Over the decades, the manuscript had been handled with less than sympathetic care: some single pages may be loose on the antiquities market (parts of two pages turned up in January 2006, in New York City); the text is now in over a thousand pieces and fragments, and is believed to be less than three-quarters complete. "After concluding the research, everything will be returned to Egypt. The work belongs there and they will be conserved in the best way," Roberty has stated.