Post on 17-Dec-2015
transcript
Summary
1. An International Collaboration
2. Codex Sinaiticus
3. The Project
4. The Website
The Codex Sinaiticus Project
Dr Ekkehard Henschke
The University Library, Leipzig
Lynne Brindley
The British Library
His Eminence Archbishop Damianos
St Catherine’s Monastery, Mt Sinai
Dr Alexander Bukreyev
The Russian National Library, St Petersburg
An International CollaborationPartners9 March 2005
An International CollaborationCollaborating Institutions
Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing, University of Birmingham
Institute for New Testament Textual Research, University of Münster
The Centre for Retrospective Digitization, Göttingen State and University Library
Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta
An International CollaborationExternal Funders
Approximately £1 million budget, with external funding from:
Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation
Arts and Humanities Research Council
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Leventis Foundation
Mariposa Foundation
J. F. Costopoulos Foundation
Hellenic Foundation
American Friends of Saint Catherine's Monastery
American Trust for the British Library
An International CollaborationOrganisation
PROJECT BOARDChair:John Tuck
ConservationWorking PartyChair: Helen Shenton
Scholarly EditionCommitteeChair: Scot McKendrick
WebsiteWorking PartyChair: Norbert Lossau
ProductsWorking PartyChair: John Tuck
BL Conservation
sub-group
Technical sub-group
Project ManagerClaire Breay
Translations sub-group
Project CuratorJuan Garcés
FundingWorking PartyChair: Lara Jukes
Technical StandardsWorking PartyChair: Norbert Lossau
An International Collaboration Aims and Means
aims global access to a major MS treasure its preservation for the future understanding of its content and history
means scholarship aided by modern technology close collaboration between
curators conservators academics image specialists IT specialists
Codex Sinaiticus
What is it?
Codex SinaiticusContent and Significance
content part of the Old Testament in Greek (Septuagint), including
apocrypha (2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom, and Sirach)
whole New Testament Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd by Hermas
significance one of the oldest Bibles (mid-fourth century) earliest complete New Testament text – canon – book
Codex SinaiticusSignificance: Text
one of the most important witnesses to the Greek text of the Septuagint and the New Testament
primacy of position in the lists of consulted manuscripts (or "01" for the New Testament "א")
not only original base text, but many layers of revisions from 4th to 12th century from alteration of one letter to the insertion of whole sentences no other early manuscript of the Christian Bible
has been so extensively corrected!
Codex SinaiticusSignificance: Canon
mid-4th century: wide, yet neither complete nor universal, agreement over the books to be considered as authoritative for Christian communities
Codex Sinaiticus, being one of the earliest intact collections of such books, is essential for an understanding of the contents and the arrangement of the Bible, as well as the uses made of it
Septuagint in the Codex comprises books not included in the Hebrew Bible and regarded in the Protestant tradition as apocryphal, such as 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom, and Sirach
appended at the end of the New Testament are the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas
idiosyncratic sequence of books: Hebrews is placed after 2 Thessalonians Acts between the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles
Codex SinaiticusSignificance: Book
Christians preferred the codex over the roll from our earliest evidence onwards in contrast to earlier and most contemporary practice particularly, albeit not exclusively, when copying sacred literature
parchment was increasingly used as the writing support for literary texts instead of papyrus from the fourth century onwards
strikingly few traces remain of parchment codices produced before the Codex Sinaiticus
Codex Sinaiticus is an outstanding example quality of its parchment advanced binding structure
insight into professional Christian book production careful planning skilful writing editorial control
pages measure 380mm x 345mm
written in formal bookhand (Biblical majuscule)
prose books written in 4 columns; poetical books in 2 columns
multiple layers of corrections, starting with the original scribes
Codex SinaiticusPage Layout
Quire 38 folio 1 recto
Corrections in 12r (2 Esdras 13.13-14.7)
Codex Sinaiticus What survives and where
Just over 400 leaves extant (out of approx. over 730 original leaves), but now distributed between four places:
347 leaves in the British Library
12 leaves and 40 fragments in St Catherine's Monastery, Mt Sinai
43 leaves in the Leipzig University Library
