Overview
- An international, AHRC-funded team led by University of Glasgow scholar Garrick Allen recovered 42 lost pages from Codex H, a Greek manuscript of Paul’s letters from the sixth century.
- The team worked with the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library to read faint mirror impressions using multispectral imaging, then radiocarbon labs in Paris confirmed the parchment’s age.
- The recovered pages include early chapter lists that differ from modern divisions, corrections by sixth-century scribes, and about 100 later notes including a small Byzantine poem.
- The newly read text adds no previously unknown biblical passages and instead shows how communities structured, corrected, and engaged with the letters over time.
- After the Great Lavra Monastery disbound the codex in the 13th century, recycled leaves ended up as bindings and flyleaves in libraries in Italy, Greece, Russia, Ukraine, and France.