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Manuscript Speculation Tool: Reconstructing Non-extant Portions of Manuscripts

Part II: The Example of Codex sa 2070

by

Diliana Atanassova, Troy A. Griffitts, and Ulrich Schmid

 

With the Manuscript Speculation Tool, the members of the Göttingen CoptOT Team and other specialists for Coptic biblical manuscripts attempt the reconstruction of missing pages. This tool allows to quickly and systematically estimate the number of missing leaves in between extant leaves as well as the page and quire numbers of fragmentary leaves lacking their upper margins. 

We will now show in detail how to use the tool by reconstructing the page numbers for sa 2070.

 

First of all, one should make an in-depth study of the extant leaves of a codex, in order to properly set the parameters in the tool.

 

The Deuteronomy codex sa 2070 is comprised today of only 5 leaves containing portions of the chapters Deut 13; Deut 17; Deut 21; Deut 31; Deut 32. It is lacking any quire numbers and therefore they will not be the object of this investigation, though some page numbers are still extant. Only the first two leaves are almost undamaged: Vienna, ÖNB, K 9870 and Leiden, RMO, AES 40–12, which provide the basis for the required information about the number of lines per page as well as the number of letters per line. These two leaves consistently have 31 lines per column and on average 8 – 9 letters per line. However, sporadically we also count 7 or 10 letters per line and, in one case, even 11 letters. Codex sa 2070 is written in 2 columns in the unimodular script of Coptic whose main characteristic is that almost all Coptic letters (an exception being the letter iota) have the same height and width. The presence of this characteristic is of great importance as it makes the results much more reliable.

 

Second, one should choose in which order the gaps between two extant leaves need to be closed by the means of the tool.

 

In codex sa 2070, there are three leaves out of five that do not have extant page numbers – Leiden, RMO, AES 40–12 (Deut 17), Paris, BnF, Copte 130.5, f. 137 (Deut 21), and Copte 132.2, f. 48 (Deut 31). The rule of thumb for using the manuscript speculation tool is “The smaller the gap, the less room for error!” Therefore in this codex, we choose to begin our reconstruction with the last leaf containing Deut 31, as the next leaf with extant pagination contains Deut 32. This means that the gap between the two leaves is not big. After that, we will reconstruct the pagination of the Leiden leaf with Deut 17, which follows a Vienna leaf with extant pagination and contains Deut 13. Lastly, speculation will be dedicated to the Paris leaf with its content of Deut 21. In order to minimize the percentage of error, we will use the already reconstructed page numbers of the Leiden leaf (Deut 17) as it is located within the codex structure near the Paris leaf (Deut 21).

 

Third, two of the parameters require attention as they have a special effect on fine-tuning the result, i.e. Line Width and Space Width. Here the selection of the values requires a few attempts, with a goal to bring the first line of the first column of an extant page in accordance with the last line of the last column of the page.

 

Now comes the time to put all this information together and recreate the two pages of the Vienna leaf by experimenting with the parameters of the Manuscript Speculation Tool. The two columns and the 31 lines per column are a given, as well as the letter iota that should be treated as a Half-width Character. The Starting Character Number is 77 from the Starting Verse Deut 13.13 and Prefer Wordbreak Within Character Count is set to zero. With some trial and error, it emerges that the best result is achieved by setting Line Width to 8.4 and Space Width to 0.4.

 

This combination of parameters generates two successive pages which mimic the real object displaying only three letters more. Alternatively, setting Line Width to 8.3 results in a reconstruction that displays 17 letters less than the real object over two successive pages.

 

So using parameters in this range allows us to speculate on all gaps in sa 2070.

 

Reconstruction of the page numbers of Paris, BnF, Copte 132.2, f. 48 (Deut 31)

 

At first glance, someone who does not know the codex would suggest that between the two leaves  Copte 132.2, f. 48 (Deut 31) and Copte 129.1, f. 93 (Deut 32) only one or two leaves are missing. However, the tool teaches us that the missing leaves are four because in this unimodular manuscript the letters per line are on average 8–9. The special feature for the reconstruction of this page is the fact that the leaf with the extant page number is following the leaves without page numbers. In such cases, one has to work one's way backward to arrive at the extant page’s missing number.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We know exactly how the page [164] begins because we know the wording of the last lines of the previous page.

