Glasgow, Scotland – An international team of researchers and academics, from the University of Glasgow (UofG), led by U of G’s Professor Garrick Allen, have successfully recovered 42 “lost” pages of one of the world’s most important early New Testament manuscripts, the 6th-century Codex H (a New Testament manuscript of St. Paul’s Letters).
The remarkable feat was performed by a partnership with the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (EMEL) applying advanced multispectral imaging to process images of the extant pages, in order to recover “ghost” text that no longer physically exists, effectively retrieving multiple pages of information from every single physical page that was left in the bindings of repurposed, fragmented manuscripts. To ensure historical accuracy, the EMEL team collaborated with experts in Paris, France, to perform radiocarbon dating, confirming the parchment’s 6th-century origin.
The pages contain known portions of Paul’s Letters, along with early chapter lists and annotations, providing crucial, new insights into how 6th-century scribes used and understood early Christian scriptures.
The 42 pages were not physically found, but rather reconstructed using “ghost text” – faint, mirrored impressions of the original writing found on pages that were scraped, re-inked, and reused as binding material and flyleaves, in the 13th century at the Great Lavra Monastery.
“The breakthrough came from an important starting point: we knew that at one point, the manuscript was re-inked. The chemicals in the new ink caused ‘offset’ damage to facing pages, essentially creating a mirror image of the text on the opposite leaf – sometimes leaving traces several pages deep, barely visible to the naked eye but very clear with the latest imaging techniques.”
The project focused on Codex H, a 6th-century Greek manuscript containing the letters of St. Paul. The recovered pages contain the earliest known chapter lists for Paul’s letters, which differ significantly from modern divisions. They also reveal how 6th-century scribes corrected and interacted with the text. The physical state of the manuscript reveals how sacred works were reused and repurposed once they fell into disrepair.
The fragmented pages of the manuscript were previously scattered across several countries, including Greece, Russia, Ukraine and France.
The discovery highlights a significant moment in the study of how the New Testament was developed, understood, and transmitted through the centuries.
“Given that Codex H is such an important witness to our understanding of Christian scripture, to have discovered any new evidence – let alone this quantity – of what it originally looked like is nothing short of monumental,” said Professor Allen.
A new print edition of Codex H is forthcoming and a digital edition is freely available at: https://codexh.arts.gla.ac.uk/
Leave a Reply