The Invisible Ownership of Humanities Rare Books, Scriptures and Manuscripts

Sketch: Auctions Houses and cultural heritages.

There are organisations all over the world working to restore some of humanities most important treasures. Be it cultural or be it just historical data. To actually add any information on computer data systems, the physical document or a copy of it needs to exist. What if humanity most rare and significantly important documents and books are actually privately owned and there's no copy of it. What a computer data literally have is what's provided to it. Interestingly, some of the world's most compelling and astonishing works are kept reserved in the hands of few. Some would call them: 'Guardians of Memory'.

A group of very powerful individuals with something very rare and peculiar in common. The Invisible Ownership of Humanities Rare Books, Scriptures and Manuscripts, controlling humanities most important historical past, its knowledge and gate keeping of data input.

A phenomenon happened during our life time. The Global Consolidation of Rare Books and Manuscripts after the year of 2020. It was a rare event, not totally preventable or unpredictable. It became one of the most rare and most significant years in mankind history, after the second World War in regard to the exchange and market of rare books, scriptures and manuscripts.

The Global Shift in Cultural Stewardship started because of a global pandemic:

Between 2020 and 2024, the global market for rare books and manuscripts witnessed an explosive transformation. While the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered galleries, libraries, and cultural institutions across the globe, in the other side of the platform, another quiet but very profitable market was booming. This shift occurred in parallel with the extraordinary number of deaths that occurred. This phenomenon was only witnessed once, more than in any other period in mankind: the acceleration of private acquisitions of cultural knowledge by an exclusive, private elite class of very distinct and private collectors, that wished to remain anonymous, before, during and after most acquisitions.

During the second world war, Jewish lost even more properties and personal belongings than when it started. Wealth individuals lost most of their own possessions. Some of these possessions and properties were rare artworks, manuscripts, documents and books. This is the only time in history that we saw, in such a short period of time, the rare and fast exchange of many extraordinary pieces of works, such as rare books, artefacts, unique invaluable materials. The resurgence of these rare documents and artwork once more during the years of 2020 to 2024 was another example of this phenomenon. This time not related to war but with another tragedy, a global pandemic.

From 9th-century Hebrew bibles to 17th-century treatises on astronomy and navigation, hundreds of historically significant manuscripts were sold in major auction houses, during these four years alone. Only in Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonhams, and others very famous auction houses. These sales attracted enormous sums, and many went to anonymous buyers, obscuring the final destination of some of humanity’s most valuable intellectual artefacts. Leaving the most of us wondering, if we will be able to ever see these documents ever again.

We will examine at this article what drove this post-2020 consolidation of knowledge and its discretion: who bought what, how and why they did so, and what the long-term cultural impact it might be. This is not merely a study of commerce but actual control of humanities must precious documents, of how the past is being curated, and in some cases hidden, by a small group of modern stewards who controls the passage of these rare documents.

Some of these most notable Sales were: Key Manuscripts and Rare Books sold during these time frame, of 2020 to 2024.

In the wake of the pandemic, record-breaking auctions were consolidated. These were fast auctions performed by professional auction houses were quickly and almost imperceptibly dealing with extremely rare books and documents in a speed rate never seem before. And with such a secrecy that even 'a story' couldn't be made of it. Below are just a few examples of exceptional items that were documented and that changed hands, often disappearing into private collections during this small period of time (The only paper trail left were identification, rate and final price, with sometimes rare information about buyers shared in public).

Some of these were very Important Religious and Philosophical Texts.

Such as: The Codex Sassoon (c. 900 CE) – The world’s oldest nearly complete Hebrew Bible. It was sold for $38.1 million at Christie’s in 2023. Purchased by a donor for the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.

The Qur’anic Manuscripts (8th -10th century) – Several rare Kufic-script manuscripts appeared in private auctions. Some sold for over $2 million, particularly those with intact illumination or royal lineage.

The Bhagavata Purana (India, 15th century) – A lavishly illustrated Sanskrit manuscript sold privately through Sotheby’s, with an estimated value exceeding $3 million.

Some documents of Scientific and Discovery Manuscripts that arrived for sale also were:

Isaac Newton’s Theological and Alchemical Papers. It was sold in parts, these manuscripts fetched over $3 million cumulatively, including notes on biblical chronology and alchemy.

