Miscellaneous Coptic manuscripts in the Bodleian Library

The collection contains a number of papyri, many of which were acquired from Professor Sayce and Rev. Greville J. Chester towards the end of the nineteenth century, and through the former's bequest of 1933.

The Library also took possession, in 1908, of the whole of the find made during the excavations at Deir el-Bala'izah by Flinders Petrie in 1907. The material dates from the sixth to eighth centuries, and represents the remains of the library and charter-room of the Coptic monastery of St. Apollo at Deir el-Bala'izah, near Rifeh, in Egypt's Western Desert. The find contains fragments of c. 3000 texts, mainly on papyrus, and includes Biblical manuscripts, liturgical books, homilies, acts of Egyptian saints, as well as taxation receipts and monastic accounts.

There are also 94 manuscripts of George Horner, comprising collations and notes etc.

The full shelfmarks of the collection are: MSS. Copt. a 1-4 (P), 6 (P), b. 2-10 (P), 11, 12-13 (P), c. 1-3, 4-5 (P), 8-28 (P), 29-30, 32-46, 48-54 (P), 56-66 (P), 67, 68-9 (P), d. 1-6, 7-8 (P), 9, 11-208 (P), 209-23, 224 (P), 225, 226-9 (P), 230-3 (P), 235, 236-73 (P), e. 1-6, 7-9 (P), 10, 11-92 (P), 93-144, 145-7 (P), 148, 149-55 (P), 160 (P), 161, 162-80 (P), f. 1, 2 (R), 3, 4-110 (P), 111-24, 125-40 (P),142-58 (P), 160-75 (P), g. 2, 4-79 (P), 81-103 (P).

The collection includes manuscripts acquired from several sources including Professor Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, Archibald Henry Sayce, Arthur Cayley Headlam, Rev. Greville John Chester, and Rev. George William Horner.

Petrie (1853-1942) first visited Egypt in 1880 to survey the Great Pyramid of Khufu in Giza. He spent the next fifty years excavating in Egypt, before turning his attention to Palestine in 1926. Further details on Petrie, and on A.H. Sayce (1845-1933), Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, and Arthur Cayley Headlam (1862-1947), Bishop of Gloucester, may be found in the Dictionary of National Biography. See Who Was Who in Egyptology for brief biographies of Rev. Greville John Chester (1831-92), graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, and author of the Catalogue of the Egyptian antiquities in the Ashmolean museum, Oxford (Oxford, 1881); and Rev. George William Horner (1849-1930), who published a critical text of the New Testament in Bohairic and Sahidic.

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card (for admissions procedures see http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk).

The manuscripts were acquired between 1883 and 1980. Rev. Greville J. Chester gave and sold several items to the Library during the late 19th century. Manuscripts were given by Rev. A.C. Headlam in 1895, William Flinders Petrie in 1908, Walter Ewing Crum in 1939, M. Horner in 1931, and given and bequeathed by A.H. Sayce in 1916 and 1933.

Collection level description created by Susan Thomas, Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts.

Some of the manuscripts are in Falconer Madan, et al., A summary catalogue of western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford which have not hitherto been catalogued in the Quarto series, with references to the oriental and other manuscripts (7 vols. in 8 [vol. II in 2 parts], Oxford, 1895-1953; reprinted, with corrections in vols. I and VII, Munich, 1980), vols. V-VI, nos. 29380, 29492, 29771, 29897-8, 30122, 30872, 31238-9, 31316-25, 32010, 32375, 34613, 34640-82, 34714-57, 34758-922, 34924-35139, 35242-65, 35316-51, 37011-12, 40035.

The manuscripts are also summarily described in the card catalogue, arranged by language, located in the Oriental Reading Room.

The collection of Coptic texts from Deir el-Bala'izah was edited by Paul E. Kahle Bala'izah : Coptic texts from Deir el-Bala'izah in Upper Egypt (London, 1954).

See also the Coptic manuscripts of Thomas Marshall (MSS. Marshall), Robert Huntington (MSS. Hunt.) and James Bruce (MSS. Bruce); the Sahidic fragments of Charles Woide deposited by the Clarendon Press (MSS. Clar. Press); and the manuscripts of Paul Ernst Jablonski, deposited by the Radcliffe Trustees (MSS. Radcliffe Or.).