Egypt: Rare Manuscript Discovered in Saint Catherine Monastery

Asharq Al Aswat ^ | 7/7/17 | Waleed Abdul Rahman

[marshmallow]

Cairo- Egypt has announced the discovery of a rare manuscript dating back to the fifth or sixth century at the Saint Catherine Monastery in southern Sinai.

Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany said the manuscript was uncovered by monks during restoration works carried out at the monastery’s library.

The minister highlighted the discovery’s importance, as it features medical texts written by the renowned Greek physician Hippocrates, along with three other texts by an anonymous writer.

The monastery has a library containing 6,000 manuscripts, among them 600 manuscripts written in Arabic, Greek, Ethiopian, Coptic, Armenian and Syriac dating back to the 4th century AD. It also includes many decrees from Muslim caliphates.

The monastery is considered among the oldest in the world and is enlisted as one of Egypt’s monuments from the Byzantine era. It is also on the UNESCO world heritage list since 2002.

The Ministry of Antiquities organized a ceremony in Cairo that was attended by many figures including Greek Minister of Digital Policy, Telecommunications and Media Nikos Pappas, the Archbishop of Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Egyptian Cultural Minister Helmy El-Namnam, Egyptian Minister of Communication and Information Technology Yasser El-Kadi, Egyptian Minister of Tourism Yehia Rashid, and South Sinai Governor Major General Khalid Fouda.

Mohammed Abdel-Latif, assistant minister of antiquities for archaeological sites, explained that the discovered document is one of those known as “Palmesit” manuscripts, dating to the 6th century AD. The manuscript is written on vellum and bears parts of herbal remedies from a Greek recipe missing before 1200 AD. He also noted that the second layer of the book features extracts from the Bible known as “Sinaitic manuscript” from the medieval eras.

Archeology-related sources said the Saint Catherine Library is considered the most important worldwide and comes after the Vatican’s library. It contains rare manuscripts, and......

[Chainmail]

Hope this isn’t the foot in the door by Egypt’s government to gain possession of St. Catherine’s..

They’ve been after their Christian treasures for decades.

[Chainmail]

Hope this isn’t the foot in the door by Egypt’s government to gain possession of St. Catherine’s..

They’ve been after their Christian treasures for decades.

[SuperLuminal]

Now THAT is a demo border wall!

[JPJones]

Should have kept it a secret. Now it’s Only a matter of time before the Muslims burn this place to the ground.

[Robwin]

It would be wise to transfer those manuscripts to somewhere in the West before the Muzzies seize that monastery and destroy everything in it because all we need is the Quran,

[Lee N. Field]

explained that the discovered document is one of those known as “Palmesit” manuscripts,

That's palimpsest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest

[left that other site]

I noticed that too.

Don’t these news outlets use proof-readers anymore?

[BipolarBob]

and bears parts of herbal remedies from a Greek recipe

NOW I get the rest of the recipe after all of these centuries. Well it better be worth the wait.

[NYer]

The library preserves the oldest version of the Torah in the world, the Greek version known as “Codex Sinaiticus” written in 331 AD at the order of Constantine’s emperor.

The monastery’s library contains around 6.000 manuscripts written in Arabic, Ethiopian, Coptic, Armenian, Syriac and, of course, Greek. Some of the manuscripts kept in the library date back to the fourth century. From the day it was founded in the sixth century (between 548 and 565), the library of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai has never closed its doors.

CHECKLIST OF MANUSCRIPTS IN ST. CATHERINE'S MONASTERY, as compiled in 1950.

Catholic ping!