My bad! I though these fake scrolls (aka, "garbage cigars") were the brainchild of just one person. But @ATHARProject pointed out that they're a popular category of collectible antiquity. Let's explore the world of looty roll-ups! https://twitter.com/artcrimeprof/status/1311304797094518785

Search Google Images or Shopping for Egyptian papyrus scroll, and you'll find a myriad of these trash taquitos.

Even somewhere named "SkullStore Inc." is getting in on it.

I suspect the price realized at this Bonhams sale explains why sellers are so eager to flog their own (although they rarely achieve the masterful lighting that made trash tubes look so beautiful here).

The Bonhams listing also explains what these things are. Ancient Egyptians ripped up old documents written on papyrus to reuse in mummy cartonnage ( https://brentnongbri.com/2017/12/04/cartonnage-mummy-and-otherwise/), and then modern looters pulled apart the mummies and rolled up scraps into "scrolls."

So, collectors are buying ancient trash ripped from bodies and shaped into modern fantasies. Why would anyone want a haunted dumpster burrito?

I can't imagine displaying this voodoo doo-doo on my mantelpiece, much less paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for the privilege.

So, yeah, public service announcement of the day: don't buy these things. (But please let me know your nicknames for them if you're so inspired....) https://twitter.com/ATHARProject/status/1311681964089503744?s=20

(To be more serious: these genuine papyrus bits made into fake scrolls show one of the ways that fake and looted antiquities are intertwined. It's a gruesome craft project allowing looters to wring some profit out of otherwise unsalable objects taken from graves.

Dreams of big finds drive looters to archeological sites, but it's the steady drip of small sales that keeps them going, spending years systematically devastating entire sites.) @monznomad