Summary

1. An International Collaboration

2. Codex Sinaiticus

3. The Project

4. The Website

The Codex Sinaiticus Project

Dr Ekkehard Henschke

The University Library, Leipzig

Lynne Brindley

The British Library

His Eminence Archbishop Damianos

St Catherine’s Monastery, Mt Sinai

Dr Alexander Bukreyev

The Russian National Library, St Petersburg

An International CollaborationPartners9 March 2005

An International CollaborationCollaborating Institutions

Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing, University of Birmingham

Institute for New Testament Textual Research, University of Münster

The Centre for Retrospective Digitization, Göttingen State and University Library

Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta

An International CollaborationExternal Funders

Approximately £1 million budget, with external funding from:

Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation

Arts and Humanities Research Council

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Leventis Foundation

Mariposa Foundation

J. F. Costopoulos Foundation

Hellenic Foundation

American Friends of Saint Catherine's Monastery

American Trust for the British Library

An International CollaborationOrganisation

PROJECT BOARDChair:John Tuck

ConservationWorking PartyChair: Helen Shenton

Scholarly EditionCommitteeChair: Scot McKendrick

WebsiteWorking PartyChair: Norbert Lossau

ProductsWorking PartyChair: John Tuck

BL Conservation

sub-group

Technical sub-group

Project ManagerClaire Breay

Translations sub-group

Project CuratorJuan Garcés

FundingWorking PartyChair: Lara Jukes

Technical StandardsWorking PartyChair: Norbert Lossau

An International Collaboration Aims and Means

aims global access to a major MS treasure its preservation for the future understanding of its content and history

means scholarship aided by modern technology close collaboration between

curators conservators academics image specialists IT specialists

Codex Sinaiticus

What is it?

Codex SinaiticusContent and Significance

content part of the Old Testament in Greek (Septuagint), including

apocrypha (2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom, and Sirach)

whole New Testament Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd by Hermas

significance one of the oldest Bibles (mid-fourth century) earliest complete New Testament text – canon – book

Codex SinaiticusSignificance: Text

one of the most important witnesses to the Greek text of the Septuagint and the New Testament

primacy of position in the lists of consulted manuscripts (or "01" for the New Testament "א")

not only original base text, but many layers of revisions from 4th to 12th century from alteration of one letter to the insertion of whole sentences no other early manuscript of the Christian Bible

has been so extensively corrected!

Codex SinaiticusSignificance: Canon

mid-4th century: wide, yet neither complete nor universal, agreement over the books to be considered as authoritative for Christian communities

Codex Sinaiticus, being one of the earliest intact collections of such books, is essential for an understanding of the contents and the arrangement of the Bible, as well as the uses made of it

Septuagint in the Codex comprises books not included in the Hebrew Bible and regarded in the Protestant tradition as apocryphal, such as 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom, and Sirach

appended at the end of the New Testament are the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas

idiosyncratic sequence of books: Hebrews is placed after 2 Thessalonians Acts between the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles

Codex SinaiticusSignificance: Book

Christians preferred the codex over the roll from our earliest evidence onwards in contrast to earlier and most contemporary practice particularly, albeit not exclusively, when copying sacred literature

parchment was increasingly used as the writing support for literary texts instead of papyrus from the fourth century onwards

strikingly few traces remain of parchment codices produced before the Codex Sinaiticus

Codex Sinaiticus is an outstanding example quality of its parchment advanced binding structure

insight into professional Christian book production careful planning skilful writing editorial control

pages measure 380mm x 345mm

written in formal bookhand (Biblical majuscule)

prose books written in 4 columns; poetical books in 2 columns

multiple layers of corrections, starting with the original scribes

Codex SinaiticusPage Layout

Quire 38 folio 1 recto

Corrections in 12r (2 Esdras 13.13-14.7)

Codex Sinaiticus What survives and where

Just over 400 leaves extant (out of approx. over 730 original leaves), but now distributed between four places:

