CODICES COPTICI RESCRIPTI. A Preliminary Census of the Palimpsests from the White Monastery

“With specific regard to Coptic codices, it has been observed that coloured parchment is very rare Less rare but still rather uncommon are Coptic palimpsests, and those that exist have not been studied systematically as such.” This is what one can read from the sub-chapter on Coptic codicology of the "Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies: A Handbook" volume. Although there are not precise figures on the percentage of palimpsests in other oriental manuscript traditions – including the Greek one – ,and a systematic study of the Coptic palimpsests is still missing, today that sentence should probably be re-written in a slightly different way: Coptic palimpsests are not so numerous, although they are certainly not uncommon, and embrace a wide range of possible strategies of re-use, from the point of view of the technique, content and endurance of their life before being recycled. At the moment more than 40 Coptic palimpsests are known to us, but their census is in continuous progress,due to the well-known complexity of the reconstruction of the Coptic codicological units.