Greek Palimpsests at Saint Catherine´s Monastery (Sinai)

Built in the 6th century by order of Emperor Justinian, the Monastery of Saint Catherine located in the Sinai desert preserves the oldest Christian monastic library with an uninterrupted history. This Greek Orthodox Monastery houses one of the largest collections of manuscripts in the world, holding in entirety over 4500 codices. These include a significant number of palimpsest manuscripts (over 170) in which eleven different languages are attested as scriptiones inferiores (erased undertexts): they reflect the long history and the multicultural nature of the Sinai shrine. This monograph lies at the intersection of palimpsest studies and the investigation of the Byzantine Greek Euchologion (prayer book), with an additional focus on the history of the Sinai library. This study offers (a) the first ever inventory of the Greek palimpsests preserved at the Monastery of Saint Catherine including a list of newly identified membra disjecta sinaitica, and (b) the description of three selected Sinai Euchologia (Sin. gr. 960, Sin. gr. 962, Sin. gr. 966) written on recycled parchment. These descriptions are based on original work with the manuscripts, which have never before been studied with regard to their scriptiones inferiores. The collected material contributes to our knowledge of the history and development of the Sinai collection of manuscripts over the centuries.