Studying Coptic can be a lonely affair: there are only a handful of places in the world with ongoing projects devoted to Coptic studies, places where scholars and students can work not in pairs or small groups, but teams. One such place is Göttingen, Germany where the Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament project finds its home. Knowing that traveling to Göttingen would afford me a unique opportunity to immerse myself in a pool of Coptic expertise, I applied for a mobility grant from ATTR (Authoritative Texts and their Reception), an international research school funded by the Norwegian Research Council and of which I am a member. After receiving a generous grant, on September 1st, 2018, my wife and I flew from Oslo to Frankfurt and then took a train to Göttingen. 

Our two-month stay only disappointed by feeling too short. Göttingen is a beautiful and historic city with buildings relatively untouched by the destruction of the Second World War. While there, we were treated with warm hospitality: the Chair of the Steering Board, Heike Behlmer, before our arrival and despite being busy, arranged for us accommodation; upon arrival, Malte Rosenau, one of the project staff members, kindly picked us up from the train station; and on our last day, the project staff gathered to listen to me present part of my project and then threw us a farewell party. Our reception in the interim period was no different from these acts of kindness at the beginning and the end. 

Germany academia is sometimes stereotyped as being stuffy and formal, but at Lagarde-Haus – the headquarters of the Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament project – the atmosphere is informal, friendly, and even playful, but without sacrificing academic excellence and intellectual rigor. Serious conversations about Coptic linguistics or manuscript studies are often continued over lunch, coffee, and/or after-work beers. 

Being around so many expert Coptologists on a daily basis was invaluable for my own research into Coptic manuscripts dating from the Fāṭimid period and associated with Esna and Edfu. If I had a question about a specific manuscript or manuscript feature, I could, for example, walk into the next room and ask Alin Suciu. Questions about scribal practices could be answered down the hall in Chrysi Kotsifou’s office. Information about Coptic liturgy was no farther away than Diliana Atanassova’s desk, and Malte Rosenau and So Miyagawa were, among other things, great help with anything computer or software related. It was also during my time in Göttingen that I participated in the Summer School in Coptic Literature and Manuscript Production in Hamburg (discussed elsewhere on this blog by Joanna Hypszer) with Göttingen project members Alin, Diliana, Frank Feder, Heike, Malte, Joanna, and So Miyagawa, along with many other graduate students and researchers from around the world.

Readers paying attention to last names may have noticed another felicitous feature of the project in Göttingen: it is, in miniature, a model of the international nature of modern research. Regular project staff and collaborators include those from Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Japan, Poland, Romania, and the United States. The languages spoken by the staff are even more, including Latin which, unlike most academics who can only read it, Julian Delhez can actually speak fluently. 

Also deserving of thanks for their friendship and conversation during September and October, are project members Ulrich Schmid, Troy Griffitts, Uwe-Karsten Plisch, Suzana Hodak, and Theresa Kohl. As the world of Coptology is small, I have faith that I will see all my Göttingen colleagues again and look forward to doing so!

Two members of our team, Frank Feder and Alin Suciu, will curate an exhibit of Coptic manuscripts at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The exhibit is entitled "Written Culture of Christian Egypt: Coptic Manuscripts from the University of Michigan Collection." The opening will take place November 12 at 4:30 p.m. in the Hatcher Library Gallery. In the morning of the same day, Alin and Frank will present a workshop on Coptic manuscripts in the same location.

We would like to thank our colleagues from the University of Michigan for the smooth collaboration and for inviting us to Ann Arbor.

Links to the events can be found HERE and HERE.

From the 17th to 21st September I attended the Summer School in Coptic Literature and Manuscript Production at the centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures in Hamburg. It was a week of intensive study of various aspects of Coptic manuscripts and related fields, such as Ethiopian or Syriac Christianity.

Students not only from the area of Coptic Studies, but also from neighbouring disciplines took part and were able, through lectures given by specialists in their fields, to get a thorough insight into numerous aspects connected with manuscript production in  Egypt. A variety of topics were covered, from the Coptic Bible, via alchemy, to the archaeometric analysis of Coptic inks. A few selected participants were also given the wonderful opportunity to briefly present their own work in progress. The stimulating discussions which ensued after the lectures created the impression of being at a Coptological conference.

