Deir al-Surian (Egypt): Its Wall-paintings, Wall-texts, and Manuscripts III. The Conservation of Manuscripts in the Library of Deir al-Surian: First Notes

Abstract

[51] Whilst working on the excavation and conservation of frescos and wall-texts in the Church of al-Adra’, art-historians and conservators were approached with a request for assistance and expertise in conserving and preserving a collection of ancient manuscripts housed in the library of Deir al-Surian. [52] In 1997, I was presented with an opportunity to carry out the first inspection of the manuscripts. The collection consists of approximately 900 manuscripts and all but some one hundred are being stored on wooden shelves in modern glass-fronted book cases. Thirty six manuscripts from the “Syriac collection” together with an unidentified number of manuscripts of unknown origin are housed in an area undisclosed to me.71Environmental conditions in the Library are very unsatisfactory, with temperature and relative humidity fluctuating from very low to extremely high levels. [53] The main collection consists of manuscripts written in Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopic and Arabic on cotton paper, parchment and vellum. Centuries of mistreatment and bad handling together with adverse environmental conditions have contributed greatly to the poor condition of the manuscripts. The substrates suffer from embrittlement, discoloration and mechanical damage. Pages are stuck together and have become pitifully distorted. The use of irongall ink has also caused damage to the substrate, and there are many instances of ink suffering from flaking and lifting. Exposure to moisture has resulted in corrosive activity and caused very serious perforations and damage to the parchment and paper substrate. Carbon ink, which is the predominant writing medium, is