The Ninth-Century Coptic ‘Book Revolution’ and the Emergence of Multiple-Text Manuscripts

Abstract

: In this article, I am going to analyse how the typology of Coptic multiple-text manuscripts (MTMs) evolved in relation to their content and regional prove-nance, showing how Coptic literature and Coptic book production underwent a revolutionary transformation that started in the ninth century, becoming something completely different from what it was before. Summarizing the studies on the development of Coptic literature carried out by Tito Orlandi, Martin Krause and others, Siegfried Richter writes: older works. cases, Coptic This assertion is certainly correct: what we have is mainly transmitted by codices that date back to between the ninth and the eleventh centuries and consists of a targeted selection of contents that do not fully correspond to the primeval nature of Coptic literature.