Newly discovered manuscript in South Sinai: Antiquities Min

CAIRO – 6 July 2017: Minister of Antiquities Dr. Khaled El-Enany received on Tuesday the Greek Minister of Digital Policy Telecommunications and Media, Nikos Pappas at the Ministry Of Antiquities' Headquarter in Zamalek to announce the newly discovered manuscript at Sainte Catherine Monastery, in South Sinai, Ministry of Antiquities stated on Tuesday.

The manuscript was uncovered by monks of the monastery during the restoration and documentation works carried out in the monastery's library, according to the statement.

The ceremony was attended by Egyptian Minister of Culture Mr. Helmy El-Namnam, Egyptian Minister of Communication and Information Technology Engineer Yasser El-Kady, Egyptian Minister of Tourism yehia Rashed as well as South Sinai Governor Major General Khaled Fouda, and Archbishop of Saint Catherine Diamessis, Ahram Online reported.

Greek Ambassador to Egypt H.E Michael C. Diamessis, and Cypriot Ambassador to Egypt H.E Charis Moritsis also attended the ceremony and a number of foreign countries ambassadors and archaeological institutes.

Dr. Mohammed Abdel-Latif, Assistant Minister of Antiquities for archaeological sites explains that the discovered archaeological manuscript is one of the manuscripts knows as "Palmest" manuscripts. It dates back to the fifth or sixth century AD written on leather and describes parts of medical texts from a medical research of the renowned Greek physician “Hippocrates.” He continued that the manuscript has also three other medical texts written by an anonymous scribe. One of these texts contains drawings of medicinal herbs of the Greek recipe, which was obliterated before 1200 AD, according to the statement.

Ahmed al-Nimer, supervisor of Coptic archeology documentation at the Ministry and a member of the scientific office, said that "palmest" manuscripts were written on leather and is formed of two layers of writings: the first one was previously erased in order to re-write on the leather again. This was done at that time due to the high cost of the leather, the statement added.

Nimr said that the monastery of Sainte Catherine contains many manuscripts of "Palmset" in addition to a library containing six thousand manuscripts, among them six hundred manuscripts written in Arabic, Greek, Ethiopian, Coptic, Armenian and Syriac. They are historical, geographical and philosophical manuscripts and the oldest is dating back to the fourth century AD.