Even Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebooks appeared for sale. What a rare moment to be alive on these auctions, a very rare document by an artist recognised worldwide (The Codex Arundel fragments) – It was reported to a private sales event, reportedly occurred during these periods and though figures also remained undisclosed, it was as unique as its maker. For understanding of its value. Is known that such manuscripts often command valuations between $30 to 50 million range. And it was on sale during our own lifetime. As intriguing as it may sounds. it also feels illegal to not know who bought it and for what purpose.

Not to mention, Galileo Galilei’s Signed Letters. Yes, you read it right, Galileo Galilei’s Signed Letters. Discussing sunspots and his trial before the Inquisition, letters which were sold for $500,000 to $1 million each.

These documents were so rare that the appearance alone was actually an astonishing moment and shocking to many.

Here are also some other very rare sales, in Literary and Philosophical Landmarks that happened on this same period of 2020 to 2024:

William Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623) – Was sold for $9.9 million in 2020. One of only six complete copies in the world which still in private hands. Pretty astonishing right?

Jane Austen’s Manuscripts and Letters – Fetching between $500,000 and $1.2 million depending on length, content, and provenance.

 Aesop’s Fables (Medieval illuminated copies) – A complete Latin version with marginalia sold for $1.7 million to an unnamed European collector.

A collection of Eastern Manuscripts and Scrolls was also sold:

Chinese Confucian Scrolls (From Song Dynasty) – Some early Confucian texts were reportedly acquired by a Hong Kong-based private library, with individual scrolls valued at over $2 million.

Even Japanese Religious Texts (From Heian to Edo Periods) appeared for sale. And while sales are more discreet, a notable 12th-century Lotus Sutra scroll sold at a private auction for nearly $1.5 million in 2022.

Korean Buddhist Manuscripts went on sale – Goryeo dynasty pieces, known for their golden script, were acquired by U.S. and European collectors privately.

These are only few examples, and examples that only scratch the surface of the magnitude in sales that occurred and was experienced during this time. We most likely will never see a rare period like this never again in our life times. While most of us were on lock down and witnessing the world being closed for business and suffering. Hundreds and hundreds of rarer and also lesser-known, but still critically important manuscripts had exchanged hands, many of those, never to be seen again in public.

What really happened between closed doors? No one really knows or can tell, at least not most of us anyway. What we can tell in the other hand, is that, some other type of market that was dormant for many decades, centuries even, suddenly awoken. Who Are these individuals who were actually ready and prepared for it ? Profiles, institutions and individuals who became buyers of very important documents belonging to mankind history? A Discreet number, part of a very secretive Elite of individuals that controls not only knowledge at a very unique market, but the preparedness and knowledge of the arrival of these materials, at the so called: unprecedented times. During and after the Coronavirus pandemic. Data that we might never seen again and documents that will be kept hidden even.

While some sales are made to museums or philanthropic foundations, the overwhelming trend has been toward private acquisition, often under a cloak of legal and financial discretion. Here’s what we know about the buyers dominating this space of rare books, scriptures and manuscripts:

They are more than only Private Collectors. These are powerful individuals that not only are able to control these markets but the information that's put on sale through these rare documents at these rare moments in the history of mankind.

They are and can only be, ultra-wealthy individuals across the globe, especially in the United States, United Kingdom, Gulf States, China, and increasingly Southeast Asia. These individuals have emerged as powerful private custodians of human knowledge. Many purchases are conducted via:

 • Anonymous trusts

 • Family offices

 • Special purpose entities (LLCs, LLPs)

 • Advisory firms and art agents

This makes it nearly impossible to track ownership unless the buyers choose to go public. In most cases, they do not. What it still goes public is that, the sale of such materials and information to the public were shared, books and documents were found and the sale of it happened, where and for how long it was on display.

Important to this scene and for general knowledge of information on these individuals, are also Dynastic Families from many different cultures and backgrounds:

Also called, old-money families, especially in Europe and the Middle East, where they have returned to collecting as a form of legacy building and privacy of their own history. Such families often own private archives rivalling national institutions. The Rothschilds, Al Thanis (Qatar), Gettys, and Bernadottes are frequently speculated to be involved in major acquisitions, though these remain unconfirmed due to confidentiality.

Institutions and Museums are and can be involved, so documents and important books and materials are not totally lost, for example:

Public institutions are underrepresented due to budget constraints. However, when this happens, it's possible that a group of wealth interested individuals will privately step in, these are called: donors. They will step in to facilitate purchases on behalf of museums, where cities and entire countries even, will witness the interest and absolute acquisition of what's rarely on sale:

 • ANU Museum of the Jewish People received Codex Sassoon via donation.

 • The British Library occasionally acquires manuscripts via the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

 • American universities such as Yale and Harvard sometimes quietly participate.

