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Category Archives: Individual Manuscripts
The Mudil Psalter
News services in Egypt have announced that the Mudil Psalter is back on display after undergoing conservation treatment. This was a very well preserved Coptic codex that was excavated in 1984. It was found buried together with the body of … Continue reading
Posted in Archaeological context, Book binding, Mudil Psalter
Tagged Codicology, coptic, manuscripts, Mudil codex, Mudil Psalter
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The Potential Early Papyrus Codex at Graz
Back in June 2023, several news outlets picked up the story of “the Graz mummy book.” A team at the University of Graz led by Theresa Zammit Lupi had identified P.Hib. 113, a papyrus extracted from mummy cartonnage and published … Continue reading
Posted in Book binding, Codices, Codicology, Ink, Mummy cartonnage, P.Hib. 113
Tagged archaeology, Book History, bookbinding, books, cartonnage, egypt, history, mummy, papyrus
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Radiocarbon Analysis of Museum of the Bible Manuscripts: Bodmer Psalms
Thanks to Mike Holmes for informing me that the most recent issue of Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik contains an article reporting the results of radiocarbon analysis of five papyrus manuscripts and one parchment manuscript that took place about a … Continue reading
The Robinson Papyri, and the Mississippi Papyri, and William H. Willis
Several years ago, I tried to sort out some of the confusion that surrounds the so-called Robinson Papyri, a collection of papyrus manuscripts accumulated by the archaeologist David M. Robinson (1880-1958) and eventually inherited by the classicist William H. Willis … Continue reading
More Details on the Possible Codex at Graz
Earlier this year, I noted the news that we may have a new candidate for the earliest surviving portion of a codex, P.Hib. 113, a papyrus excavated from the Egyptian town of Hibeh and now kept at the University of … Continue reading
Posted in Book binding, Codices, Codicology, Mummy cartonnage, P.Hib. 113
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What Do We Mean By “Codex”?
P.Hib. 113, the papyrus kept at Graz that has recently been proposed as being the earliest surviving remains of a codex, continues to be in the news. I made a brief post about it some days ago, and in the … Continue reading
Posted in Codices, Codicology, P.Hib. 113, Tablets
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The Oldest Codex?
News reports coming out of Graz today suggest that a papyrus in the collection of the University of Graz may be the earliest surviving specimen of a bound book with pages, possibly as early as the third century BCE. It … Continue reading
Posted in Codices, Codicology, P.Hib. 113
7 Comments
Radiocarbon Analysis of Papyrus and Parchment Manuscripts: A List
It occurs to me that it would be useful to have (as complete as possible) a list of papyrus and parchment manuscripts that have been subjected to radiocarbon analysis. I have tried to arrange this list chronologically by the date … Continue reading
More Digital Images of Papyri at the Bodleian Online
A couple years ago, I noted that the Bodleian Library at Oxford had put digital images of several early Christian manuscripts online. Now they have uploaded images of many more manuscripts, and there are several old favorites among them. The … Continue reading
The Pagination of the Crosby-Schøyen Codex and the Problem of the Contents of P46
In an article I published earlier this year, I suggested that surviving examples of single quire codices provide evidence for thinking that the Beatty-Michigan codex of the Pauline epistles (P46) may have contained more leaves than is usually supposed. The … Continue reading
Variant Readings 