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13 ARABIC GOSPEL. A Byzantine Arabic Gospel lectionary. Syria or Egypt, early 12th century
Arabic manuscript on paper (305 × 233 mm), 151 folios, Arabic in black naskh script, red ink used in titles, subtitles, and headings, text segmented with red dots for chanting purposes, sections marked with simple rules, various symbols used to mark end of a lection, illuminated headings on ff. 112v, 123v, 138r, waqf inscriptions on f. 65r, note recording repair in 1732 ce on f. 129r, bound between wooden boards with tooled leather covers. ¶ A fuller description and textual analysis is available on request. £135,000 [159613]
a rare witness to a discontinued textual tradition The manuscript is divided into two sections: a Synaxarion (day- by-day readings for the liturgical year beginning with Easter and concluding with Holy Week) and an Eothina (the eleven Resurrectional Sunday Matins Gospels). Besides the gospel readings, the lectionary includes Patristic exegesis texts that are read after the Sunday and feast lections. The information supplied in the marginal notes show this manuscript belonged to an Arabic-speaking Rūm Orthodox community in the Kalamoun region of Syria, around the city of Deir Attiyyah. The type of this lectionary, as well as its internal arrangement, suggest that it was copied and used in a monastery setting. It contains a translation copied during the 12th and 13th centuries that persisted in this lectionary tradition after it was no longer copied in continuous-text manuscripts. As a result, this manuscript is one of the oldest and most rare witnesses to a discontinued textual tradition. In many parts of the gospels this archetype was previously only known from just one continuous- text codex and now this lectionary can substantially help in reconstructing this important text; it is one of just five surviving manuscripts that are close copies of the archetype that has been discontinued. The gospels preserved in this manuscript were translated from Greek into Arabic during the first millennium or early 11th century. Syriac influences can also be found in the text. The binding of the manuscript is probably the original, and appears to have been resized along with the pages of the manuscript at some point. The leather covers may be original and have been restretched and nailed to fit the resized boards. The cloth doublures may well have been taken from mummy wrappings, as was often done in preparing Christian manuscripts in Egypt.
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