News
The Manuscript of John Zosimos at Christie’s Auction for Million Pounds Sterling.
June, 2024
On June 11, 2024, Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus, in Christian-Palestinian Aramaic and Georgian, manuscript on vellum [Mt Sinai, Egypt, the underlying text late 5th-7th century, the overlying text 979] will be presented at Christie’s auction “Manuscript Masterpieces from The Schøyen Collection.”
Estimate: 1,000,000 – GBP 1,500,000
One of the most important fragments to have come to auction of Christian Palestinian Aramaic, a Western Aramaic dialect used by the Melkite Christian community in Palestine and Transjordan between the 5th and 13th centuries and preserved only in a few inscriptions, palimpsests and manuscripts. The manuscript contains the earliest textual witnesses of the Gospels in the nearest dialect of Aramaic to that spoken by Jesus, composed within a living tradition based in the Holy Land. The palimpsest is overwritten with Georgian text written by the famed calligrapher, author, translator and bookbinder-monk John Zosimos, and survives here in his 10th-century binding from St Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, the earliest known signed, dated and localisable binding.
Read more: www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6483581