Then we are aiming at a page with the number 173 that should begin with the end of Deut 32:14 ⲙ̄ⲡⲉ̣ⲗ̣ⲟⲟⲗⲉ

 

 

It is important to note that the tool does not claim to reconstruct exactly every line on a page but simply to apply a consistent estimate across the entire speculation; therefore, a certain error rate can be expected and does not contradict the results.

 

The following parameters include the Line Width 8.4 and mirror exactly the first line of the manuscript on Page [164]. Further down the line Page 173 and Deut. 32:14/15 comes along.

 

 

As one can see by the highlighted word which represents the first word of the next extant portion of the manuscript, the reconstruction with the parameter Line Width 8.4 falls short by eight lines or 71 characters of the beginning of page 173.

 

Below, the speculation with Line Width 8.3 is given.

 

 

Here we arrive at a reconstruction that is off by only one line or nine characters, which is to be preferred.

Reconstruction of the page numbers of Leiden, RMO, AES 40–12 (Deut 17)

In this case, the page to be reconstructed follows a page with extant page numbers. Since Page 80 ends after the first word of Deut 14:5 we know that our reconstructed Page 81 begins with Starting Character Number 9 of that verse. The end of our gap is bounded by the next extant page which is a recto starting with the end of Deut 17:5 ⲛⲉ ⲉⲣⲟⲟⲩ.

 

 

Again, we start with Line Width 8.4 and employ the following parameter set

 

 

This time, the error rate amounts to about 10 lines with 87 characters short of the next recto.

 

As an alternative, we also provide the result for Line Width 8.3.

 

 

This speculation is only one line with seven letters short of the next recto. This indicates, again, that the parameter set with Line Width 8.3 gives better results.

 

Reconstruction of the page numbers of Paris, BnF, Copte 130.5, f. 137 (Deut 21)

 

In order to minimize the error rate, we continue our reconstruction starting with the page following our previously reconstructed page [96]. As we know exactly how page [96] ends, we can say that the next page will begin in the middle of Deut. 17:14 – at character offset  121.

 

This time, we are aiming at a fragment that includes Deut 21:5 at about the middle of the first column of a recto.

 

 

Again, we start with Line Width 8.4 and employ the following parameter set.

 

 

 In addition, we give the speculation for Line Width 8.3 parameter set.

 

 

This time for both cases the speculation is off by a comparatively large margin. The best result is found with the first set of parameters with an error margin of 10 lines with 88 characters. The second set of parameters produces an error margin is 20 lines with 172 characters. In addition, the latter set displays the targeted passage on the second column of a recto. In both cases, however, the targeted passage is found on the same page, i.e. page [111]. Therefore, we should be reasonably confident that the overall reconstruction is accurate. With a gap of 16 pages to be reconstructed, our error rate is still less than one line per page. 

 

By reconstructing the gaps of codex sa 2070 we hope to have been able to show you the advantages of the Manuscript Speculation tool.

 

 

Manuscript Speculation Tool: Reconstructing Non-extant Portions of Manuscripts

Part I: General Introduction

by

Diliana Atanassova, Troy A. Griffitts, and Ulrich Schmid

The codicological reconstruction of the manuscripts from the Library of the White Monastery in Upper Egypt is one of the biggest challenges in Coptology. In order to achieve its final score –  the reconstruction of the Coptic Translation of the Old Testament – the Göttingen CoptOT Team has first to identify new biblical fragments from the White Monastery in the different museums and libraries all over the world, and second to find their original codex among already known codices. Once we know the leaves which belong to a codex, our next task is to put them together in a correct succession and if possible to find out exactly how many leaves are missing. The codicological reconstruction depends on how many leaves survive, how much of each leaf is preserved, and if the leaf still bears its original pagination and quire numbers. However, many of the leaves we have today are fragmentary and often lacking their upper margins. In order to facilitate the reconstruction of the pagination and quire numbers in such cases and also determine the amount of missing leaves in between two extant leaves, the authors of this blogpost have developed the Manuscript Speculation Tool by applying algorithms to this set of problems.

The parameters of the Manuscript Speculation Tool

This tool “reconstructs” missing pages based on a running text of one or more biblical books. In order for it to succeed it has to have a Basetext and certain parameters filled in that are derived from existing pages.  

The first parameter, Basetext will be set to Sahidic Bible 2 for our work on the White Monastery leaves.

Starting Verse – here we enter the Biblical verse at which the tool should start a guess. 