Yet these are rare exceptions in a landscape now dominated by private wealth.

Now, the biggest question: Was the boom orchestrated some how, so these rare pieces would ended up as predicted in the hands of the very few, who already controls partially these cultural and artistic documents?

Possibly and almost impossible to prove, so the next step is to trace what it is put on sale first, and how rare it is, as the 'whys' are not necessarily obligatory to disclose.

Market Forces and Psychological Catalysts of these events are not speculative when it comes to the years between 2020 to 2024.

Several converging trends explain the post-2020 explosion in rare manuscript sales: The number of deaths and tragedy followed after COVID-19. As the Covid-19 itself was a predicted event for the future from past years where, WHO advised, The World Economic Forum advised and experts on the field advised years before arrived. Not only wealthy individuals but world leaders were advised for preparedness, before the pandemic arrived. And we have been advised again of future pandemics in near future.

Post-Pandemic sales of rare documents, arts, manuscripts and books. Predictable. What is not, and technically should not be predictable is the type of rare documents and books that were presented for auction. This was unprecedented and unimaginable, and somehow suspicious in a rare way.

As COVID-19 pandemic prompted a global re-evaluation of values and priorities. For the ultra-rich, this meant turning to physical, tangible investments seen as permanent and meaningful, as also power.

Manuscripts, unlike stocks or cryptocurrencies, offer timeless value and more than symbolic cultural capital. When predicted, it includes dominance and possession over 'adversaries' cultural and knowledge interests. Not to mention some of these events and sales were also private, disclosed to a very selective and prestigious group of individuals, in classified rare events, sold by undisclosed value as ownership. All kept confidential. Who wins, who loses, Who prepared for this moment? No one really knows for sure, while it still highly speculative.

The loss of cultural heritage, especially through gated ownership of historically significant documents, like rare manuscripts, sacred books, or state papers for example), can have deep and far - reaching consequences for societies and civilisations. Particularly in an era where data is power and much of culture is being transformed into digital input.

When cultural documents are hoarded or hidden, the public access to historical truth and legacy is weakened, as it is its data, AI and any computer input dependant on information fed into the system for education or research purposes. Over time societies become culturally poor, less intellectual on its own subjects and rootless, becoming more susceptible to a subculture adaptation of values and interests. A great example is what happened to indigenous people in many countries around the world. Where one culture took over another. Simply explaining, this is what's happen when auctions begin to be manipulated at this level.

Although not promptly, the gradual loss of culture and historical documents does indicate the ignition of loss and erosion of cultural information. A process that can start even years before its initiative.

AI systems are already, but will also become even more incomplete. Information and data input will become unreliable. Dangerous to all of us who are predicted to be relying on it future wise.

The concentration of power will escalate, cultural identity will be privately owned and held-in intentionally away from cultures who would otherwise benefited by important public information. Cultural gate keeping is considered a new colonialism. It distorts civilisation's memories and public truth.

With traditional markets becoming increasingly volatile, rare books and manuscripts offered a new kind of blue-chip asset. Their low correlation with stocks made them an appealing hedge.

Status and Intellectual Legacy.

Unlike art or real estate, owning a Newton manuscript or da Vinci notebook for example, confers more than exclusivity or intellectual prestige. It stamps, control over cultural, arts, science and educational heritage. Collectors are no longer content to simply display wealth, they believe and wish to display rare and unique ownership of world knowledge and wisdom. Display of control and power.

Many collectors believe that within the next 10 to 15 years, most publicly available major manuscripts will be in private hands. We should listen to them, because it is already happening. This “final frontier” mentality has led to bidding wars, often well beyond estimated values.

It highlights technology and control of information being born in places that are unimaginable for the most of us, private bidding houses. A privileged war, fought only by the ultra-wealthy.

Sales Mechanics: How the Ultra-Wealthy Buy Cultural Artefacts (or take it away from humanity)? Reminding that the choice is never ours, but made from powerful, high profile individuals and institutions sat in very private tables.

The structure of these high-end sales is carefully engineered for privacy, prestige, and permanence.

Private Previews: Where top-tier clients are shown works before public auction. These private viewings take place in discreet settings, often with direct negotiation options.

Following Legal Layering (which protects privacy)

Buyers rarely bid in their own names. Instead, sales are conducted through:

 • Offshore companies (British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands)

 • Law firms or fiduciary agents

 • Art advisory groups like Gurr Johns or The Fine Art Group

Payment Flexibility

Traditional cash and wire transfers are still common, but crypto payments and asset trades (art for books, land for scrolls) are increasingly used in private sales.

