SSCN Voumes 1-10, 1994-2004

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

What are the Non-Literary Documents: This label is attached to a large body of texts, found in Egypt. They range from public legal documents, such as deeds and bills of sales, to private correspondences between individuals. Reviewing the contents of these texts, leaves the individual with the feeling of watching bits and pieces of documentary films. They usually lack the linguistic eloquence and the literary style usually observed in literary material such as Biblical, Liturgical, Patristic, and Hagiographic texts. Language: These documents, pertaining to Coptic History, were found in all languages that were prevalent in Egypt. They are found in Demotic, the last written stage of the original Egyptian language before Greek characters were used to develop a fully vocalized script of the language. They are also found in Latin along with the usual Greek, the different dialects of Coptic, and Arabic. The more ancient is of course the Demotic, while Arabic documents are generally the most recent. Writing material: Residents of Egypt, including Copts, have traditionally used the papyrus writing material to record such documents. The later and most voluminous Coptic material expanded the scope of material used to potsherds (broken pottery pieces) and Ostraca (limestone slab pieces). In other words they used any thing that was available. Later material in Coptic was found written on paper. Writing Style: Coptic and Greek texts were mostly written in a unique script, compared to that of the literary manuscripts. This script can best be described as that of a prescription written by a doctor. In other words, it was not too easy to decipher except by those who were specially trained to use it. This cursive type of writing made such texts very difficult to access except for the trained experts, and thus alienated most of the history scholars from directly using them. Time Scope: These documents spanned from the time of the Ptolemians to the Fatimid period in the 11th century AD. Demotic documents are usually the oldest. Latin Documents were less frequent

and spanned only the first few centuries of Christianity in Egypt. Greek material are found generally up to the early eighth century, when Arabic replaced it as the official language of the country. The Coptic material are found as early as the 4th century or earlier, and it continued to flourish all the way to the 8th century. There are even some documents of this type found as late as the 11th century, written in Coptic. Arabic material appeared shortly after the Arab conquest of Egypt in 642 AD. It appeared first in bilingual form with Greek or Coptic, and later in exclusive Arabic text. Collections: These documents are as usual dispersed among many Coptic collections throughout the world. They were made available through excavations or private dealers. As with the literary manuscripts, the material from the same site was dispersed among a few or several collections. To make matter worse, the similarity of the script made many Coptic documents be included with the Greek ones and not touched by the early Papyrologist who were not well versed in Coptic to deal with them. It was not until late this century, when a new generation of scholars with both Greek and Coptic background started to look at these collections and make the identification. Below is a list of the most significant holders of such material:

Berlin, Egyptian Museum Cairo, Egyptian Museum

London, British Museum/Library Manchester, John Rylands Library Michigan, University Library New York, Columbia University Library

Oxford, Bodleian Library Vienna, National Library

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

Archives and Dossiers: For optimum use of information in these documents, scholars need to group them by time and especially by place. Such grouping results in what is referred to as archives and for more official grouping as dossiers. Such grouping when studied as a whole can provide much valuable information about the external and

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