Courtesy UCLA Library
The fathers of St. Catherine’s Monastery have been careful stewards of the oldest continually operating library in the world for centuries.
The UCLA Library and Early Manuscripts Electronic Library have partnered with St. Catherine's Monastery to digitize and publish online on an open access basis some 1,100 rare and unique Syriac and Arabic manuscripts dating from the fourth to the 17th centuries. A UNESCO World Heritage site located in a region of the Sinai Peninsula sacred to Christianity, Islam and Judaism, St. Catherine's Monastery houses a collection of ancient and medieval manuscripts second only to that of the Vatican Library. Some 400,000 images will be created, including of works from Syriac literate culture, which flourished between the third and eighth centuries, and Christian Arabic literature, which appeared in the eighth century as Christian communities adapted to the spread of Islam. This extensive collection of manuscripts becoming accessible to scholars around the world is thanks to the support of a $980,000 grant from the Arcadia Fund. "We are deeply grateful to Arcadia for its generous support of this project to preserve and make accessible invaluable materials dating back to antiquity," said Ginny Steel, UCLA Norman and Armena Powell University Librarian. "The UCLA Library looks forward to making these important manuscripts available online to scholars, students and members of the public around the world." Sa'id ibn Batriq (Eutychius of Alexandria). Oldest extant manuscript of what is credited to be the first universal history in Arabic by a Christian author.
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