Storage and Transport

Post-sale, works are shipped to high-security storage facilities like Freeports (Geneva, Luxembourg, Singapore) or moved via firms like Crozier, Gander & White, or Cadogan Tate. These facilities offer anonymity and zero taxation for items not officially imported.

The Shadow Libraries: Private Collections Rivalling National Archives

In the new age of elite manuscript collecting, we see the rise of “shadow libraries”: privately owned archives so extensive they rival or surpass national institutions. These collections are often not accessible to the public, making it difficult to track holdings.

Middle Eastern Dynasties

Royal families in the Gulf States, particularly in Qatar and the UAE, have been acquiring manuscripts as part of national prestige projects, but often the manuscripts remain in private palaces, not museums.

American Billionaires

Some U.S. collectors now house entire floors of Manhattan buildings with temperature-controlled libraries containing priceless incunabula, medical treatises, and Renaissance maps.

Chinese Tech Entrepreneurs

Flush with liquidity, some new wealth figures in China have focused on repatriating Confucian and Taoist scrolls, particularly those exported in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These items rarely leave the country again once acquired.

Such collections preserve, but also privatise, human history, raising difficult ethical questions.

Digital Archives vs Physical Control: Why Originals Still Matter

The digitisation of archives has dramatically expanded public access to historical knowledge. Google Books, Project Gutenberg, Gallica (from the BNF), and countless university initiatives have placed millions of pages online. Yet, paradoxically, the more these digital facsimiles become available, the more prized the original physical artifacts become among elite collectors.

Authenticity and Aura

Walter Benjamin, in his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, argued that the “aura” of an original object could never be duplicated. This holds especially true for manuscripts. A digital image cannot replicate:

 • The marginalia of a monk in the 12th century

 • The hand-corrected draft of an Enlightenment thinker

 • The scent and texture of vellum or early rag paper

 • The ink composition and fading patterns that tell a forensic story

Provenance and Ownership

In legal and cultural terms, physical ownership confers a far different status than digital access. Institutions and families with original artifacts can:

 • Assert curatorial power

 • Shape the narrative through exclusive exhibitions

 • Control who has access and for what purposes

Digital copies may circulate freely, but the institutions or individuals who hold the originals still decide what gets published, and how it’s interpreted.

Scholarship and Limitations

Even advanced scholars often require direct access to manuscripts for paleographical, chemical, or codicological analysis. Many features such watermarks, wormholes, ink corrosion, do not scan well. Without access to originals, entire fields of historical inquiry are weakened.

In essence, digital democratisation and private consolidation are happening in parallel, and ironically reinforcing one another. The more common digital texts become, the rarer the physical becomes, in both perception and price.

National Heritage and Repatriation: Who Owns Civilisation’s Books?

As manuscripts disappear into private hands, cultural institutions and governments increasingly raise questions about rightful ownership. Many historical documents were removed from their countries of origin under colonial regimes, wartime expropriations, or exploitative trade.

Repatriation Efforts

 • India has been active in reclaiming both sculptures and manuscripts. The National Mission for Manuscripts has pushed for the return of palm-leaf texts held in British and European institutions.

 • Greece continues to demand the return of artefacts and documents taken during Ottoman and British rule, including archives from monasteries.

 • Iraq has retrieved over 17,000 looted artefacts, including cuneiform tablets, with support from U.S. authorities.

While museums are often targeted for restitution, auction houses and private collectors have mostly evaded scrutiny. This could change as nations begin challenging high-profile sales involving unverified provenance.

Legal and Ethical Ambiguity

The law often lags behind morality. A manuscript acquired in the 1920s may now be legal property, but ethically controversial. The UNESCO 1970 Convention offers some protection, but it is not retroactive and applies poorly to private sales.

Some collectors proactively return items; others establish foundations or agreements that allow public access in exchange for continued ownership. However, these are voluntary acts and not systemic solutions.

The Consequences of Private Control: Cultural, Intellectual, and Political: When a small elite holds the keys to humanity’s written past, the consequences are both obvious and insidious.

First, is Cultural Risk:

 • Silencing Diversity: If rare manuscripts on marginalised cultures are hoarded privately, their rediscovery and re-contextualisation become impossible.

 • Historical Gaps: Knowledge suppressed through non-access might never inform public debates, curricula, or scholarship.

Intellectual Bottlenecks

 • Academic Exclusion: Independent and underfunded researchers are denied access to critical primary sources.

