Pseudo-Shenoute - photo 1
Pseudo-Shenoute - photo 2

Pseudo-Shenoute

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£ 16 380
Auction dateClassic
13.07.2022 10:30UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
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ID 794353
Lot 1 | Pseudo-Shenoute
Pseudo-Shenoute

On Christian Behaviour, Sahidic Coptic manuscript on vellum [Fayoum, 715 Coptic Era, i.e. 998-999 CE]

An exceptional survival of the original Sahidic version of one of the monuments of early Coptic literature. Only two copies of the text are known: the present leaf is a rediscovered missing leaf from British Library Or. 12689.



266 x 249mm. A single leaf. Two columns of 30 visible lines written in upright uncials in brown ink, ruled space: ? x c.179mm. (edges frayed and singed, perhaps from exposure to a fire, lacking lower part of the manuscript, some staining and ink erosion, reverse with remnants of adhesive at top, remains of binding string). Loose on a card mount.



Provenance:

(1) Only two copies of the text are known, one in the Pierpont Morgan Library M.604, the other in the British Library Or.12689, which according to scholars belong to the same homogenous group datable to the second half of the 10th century and similar in formulation, script, extended letters and marginal decoration. The present leaf is from the British Library manuscript, of which another leaf with the colophon was sold at Christie's, 25 November, 1992, lot 32, and from which we know that the manuscript was donated in AH 715 (August 29, SD 998-August 29, AD 999) by a woman from Pilciso¯k to a monastery at the same locality. The importance of that leaf was further enhanced by the discovery that it is also a palimpsest of an 8th-century Coptic Biblical text, appearing on the flesh side of the leaf at 180° to the later text.

(2) The present leaf had already been removed from the British Library manuscript before its acquisition in 1962, and has not apparently been seen by scholars since the 1920s (see B. Layton, Catalogue of Coptic Literary Manuscripts in the British Library acquired since 1906, no 96, pp.105-6).

(3) Purchased from Lark Mason Auctions, N.Y., previously in a Connecticut collection.



For a recent edition of the text of the two surviving manuscripts of Shenoute's 'On Christian Behaviour', see W. Kosack, Shenoute of Atripe De vita christiana: M 604 Pierpont Morgan Library New York / Ms. OR 12689 British-Library/London and Ms. Clarendon Press b. 4, Frg. Bodleian-Library/Oxford, 2013.





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This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.
Place of origin:Egypt, Africa
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