Among the lecturers were also colleagues from the Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament. On the first day, we heard from Frank Feder about the challenges and problems the project has to overcome. He also made the students aware of the complexities of Coptic dialectology.

Alin Suciu gave comprehensive overviews of the library from the Monastery of Apa Shenute (White Monastery), and of Greek patristics in Coptic. He made the participants aware of the state of research on Coptic literature, as well as the issues, which scholars face while researching early Christianity in Egypt. 

Diliana Atanassova delivered a passionate presentation on “The Primary Sources of Sahidic-Coptic Liturgy,” giving the participants a glimpse of several vital publications which she brought with her, and encouraging students towards research on Coptic liturgy, an area severely underrepresented in Coptic Studies.

Malte Rosenau made sure that participants got to do hands-on exercises, showing us first hand how the Virtual Manuscript Room of the Coptic Old Testament project works. In particular, the participants learnt how to properly index and transcribe a biblical manuscript.

Heike Behlmer and So Miyagawa presented “Bible studies and the Literary Dradition and Digital Text Re-use Research," a topic which combined examples of the use of Biblical quotations in the literary work of Shenute with more general observations on how Digital Humanities methods can be used in philological research.

We were also given the unique opportunity to visit the State and University Library and see original manuscripts as well as watch Thea Ghigo's archaeometry in action, observing how the type of ink on a papyrus is determined using near-infrared photography.

In addition to these, there were just too many other lectures from renowned scholars to mention in this short text, but the full programme can be found here:

https://www.manuscript-cultures.uni-hamburg.de/register_coptic2018.html

The school ended with an important message from Paola Buzi, relevant not only for Coptic Studies but for scientific research in general: nowadays it is vital to share research data. Exchange of research and dialogue among scholars is essential for the progress, a statement no one can argue with.

It was a very intensive, but fruitful week with not only plenty of information, but also new contacts and potential for future collaboration. A huge thanks to Paola Buzi and her PAThs ("Tracking Papyrus and Parchment PAThs: An Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature”, Rome) team for the terrific organisation of the event.

Between 1 and 5 October, 2018, Frank Feder and I made a research trip to Montserrat and Barcelona. Our aim was to prepare a complete inventory list of the Coptic manuscripts kept there, since both collections are relatively poorly known. At the same time, we hoped to find new fragments of the Sahidic Old Testament for our project.

Our first stop was at the Montserrat Abbey, home of a large collection of Greek, Latin, and Coptic manuscripts which belonged to Fr. Ramon Roca-Puig.

We were told that Roca-Puig was able to buy most of the valuable manuscripts he possessed with money raised from rich Catalan families. Unfortunately, only a tiny portion of the Coptic fragments has been published. Some years ago, I identified among the unedited Sahidic manuscripts in Montserrat two fragments on the book of Numbers and one Isaiah fragment. During our visit, Frank and I had the possibility to photograph and examine them more closely. Furthermore, we found a new fragment containing portions of Psalms 36-37 (LXX). Finally, we photographed numerous other potentially interesting fragments, some of which may be biblical. We will carefully check these in the following weeks.

After we finished our work at Montserrat, we travelled to Barcelona, in order to study the Palau Ribes manuscripts. This collection was formed by the Jesuit priest José O’Callaghan, with the help of Catholic monks residing in Cairo. Among Coptologists, the Palau Ribes collection is well known for housing the famous Sahidic codex containing the gospels of Mark, Luke, and John (PPalau Rib. Inv.-Nr. 181-183). Nevertheless, we were surprised to find out that they have hundreds of other Coptic fragments, especially Sahidic ones. We identified several new biblical fragments, including fragments of Proverbs, Psalms, and Job.

Unser Teammember Uwe-Karsten Plisch hat gerade eine Neuauflage seines Buches "Was nicht in der Bibel steht - Apokryphe Schriften des frühen Christentums" veröffentlicht. Eine lesenswerte und informative Zusammenstellung frühchristlicher Schriften, die sehr populär waren, es aber nicht in den Bibelcanon geschafft haben.

Das sehr empfehlenswerte Buch kann hier https://www.die-bibel.de/shop/was-nicht-in-der-bibel-steht-5148 zu einem sehr moderaten Preis erworben werden.