St. Catherine's Monastery
Sinai, Egypt
Sinai Syriac 30
Old Syriac — Sinaitic
The Four Gospels were written in Old Syriac, then erased and written over later. Modern imaging helps us see the older Gospel writing underneath.
- Where is it today?
- St. Catherine's Monastery
Sinai, Egypt - When was it made?
- The Gospel writing underneath is from the 4th or 5th century
- Language
- Old Syriac
- Format
- Reused manuscript
- What is it?
- An old Gospel manuscript whose first writing was erased and later covered with another text. The hidden Gospel text is the part MANUSKRPT studies.
THE STORY
How did this manuscript get here?
The exact place where the older Gospel text was first copied is not known. The manuscript has been preserved at St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai.
The person who copied this manuscript is not clearly named in the sources we have checked.
The Gospel writing was erased and the parchment was reused for another text. Centuries later, special photography made much of the hidden writing readable again.
Old Syriac hidden underneath later writing. This kind of reused manuscript is called a palimpsest.
- Can you view it?
- Yes — at the library
- Do we have the text?
- Some of it
- Linked to Bible passages?
- Some of it
- Where can you view it?
- On the library website
MANUSCRIPT VIEWEROn the library website
IMAGE ACCESS
THE MANUSCRIPT IS IN MANUSKRPT. THE PAGE IMAGES ARE NOT AVAILABLE HERE YET.
MANUSKRPT uses the in-house viewer when image access and reuse are cleared. For this record, use the library link below until that is resolved.
CONTEXT
Why it is fascinating
It is one of the oldest surviving Syriac copies of the Gospels. It shows how Christians were reading the Gospel text in Syriac very early.
Compare the Bible textWe do not have a full readable text here yet
TEXT COMPARISON
Have we compared the wording?
Partly. Some of this manuscript has been checked. We only show differences that have been verified.
CONTINUE EXPLORING
Where does this object lead next?
These suggestions come from known relationships, shared works, language, collection, institution, or chronology — not from a guessed family tree.
About the images
The monastery and research project keep the manuscript images. MANUSKRPT links to them instead of copying images we do not have permission to republish.