London is poised to become the stage for a historic event this June as one of Africa’s most treasured artifacts, believed to be one of the oldest books in the world, goes under the hammer. The prized Egyptian antique, touted as one of the earliest known texts of two books of the Bible, is currently on display in New York and is estimated to fetch between $2.6 million to $3.8 million.
According to a report by the American news agency Reuters, this extraordinary piece of history, known as “The Crosby-Schoyen Codex,” will be up for auction midway through the year. The book, written in Coptic on papyrus between 250-350 AD, is a testament to the dawn of Christianity and was meticulously compiled in one of the religion’s inaugural monasteries.
Eugenio Donadoni, Senior Specialist in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at Christie’s, remarked, “It’s right at that period, that transitional period when papyrus scroll starts turning into codex form. So, books as we know them today. And what we have in this book is the earliest known texts of two books of the Bible.”
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On display at Christie’s New York until April 9th, the codex is set to grace the auction floor in London on June 11th. With 104 pages (52 leaves), the book was painstakingly crafted by a single scribe over 40 years at a monastery in upper Egypt and contains Peter’s first epistle and the Book of Jonah.
Its remarkable preservation, attributed to Egypt’s arid climate, underscores its rarity. Donadoni noted, “All the major finds of Christian manuscripts that we had in the 20th century and at the end of the 19th century are all concentrated in Egypt for those very precise climactic conditions.”
The journey of this ancient tome is as intriguing as its contents. Discovered in Egypt in the 1950s, it found a temporary home at the University of Mississippi until 1981 before being acquired by Dr. Martin Schoyen, a renowned Norwegian manuscript collector, in 1988. Now, as part of his illustrious Shoyen Collection, the codex will take center stage at the auction, marking a milestone in the preservation and appreciation of ancient literary treasures.
