Fifth century Coptic fragment of the Psalms
[Leaf from a MS Coptic Psalter: Psalms 77:25-34].
Sahidic Coptic manuscript on vellum. Manuscript leaf set in modern conservation paper, 170 x 205 mm. Single leaf, text on recto and verso. Coptic uncial script in black ink.
€ 38,000.00
A leaf of an early Coptic Psalter, and containing Psalms 77:25-34 in the Sahidic dialect of Upper Egypt, translated in the third or even late second century (see Budge, Nagel). The script here is a fine Coptic Uncial, derived from Greek Uncial, and showing its ultimate debt to older epigraphic letter forms in its monumental and rounded majuscules and absence of spacing between words.
Most probably produced for use in the White Monastery (or the Monastery of St. Shenouda), Deir el-Abiad, near Sohag, Egypt, a Coptic Orthodox monastery near the Upper Egyptian city of Sohag. It was founded by St. Pigol in 442 CE, and grew substantially in importance after his nephew St. Shenouda the Archimandrite (d. 466 CE) took over in 385 CE. A prolific writer, he launched a literacy campaign within the monastery, producing a large library and establishing the house as perhaps the most important in the Coptic Church. When the first European visitors reached the monastery, the library was housed in a room to the north of the central apse called the 'Secret Chamber', which could be entered only through a hidden passage.
1) Likely from the White Monastery (or the Monastery of St. Shenouda), Deir el-Abiad, near Sohag, Egypt.
2) In the collection of Maurice Nahman (1868-1948), French collector-dealer, and Head Cashier at the Crédit Foncier d'Egypte in Cairo, who used this position to establish himself as the foremost antiquity dealer of Cairo in the 1920s and 1930s. A sale of part of his collection was held by Christie's, London, on 2 March 1937. After his death his son kept the business going until 1953, and then the remaining stock was offered at Hotel Drouot, Paris, on 26-27 February and 5 June 1953, with the remainder apparently passing to Erik von Scherling.
3) Sotheby's, 5 December 1995, lot 28.
4) Schøyen Collection, London and Oslo, their MS 114/25, acquired at Sotheby's (pencil MS 114 mark visible on leaf).
5) Bloomsbury Auctions, A Selection from The Schoyen Collection, 8 July 2020, lot 11.
Fragmentary, with some light soiling, professionally set in conservation paper.
Cf. E. A. Wallis Budge, The Earliest Known Coptic Psalter, 1898, and P. Nagel, ‘Der sahidische Psalter’, Der Septuaginta-Psalter, ed. Aejmelaeus and Quast, 2000, pp. 82-96.
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