fragments of 5 (or 6?) leaves in the National Library of Russia, St Petersburg
Codex SinaiticusModern History
St Petersburg
LeipzigMt Sinai
1844
1859(1869) Project
London
1933
Codex Sinaiticus Modern History
Account of how the distributed situation came about is to be researched, agreed and disseminated
research has been undertaken in at all four holding locations
report has been commissioned (draft) agreed account will be published in project outputs
The ProjectTimescale
initial discussions in late 2002
partnership agreement signed March 2005
project work started in 2005
main strands of project to conclude in 2009
The ProjectTimetable for Activities of Codex Sinaiticus Digitisation ProjectYear: 05 06 07 08 09Month: 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Conservation BL conservation assessment of OTBL conservation of OT
BL conservation assessment of NTBL conservation of NT
Leipzig conservation assessmentNLR conservation assessment
St Catherine's conservation assessmentSt Catherine's conservation work
Imaging Sampling and approval processBL digitisation of OT & image-processing
BL digitisation of NT & image-processingBL MSI
Leipzig digitisation and image-processingLeipzig MSI
NLR digitisation, image-processing & MSISt Catherine's digitisation, image-processing & MSI
Transcription Transcription& curatorial Translationswork Scholarly research for products
Products Publication of bookletDevelopment of technical specification for website
Choosing agency to develop websiteDevelopment of alternative website designs and choice of final design
Development of websiteContent added to website in Leipzig
Content added to website in LondonFilming and production of TV documentaryPublication of popular book
Production of facsimileProduction of DVD
Preparation for exhibitionsExhibitionsConference
Production of volume of scholarly essays
The ProjectOverview
History of Codex
Conservation
Digitisation
Edition
Dissemination
split, folio 1 recto
New Finds leaves at St Catherine’s Monastery
The ProjectConservation
Stretching frame with weights
Cockerell’s bindings and box
The Documentation Model
• Fields in Excel format Model:ParchmentScribal (conservation)CodicologicalPrevious treatmentsConditionCondition of repairs
The ProjectConservation
collaboration work to be undertaken in partnership with conservation specialists
at each archival venue initial assessment
stabilise MS for digitisation preserve MS for the future
detailed assessment physical condition of each leaf individual conservation requirements for stabilisation
conservation work plan by Conservation working party
dissemination outcome documented findings included in overall scholarly interpretation documentation in English, German, Greek, and Russian
The British Library’s Codex Sinaiticus Conservation Team
Current
internet image low resolution
taken from Lake facsimile (1911, 1922)
not attributed
The ProjectDigitisation
The ProjectDigitisation
Images from the test phase
PhaseOne (FX) scanning rack
600 dpi resolution
uncompressed TIFF files with embedded metadata
The ProjectDigitisation
process undertaken at each venue undertaken after conservation informed by scholarly review of Lake facsimile employs optimal methods tested and established by the Technical Standards
working party minimal handling of MS
type of images created high-quality images of all leaves as surrogates for the original manuscript
leaves raking light images of selected parts multi-spectral images of selected parts
intended use of images work of project teams (conservation and scholarly) project outputs
The ProjectEdition
lead institutions Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing
(University of Birmingham) Institute for New Testament Textual Research (University of
Münster)
key elements transcription - made from new images and capturing all layers
of text and corrections searchable text and text features links to images – whole leaves and details
The ProjectWebsite
developed by the University Library, Leipzig tender awarded to ACS Solutions (3-point concepts) soon hosted by the British Library (mirrored) free to view areas directed at different readers (from general to
specialist readers), but accessible to all English introduction, documentation, and commentary,
with targeted multilingual parts
The ProjectWebsite
Technical specifications: bring together a variety of datasets and integrate into a unified
user interface digital images of the leaves of Codex Sinaiticus XML files for the transcription Excel spreadsheets for the physical description XML files for translations, etc.
conform to technologies and standards supported by the British Library's IT infrastructure
accessibility and long-term maintenance no plug-ins web standards such as HTML, CSS, Javascript and AJAX
link image and text representations of the pages of Codex Sinaiticus in a way never before implemented in an online edition of a manuscript