Catalogues of Coptic manuscripts

As in the case of other Christian oriental languages, it was at the end of the eighteenth century that European and extra-European countries began to show interest in the documents related to the first stage of the spread of Christianity into Egypt. Because of the extraordinary climatic conditions of the deserts and the Nile Valley, Egypt preserved an impressive amount of manuscript material, often dating back to the very beginnings of the new faith. Unfortunately, however, when the local people, including the monks, realized the keen interest of the Europeans in the first documents pertaining to Christianity, they did not hesitate to dismember Coptic codices in order to sell single leaves of them to the highest bidder. This aspect bears a strong influence even now on the study of Coptic manuscript material and Coptic cataloguing, because leaves, originally belonging to the same codex, are often preserved today in several European and non-European collections.