 • Rewriting the Narrative: Private owners may redact, re-translate, or curate narratives to suit ideological or commercial purposes.

Political Leverage

 • Soft Power and Nationalism: A nation or dynasty holding ancient legal, religious, or scientific texts can weaponize them in international diplomacy or domestic propaganda.

 • Economic Control: Knowledge locked behind paywalls or permissions becomes commodified, preventing public utility.

It becomes a form of epistemological feudalism: knowledge, once distributed and collectively developed, is re-centralised under elite control.

Ethical Futures: Regulation, Transparency, and Public Accountability

What can be done to balance the interests of private collectors, national pride, and global public access?

Recommendations

 1. Transparent Registries: Create a UNESCO-backed global register of all manuscripts over a certain value or historical significance, anonymising ownership if needed.

 2. Public-Private Access Agreements: Require access clauses in high-profile sales e.g., 60-day annual public viewing windows or scholarly digital access.

 3. Tax Incentives for Donations: Offer significant tax reductions for collectors who donate or lend works to public archives.

 4. Auction House Due Diligence: Strengthen legal requirements for provenance research before auction.

 5. Repatriation Compacts: Bilateral cultural agreements allowing countries to reclaim manuscripts over time or share rotating custody.

The goal isn’t to eliminate private collecting, often vital to preservation, but to build a new ecosystem that rewards transparency and shared heritage stewardship. Not control.

What Civilisation Stands to Lose or Gain When Auction Houses are 'Selective'?

The surge in rare manuscript and book sales post-2020 is not merely a market story. It’s the story of every civilisation’s future, their relationship with other nations and their truth, including to its own future, and past. Who has been deceived, manipulated or robed even? The answer is in the hands of a very selective few.

If knowledge is power, then who owns the documents of knowledge shapes the power balance of the 21st century. We are witnessing not only the privatisation of culture, purposefully, but the creation of new intellectual aristocracies families, dynasties, and institutions who will decide how the story of humankind is told, preserved, or forgotten even.

The pandemic may have sparked the shift, but the deeper currents run through geopolitics, inequality, legacy, and control. It is not too late to insist that history, especially in its original, fragile, written form, still remains a shared inheritance, not a gated treasure, as it is made of.

We stand at a crossroads. Either we allow a handful of invisible stewards to determine the fate of humanity’s manuscripts, or we insist on collaborative guardianship of our collective memory.

The future is not written in stone. It is shaped by the choices we make today, and those choices will define more than the fate of rare books or recorded history. They will determine the integrity of truth itself.

Who gets to access knowledge?

Who is left behind in the silence of omission?

When history is hidden or erased, it does not cease to exist, but our connection to it is weakened. Truth does not vanish, but it can be distorted, forgotten, or withheld. We must not allow that to happen. The past demands to be preserved, not locked in private vaults, not lost to digital decay, but made accessible, visible, and shared.

To protect our cultural memory is to protect our capacity to understand who we are, where we come from, and where we are going.

When we wipe away history, we do not simply erase facts.

We sever the line of knowledge, replacing clarity with obscurity.

This is not just about manuscripts or memory. It is about justice, identity, and the inheritance of truth. Let us be guardians, not gatekeepers, so that no generation is left without the story of its own humanity.

To keep truth available even when it touches matters of national security, might sound to be a sensitive requirement that requires ethical frameworks, transparency mechanisms, and distributed responsibilities. It requires prepared leadership,including leaders of state, with extreme civil duty responsibilities, meanwhile:

Creating independent, international custodial institutions (such as Unesco, bodies of academic consortia);

Using encryption and tiered access for national-security-relevant documents;

Operate with oversight from diverse panel of historians, ethicists, legal experts, and diplomats

A tiered disclosure of framework, Where: Not all truth needs to be public immediately. A time-release or graduated disclosure system can do that, while allowing access to verified scholars or journalists under strict nondisclosure. Enabling public access after a fixed period (25 - 50 years for example), unless specific harm is proven.

When harm is proven, disclosure of it have to be made public without affecting security, instead showing international agreements, penalties and supporting education, on important cultural preservation. Always sharing and disclosing internationally its history and consequences of exposed truth. When truth is withheld, we create space for abuse, while important information risked to be weaponised instead of been used to help those who really need it most.

Truth is not a weapon neither a shield, it is a compass. Even in matters of national security, it is possible to protect without erasing it, and to preserve without endangering citizens or their nations. Our task is not to hide the truth, but to handle it wisely, so that its lessons endure long after its danger has passed.