347 leaves in the British Library

12 leaves and 40 fragments in St Catherine's Monastery, Mt Sinai

43 leaves in the Leipzig University Library

fragments of 5 (or 6?) leaves in the National Library of Russia, St Petersburg

Codex SinaiticusModern History

St Petersburg

LeipzigMt Sinai

1844

1859(1869) Project

London

1933

Codex Sinaiticus Modern History

Account of how the distributed situation came about is to be researched, agreed and disseminated

research has been undertaken in at all four holding locations

report has been commissioned (draft) agreed account will be published in project outputs

The ProjectTimescale

initial discussions in late 2002

partnership agreement signed March 2005

project work started in 2005

main strands of project to conclude in 2009

The ProjectTimetable for Activities of Codex Sinaiticus Digitisation ProjectYear: 05 06 07 08 09Month: 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Conservation BL conservation assessment of OTBL conservation of OT

BL conservation assessment of NTBL conservation of NT

Leipzig conservation assessmentNLR conservation assessment

St Catherine's conservation assessmentSt Catherine's conservation work

Imaging Sampling and approval processBL digitisation of OT & image-processing

BL digitisation of NT & image-processingBL MSI

Leipzig digitisation and image-processingLeipzig MSI

NLR digitisation, image-processing & MSISt Catherine's digitisation, image-processing & MSI

Transcription Transcription& curatorial Translationswork Scholarly research for products

Products Publication of bookletDevelopment of technical specification for website

Choosing agency to develop websiteDevelopment of alternative website designs and choice of final design

Development of websiteContent added to website in Leipzig

Content added to website in LondonFilming and production of TV documentaryPublication of popular book

Production of facsimileProduction of DVD

Preparation for exhibitionsExhibitionsConference

Production of volume of scholarly essays

The ProjectOverview

History of Codex

Conservation

Digitisation

Edition

Dissemination

split, folio 1 recto

New Finds leaves at St Catherine’s Monastery

The ProjectConservation

Stretching frame with weights

Cockerell’s bindings and box

The Documentation Model

• Fields in Excel format Model:ParchmentScribal (conservation)CodicologicalPrevious treatmentsConditionCondition of repairs

The ProjectConservation

collaboration work to be undertaken in partnership with conservation specialists

at each archival venue initial assessment

stabilise MS for digitisation preserve MS for the future

detailed assessment physical condition of each leaf individual conservation requirements for stabilisation

conservation work plan by Conservation working party

dissemination outcome documented findings included in overall scholarly interpretation documentation in English, German, Greek, and Russian

The British Library’s Codex Sinaiticus Conservation Team

Current

internet image low resolution

taken from Lake facsimile (1911, 1922)

not attributed

The ProjectDigitisation

The ProjectDigitisation

Images from the test phase

PhaseOne (FX) scanning rack

600 dpi resolution

uncompressed TIFF files with embedded metadata

The ProjectDigitisation

process undertaken at each venue undertaken after conservation informed by scholarly review of Lake facsimile employs optimal methods tested and established by the Technical Standards

working party minimal handling of MS

type of images created high-quality images of all leaves as surrogates for the original manuscript

leaves raking light images of selected parts multi-spectral images of selected parts

intended use of images work of project teams (conservation and scholarly) project outputs

The ProjectEdition

lead institutions Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing

(University of Birmingham) Institute for New Testament Textual Research (University of

Münster)

key elements transcription - made from new images and capturing all layers

of text and corrections searchable text and text features links to images – whole leaves and details

The ProjectWebsite

developed by the University Library, Leipzig tender awarded to ACS Solutions (3-point concepts) soon hosted by the British Library (mirrored) free to view areas directed at different readers (from general to

specialist readers), but accessible to all English introduction, documentation, and commentary,

with targeted multilingual parts

The ProjectWebsite

Technical specifications: bring together a variety of datasets and integrate into a unified

user interface digital images of the leaves of Codex Sinaiticus XML files for the transcription Excel spreadsheets for the physical description XML files for translations, etc.

conform to technologies and standards supported by the British Library's IT infrastructure

accessibility and long-term maintenance no plug-ins web standards such as HTML, CSS, Javascript and AJAX

link image and text representations of the pages of Codex Sinaiticus in a way never before implemented in an online edition of a manuscript