Hobby Lobby Sues Former Oxford Professor Over Stolen Artifacts

OKC-News 9

Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby filed a federal lawsuit against a former Oxford University classics professor and claimed he sold the company stolen religious artifacts.

The suit was filed in the Eastern District of New York and claims Dirk Obbink sold the craft chain at least 32 papyri he stole from the Egyptian Exploration Society where he had access to the artifacts.

Hobby Lobby claimed they purchased the artifacts for more than $7 million between 2010 to 2013.

According to the MacArthur Foundation, Obbink was banned from accessing the Egyptian Exploration Society collection in 2019 and dismissed from the classics faculty at the University of Oxford in 2021.