Starting Character Number – the character offset within the Starting Verse at which the tool should start to count. If nothing is entered the tool will start the count at the first letter of the first verse.

Page Column Count – the number of columns per page.

Page Line Count – the number of lines per page; you can use a decimal value to account for a range between two numbers.

Line Width – the number of letters per line; you can supply an average decimal value to account for variation of line width within the manuscript. 

Space Width – the fraction of a character width to use between words. 0 for no space between words; 0.5 for half a character width between words, etc.

Prefer Wordbreak Within Character Count – lines can end exactly on the specified Line Width count or can be adjusted slightly if you find that the scribe preferred to end lines on a word break if the word break was within a reasonable amount of characters, e.g. "1" here would allow the line width to adjust by one character more or one character less if it would result in the line ending on a word break. If your strategy is to match the end of an extant page by adjusting fractional line length values, turning this feature off (setting to 0) is ideal.

Half-width Characters – some characters such as iota are often written using less than a full character width both in unimodular and bimodular manuscripts. Supply a list of characters here which should be treated as such.

Double-width Characters – to better support bimodular manuscript, a list of characters can be provided here which should be treated as double the normal character width when they occur on a line.

Starting Page Number – the number of the page at which the speculation should start.

Number of Pages to Generate – the number of successive pages that the tool should generate.

When you refine your parameters to best match your manuscript, you can then save or share those parameters with colleagues by using the “Return Link” icon in the upper right corner of the tool.

From a methodological point of view we are attempting to establish the tendencies of the Coptic scribe as discovered through the extant portions of the manuscript and apply those same tendencies when reconstructing the missing portions. This method was already used in traditional Coptological investigation, however this work was previously done manually and being very tedious, generally only for a few leaves.[1] Now, through the support of DH software we can reach a new level of speed and consistency in applying our expert decisions, thus increasing accuracy and assuring plausibility for our assumptions. This tool is now integrated and available within the Virtual Manuscript Room and can be used not only for the Coptic biblical codices from the White Monastery but also for all Coptic or other language biblical manuscripts. You can find the Manuscript Speculation Tool here.

 

Finally, we would like to end the first part of our blogpost with five concise suggestions based on what we have learned by using the tool over the past months.  

 

• Know your codex thoroughly.
• Try to reconstruct an extant page in order to prove your speculative parameter values.
• Use the tool only to close the gap between two leaves, so as not to carry errors onward to the next gap.
• Attempt to find other possibilities for best speculation values by tuning different parameters.
• Tolerate errors.  The tool can only speculate and will never be exact.

  In the second part of this blog post we will be using the tool to reconstruct the non-extant portion of the fragmentary manuscript sa 2070. You are invided to follow us there.

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[1] D. Atanassova, “Neue Erkenntnisse bei der Erforschung der sahidischen Quellen für die Paschawoche”, in: Heike Behlmer, Ute Pietruschka, Frank Feder (eds.), Ägypten und der Christliche Orient. Peter Nagel zum 80. Geburtstag (Texte und Studien zur Koptischen Bibel 1), Wiesbaden 2018, pp. 1–37, particularly p. 20.

The List of Coptic Biblical Manuscripts (LCBM) is now available on our website. LCBM is a common list maintained and regularly updated by the INTF Münster (Siegfried G. Richter and Katharina Schröder) and the Coptic Old Testament project Göttingen. It was the result of an agreement between Siegfried Richter and Frank Feder in 2016 to replace the partly overlapping and competing numbering systems of Karlheinz Schüssler's Biblia Coptica and the SMR (Schmitz-Mink-Richter) list of Coptic New Testament manuscripts. The details are outlined in an article in the Journal of Coptic Studies 22.

Updates to LCBM will appear on an annual basis (or more often if substantial changes occur). The published list is a fixed actual state (version 1.0, March 2021) of a work in progress representing the reconstruction of Coptic biblical and liturgical manuscripts, first for the Sahidic manuscripts. It gives the basic information for each manuscript, of which leaves or fragments in which collections it consists and which verses of a certain biblical book or pericopae they contain, and a concordance of the different numbering systems that exist. In addition, as for the NT manuscripts, also the Horner and GA sigla are noted. Any other detail, like provenance or dating, will be reserved for the comprehensive description of the manuscript in the metadata scheme in the manuscript catalogue. A link at the end of each line leads you, in case of the OT manuscripts, to the diplomatic editions in the CoptOT VMR, also work in progress and, therefore, in different stages of accomplishment, and, in case of the NT manuscripts, to the SMR-Database. For this first version, the column with 'codex type/lectionary type' is mostly left blank, as we are still working with the assignment of the fragments. This, and also the sigla for the manuscripts of the other dialects (except the classical Bohairic version which needs a separate list) will be added successively.

