzhou Maritime Museum’, in I. Gardner, S.N.C. Lieu, K. Parry, From Palmyra to Zayton, Turnhout 2005 (in press).
• Gardner, I, 'The Reconstruction of Mani's Epistles from Three Coptic Codices (Ismant el-Kharab and Medinet Madi)', in P. Mirecki and J. BeDuhn, The Light and the Darkness: Studies in Manichaeism and its World, Leiden 2001: 93-104.
• Gardner, I, ‘The Manichaean Community at Kellis’, in P. Mirecki and J. BeDuhn, Emerging from Darkness to Light, Leiden 1997: 161-175.
• Alcock, A, Gardner, I, Mirecki, P, ‘Magical Spell, Manichaean Letter’, in P. Mirecki and J. BeDuhn, Emerging from Darkness to Light, Leiden 1997: 1-32.

Journal Articles

• Franzmann, M, Gardner, I, Lieu. S, ‘A Living Mani Cult in the Twenty-first Century’, Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 2005 (in press).
• Bagnall, R, Choat, M, Gardner, I, 'O. Douch I 40', Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 147, 2004: 205-207.
• Choat, M, Gardner, I, 'O. Douch I 49', Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 143, 2003: 143-146.
• Gardner, I, Nobbs, A, Choat, M, ‘P. Harr. 107: Is this Another Greek Manichaean Letter?’,Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 131, 2000: 118-124.
• Gardner, I, ‘An Old Coptic Ostracon from Ismant el-Kharab?’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 125, 1999: 195-200.
• Gardner, I and Worp, KA, ‘Leaves from a Manichaean Codex’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 117, 1997: 139-155.
• Gardner, I and Lieu, SNC, ‘From Narmouthis (Medinet Madi) to Kellis (Ismant el- Kharab): Manichaean Documents from Roman Egypt’, Journal of Roman Studies, 1996: 146-169.
• Gardner, I, ‘A Manichaean Liturgical Codex found at Kellis’, Orientalia, 62, 1993: 30-59.

Conference Papers

• Gardner, I, 'Some Comments on Mani and Indian Religions from the Coptic Sources', Proceedings of the Vth International Conference of Manichaean Studies, Napoli 2001 (in press).
• Gardner, I, Choat, M, 'Towards a Palaeography of Fourth Century Documentary Coptic', in M. Immerzeel and J. van der Vliet, Coptic Studies on the Threshold of a New Millenium, I, Leuven 2004: 495-503.
• Gardner, I, ‘He has Gone to the Monastery ..’, in R.E. Emmerick, W. Sundermann and P. Zieme, Studia Manichaica. Proceedings of the IVth International Conference of Manichaean Studies, Berlin 1997. Berlin, 2000: 247-57.