Nag Hammadi

In December 1945, shortly before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jordan, two peasant brothers made a momentous discovery. Working in Upper Egypt, near Nag Hammadi, beneath a mountainous cliff pockmarked with over 150 caves, and looking for sabakh, a soil used for fertilizer, they found a red earthenware jar. Inside they discovered twelve Coptic papyrus codices, bound in leather-covered wooden boards, that preserved fifty-three (not fifty-two as once thought) ancient writings.