Coptic Literary Texts and Codex Fragments – A Monastic Library in Pieces

Within ME‑Scripta, a dedicated project will investigate the Coptic literary texts and codex fragments preserved in the Museo Egizio. These manuscripts, many of them recovered during the early 20th‑century excavations at sites such as Ashmūnayn, Thebes, Gebelein and Assiut, represent the remains of once substantial monastic and ecclesiastical libraries in Middle and Upper Egypt.

The material is highly diverse and includes:

• Biblical and liturgical texts, such as passages from the Old and New Testaments, prayers and readings used in church services.
• Monastic and ascetic literature, with instructions for communal life, moral exhortations and narratives about holy men and women.
• Theological and homiletic works, including fragments of sermons and doctrinal treatises that document debates within late antique Christianity.
• Documentary pieces, such as private and ecclesiastical letters or short notes, which illuminate the everyday life of the communities that used these books.

Many of the Coptic texts survive only as small, isolated fragments, sometimes written in different dialects and scripts and occasionally mixed with Greek or Arabic pieces in the same excavation boxes. As a result, they are often difficult to identify and have remained largely unpublished.

The project will bring together a postdoctoral researcher and an international network of Coptic specialists to locate, describe and analyse these fragments in a systematic way. By comparing handwriting, codicological features and textual content, they will attempt to reconstruct original codices, link pieces to known works and identify previously unknown texts.

Beyond producing new editions and translations, the study of the Coptic literary and codex fragments will:

• clarify the intellectual profile of the monastic and ecclesiastical centres represented in the collection;
• trace how biblical and theological texts circulated between different regions of Egypt;
• provide a richer picture of everyday communication, education and worship in late antique and early Islamic Christian communities.

In this way, ME‑Scripta will transform a scattered and little‑known set of Coptic fragments into a coherent body of evidence for the religious, literary and social history of Christian Egypt.