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Andrea Scandar’s Manuscripts in the Vatican Library

1. Over the last few days, I have started preparing a presentation on the Maronite scholar Andrea Scandar of Cyprus (Indrāwus Skandar al-Qubrusī, d. 1748)1 for an upcoming conference in Munich organised by my colleague Dr Vevian Zaki and entitled ‘Once We Were Here: Traces of Mobility across the Ottoman Empire‘ (8-10 July 2025). Scandar… Continue reading Andrea Scandar’s Manuscripts in the Vatican Library

Miscellaneous Identifications II: The Christian Arabic Undertext of the Mingana-Lewis Palimpsest

1. This is the second post in a series in which I document identifications associated with the work of early Christian Arabic scribes (you can find the first post here). Quite inadvertently, the material that I would like to present in this post has even led to three and not just one identification: the identification… Continue reading Miscellaneous Identifications II: The Christian Arabic Undertext of the Mingana-Lewis Palimpsest

Collecting Clues: A Forged Colophon and the Trade in Sinaitic Manuscripts

1. Imagine an old manuscript falls into your hands. You realise it is valuable and you want to turn it into money. You may even know someone potentially interested in buying the manuscript. Its monetary value is directly related to its age. The only problem is you don’t know exactly how old the manuscript is.… Continue reading Collecting Clues: A Forged Colophon and the Trade in Sinaitic Manuscripts

Miscellaneous Identifications I: A New Fragment by the Scribe Antony David of Baghdad

1. The collection of Arabic manuscripts from St Catherine’s Monastery is of particular importance for our understanding of early Christian Arabic manuscript production. According to André Binggeli, it functions like a prism through which we must look at the production of manuscripts not only on Mount Sinai, but also in other places with which the… Continue reading Miscellaneous Identifications I: A New Fragment by the Scribe Antony David of Baghdad

New Materials on Grote (Part 1)

1. Recently, I came across an online auction that was held almost a year ago to sell three curious photographs and a court document. The Amsterdam auction house Zwiggelaar offered the material as lot 1492 on 6 December 2022. The description states, among other things: “Depicts Grote, notorious collector of Christian Oriental manuscripts” (fig. 1).… Continue reading New Materials on Grote (Part 1)

New Research #7

This installment of “New Research” draws attention to two contributions in the latest issue of Le Muséon, an open access anthology and a contribution therein on early Christian Arabic colophons, as well as an interesting upcoming conference. The latest issue (136/1-2) of Le Muséon contains a contribution by Christa Müller-Kessler entitled “The Early Jerusalem Lectionary… Continue reading New Research #7

Greek Fragments in Göttingen and Bryn Mawr and Their Previous Owners

1. Last year, Georgi Parpulov published a short piece entitled “Membra disiecta sinaitica Graeca” in Fragmentology 5 (2022).1. Although the article is only 7 pages long, in it Parpulov accomplishes a lot: he identifies 18 dispersed fragments of Greek manuscripts from Sinai – not counting the joins identified among Sinai’s New Finds. These 18 manuscripts… Continue reading Greek Fragments in Göttingen and Bryn Mawr and Their Previous Owners

New Research #6

The latest issue (2/1) of The Vatican Library Review, a journal that was newly founded last year, contains two contributions dealing with some of the undertexts of the palimpsest MS Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Sir. 623. Here are the titles and abstracts of the two contributions (both are open access and linked below):… Continue reading New Research #6

New Research #5

Over at the Biblia Arabica blog, I had the pleasure of contributing a post entitled “Tracing a Lost Sinaitic Manuscript through a Bible Quotation“.1 The post is based on a part of a forthcoming article entitled “The Legacy of a Failed Amateur Enthusiast: Friedrich Grote’s Sinaitic Manuscript ‘Discoveries’ and Their Post-Sinaitic Fate”. In the Biblia… Continue reading New Research #5

A Greek-Arabic Liturgical Manuscript in Princeton’s Scheide Library

1. The largest batch of Sinaitic diaspora manuscripts ever to circulate on the European antiquities market was probably the one offered by the Leipzig-based antiquarian, book dealer, and publisher Karl Wilhelm Hiersemann (1854-1924). His Katalog 500, with the thematic title Orientalische Manuskripte, offered 54 manuscripts in 8 languages. The majority of these is probably of… Continue reading A Greek-Arabic Liturgical Manuscript in Princeton’s Scheide Library