The progress in comparison to Schüssler's Biblia Coptica is already visible in many cases, and we are very grateful for any additional information, suggestions, and improvements you may have.  

 

 

Unser verehrter Kollege, der Anglist, Theologe und Koptologe Wolf-Peter Funk, geboren 1943 im sächsischen Oederan, ist am 18. Februar 2021 im kanadischen Québec gestorben. 

Als Schüler von Hans-Martin Schenke gehörte Wolf-Peter Funk zu den Mitbegründern des Berliner Arbeitskreises für koptisch-gnostische Schriften. Der Berliner Arbeitskreis veröffentlichte ab 1973 sukzessive deutsche Übersetzungen von Nag Hammadi-Schriften, zu denen Wolf-Peter Funk die Übersetzungen des Authentikos Logos (NHC VI,3) und der Lehren des Silvanus (NHC VII,4) beitrug. Seine bereits 1971 fertiggestellte Dissertation über die Zweite Apokalypse des Jakobus aus Nag Hammadi-Codex V erschien dann 1976 als erste kommentierte Textausgabe aus den Reihen des Berliner Arbeitskreises in der Reihe Texte und Untersuchungen des Berliner Akademie-Verlages als TU-Band 119. Wolf-Peter Funk setzte darin mit seiner Indizierung des koptischen Textes den linguistischen Standard, der seitdem die Textausgaben des Berliner Arbeitskreises auszeichnet.

Frühzeitig machte er statistisch-mathematische Methoden für die linguistische Qualifizierung koptischer Texte fruchtbar. Als Pionier computergestützter Analyse trug er wesentlich zur dialektologischen Entschlüsselung insbesondere von Nag Hammadi-Texten bei. Als „Hexenmeister“ (so eine Formulierung von Hans-Martin Schenke) der von Régine Charron entwickelten computergestützten Konkordanzen erschloss er der Koptologie zahlreiche Textcorpora, wovon etliche Koptologinnen und Koptologen seitdem profitiert haben. Am Beispiel dieser Computerkonkordanzen wird besonders deutlich, dass das veröffentlichte Werk Wolf-Peter Funks nur die sichtbare Spitze eines Eisbergs darstellt. Etliche Konkordanzen, etwa zu den sogenannten „kleinen“ Dialekten, erschienen nur als Privatdruck oder wurden großzügig als Disketten geteilt – stets zum Nutzen und zum Fortschritt der Koptologie.

1986 nutze Wolf-Peter Funk einen Studienaufenthalt als visiting professor in Kanada, um den engen und einengenden Verhältnissen in der DDR den Rücken zu kehren. Er lehrte und forschte seitdem an der Université Laval in Québec und veröffentlichte seine wissenschaftlichen Beiträge abwechselnd auf Deutsch, Englisch und Französisch – je nach den Erfordernissen der jeweiligen Publikation.

In den letzten Jahrzehnten hat sich Wolf-Peter Funk besonders um die Erschließung der manichäischen Schriften verdient gemacht, sowohl der bereits seit Jahrzehnten in Bibliotheken aufbewahrten als auch der neugefundenen etwa in der Oase Dachlah. Seine Konkordanzen zu den manichäischen Kephalaia und den manichäischen Homilien gehören zu dem unter der Wasserlinie liegenden Eisberg seines Lebenswerks.

Der Hindernislauf seiner Heimarmenē hat nun ein Ende gefunden. Wolf-Peter Funk war nicht nur Kollege und Koptologe, sondern auch Mensch und Freund. Als ehemaligem Mitglied des Leipziger Thomanerchores lagen ihm auch Alte Musik und historische Aufführungspraxis am Herzen. Diskussionen linguistischer Detailfragen mit seinem Kollegen und Freund Hans-Gebhard Bethge endeten nicht selten im gemeinsamen Hören neuer, aufregender Aufnahmen Alter Musik. Die Lücke, die sein Tod reißt, ist nur zu ahnen.