of world’s oldest Christian manuscript found in Egyptian
Written in 411 AD, the text was
hidden for over 1,000 years in a vault used to store olive oil
By Martin Bailey
(The Art Newspaper/London
- 18.2.2008). Fragments of the
earliest dated Christian literary manuscript have been found at Deir
al-Surian, an ancient monastery in the Egyptian desert. Dating from 411
AD, these were discovered under a collapsed floor of a ninth-century
tower. The fragments are from the final page of a codex written in
Syriac (an Eastern Aramaic language) which was acquired by the British
Museum library in the 19th century.
manuscripts have had such an astonishing history. In 1847, British
Museum librarian William Cureton said that “among all the
curiosities of literature, I know of none more remarkable than the fate
of this matchless volume”. We can now add a final chapter to
manuscript on Christian martyrs was written in Edessa (now Sanliurfa,
Turkey), and at some point in the next five centuries it was taken
eastwards. In 931, the abbot of Deir al-Surian travelled to Baghdad and
brought it back to Egypt.
In 1086, a
monk added a marginal note in the middle of the manuscript, expressing
concern that the last page with its colophon (the scribe’s
ending notes) might be lost. Since the book was by then already
“ancient”, he wanted to record that it had been
written in 411. The monk’s precaution was wise, since
centuries later the last page did indeed become detached.
European who found the main manuscript was Lord Curzon, who visited
Deir al-Surian in 1837 in search of ancient texts for the British
Museum. There were then only a dozen monks, led by a blind and elderly
abbot. Lord Curzon bought three Coptic manuscripts, but he had heard
rumours that earlier texts in Syriac were hidden in the cellar of the
ancient tower, in a vault used to store olive oil.
producing a bottle of rosoglio (an Italian cordial), since with eastern
monks “there is no better opener of the heart than a
sufficiency of strong drink”. After plying the abbot with
alcohol, he coaxed him into instructing a monk to lead him down into
the main oil store, Lord Curzon found “a small closet vaulted
with stone which was filled to a depth of two feet or more with the
loose leaves of Syriac manuscripts”. He extracted four
relatively complete codices, and talked the inebriated abbot into
selling them for “a certain number of piastres”.
would only allow Lord Curzon to fill one of his camel’s
saddlebags with manuscripts, since he did not want the other monks to
notice what was happening. There was insufficient space for all his
purchases, so Lord Curzon reluctantly left one behind.
Curzon’s acquisitions whetted the appetite of the British
Museum, and two years later it sent scholar Dr Henry Tattam to Deir
al-Surian. Among the several hundred manuscripts he purchased was the
one that Lord Curzon had been forced to leave behind. Back in London,
the note made by the monk in 1086 was spotted.
The note on
folio 239 read: “Behold my brethren, if it should happen that
the end of this ancient book should be torn off and lost...it was
written at the end of it thus.” The monk had then copied out
the colophon, which stated that the manuscript had been written at
Orrhoa (Edessa, now Sanliurfa), by Jacob, in the year 723 (in the Greek
calendar, or 411 AD).
original colophon was missing when the codex was acquired in 1839, but
the monk’s note made it possible to date it. Four years later
Cureton discovered two further pages of the manuscript among fragments
which had been brought back by Tattam.
one further British Museum expedition to Deir al-Surian, undertaken by
the Alexandrian entrepreneur Auguste Pacho in 1845. He successfully
acquired nearly 200 volumes, plus fragments. Cureton went through the
material, finding two further damaged leaves of the 411 manuscript.
Attached to the second one was a strip of the adjacent leaf; it had
text on one side, but the other was blank, suggesting it was the final
continued his search, looking through 20 bundles of small fragments. He
eventually found three pieces from the penultimate leaf, and then a
fourth one from the final leaf. By good fortune, this tiny fragment had
the original colophon, recording the 411 date.
matter rested for a century and a half. In 1998, the ninth-century
tower of Deir al-Surian was renovated, and several hundred fragments of
ancient manuscripts were discovered by the monastery’s
librarian Father Bigoul under a wooden floor which had probably
collapsed as long ago as the 14th century.
unfortunate that such drastic restoration of an ancient building was
done so casually (surprisingly, it was authorised by Egypt’s
Supreme Council of Antiquities). No trained archaeologists sifted
through the rubble, although Father Bigoul did his best to save what he
could. Modern building materials were used in the reconstruction.
the work did result in the discovery of the manuscript fragments.
Analysing the find has taken time, but in 2005 two Syriac scholars,
Sebastian Brock (Oxford University) and Lucas van Rompay (Duke
University, North Carolina), recognised four small fragments which
appeared to be in the same neat handwriting as the 411 manuscript.
they consulted the codex, and found that the four fragments were indeed
from the final page. These wrinkled pieces have now been conserved at
the monastery by London paper specialist Elizabeth Sobczynski.
showing us the fragments, Father Bigoul took us down into the cellar,
where he had discovered them. In an adjacent vault, there is still a
pile of ancient amphorae once used to store olive oil.
London, we looked at the British Library’s codex and noticed
a stain in a corner of most of the parchment pages. Conservators
confirm that it is olive oil.
For most of
the 20th century, Deir al-Surian’s manuscripts were hidden
away—and relatively neglected. The monks were understandably
reluctant to show them to outsiders, since their collection had been
denuded in the 18th and 19th centuries by European bibliophiles.
these losses, Deir al-Surian still retains 1,000 manuscripts, of which
49 are in Syriac. It also has 150 ancient Coptic manuscripts and 15
Ethiopic texts. Recent cataloguing has uncovered the world’s
oldest dated Biblical manuscript in any language, a Syriac version of
Isaiah, from 459 AD.
century ago, the collection was moved from the tower, where it had
probably been kept for over 1,000 years. It was then stored in large
wooden crates in the monks’ cells. Unfortunately, as recently
as the mid-20th century, serious damage was caused by mice and insects.
In 1970 the library was given its own premises at the top of a modern
preservation work has been spearheaded by Ms Sobczynski, working with
international and Egyptian conservators. So far they have conserved a
dozen manuscripts, and over 300 fragments.
manuscripts were hidden away from outsiders until after 2000, and the
extent of the holdings remained unknown. They are now being catalogued
by Brock and Van Rompay.
surprisingly, monks and conservators have different perspectives. Most
monks would have preferred the ancient manuscripts to be rebound in
modern materials, whereas conservators want to preserve what can be
saved of earlier bindings.
remains in unsuitable premises. Temperature and humidity fluctuate
considerably, and a kitchen on a floor below is a serious fire hazard
(smoke alarms were only fitted in 2000).
purpose-built library and conservation studio is therefore being built
within the monastery walls. Construction of the new
“green” library building will begin this month,
with completion scheduled for early next year. It will cost
£400,000, and Ms Sobczynski has set up the Levantine
Foundation charity to raise funds.