Schøyen Collection

The Schøyen Collection is the largest private manuscript collection in the world, mostly located in Oslo and London. Formed in the 20th century by Martin Schøyen, it comprises manuscripts of global provenance, spanning 5,000 years of history. It contains more than 13,000 manuscript items; the oldest book is about 5,300 years old. There are manuscripts from 134 different countries and territories, representing 120 distinct languages.^[1]

The variety of manuscripts—geographic, linguistic, textual and material—even more than its size makes the Schøyen Collection unique. The collection has a website with many items illustrated and described. The provenance of the various cuneiform materials held by the Schøyen Collection remains subject to controversy.^[2]

Notable manuscripts

Among the most notable manuscripts of the collection are the following:

• MS 1 (ca. 1300), a fragment from a codex of French sermons, in a binding produced by Manuale del Navarro, acquired in 1955
• MS 035, Codex Sinaiticus Zosimi Rescriptus, a palimpsest on vellum from Mount Sinai^[3]
• MS 193 (3rd century AD), The Crosby-Schøyen Codex, biblical manuscript in the Coptic language; it contains: Jonah, 2 Maccabees, 1 Peter, "Peri Pascha" of Melito, and an unidentified Homily^[4]
• MS 2064 (21st century BC), Ur-Nammu's law-code, a Sumerian text.^[5]
• MS 2650 (4th century AD), Codex Schøyen, the oldest Gospel of Matthew in Coptic dialect^[6]
• MS 2781 (2000–1600 BC), a Babylonian calendar.^[7]
• MS 4457 (1865-1879 AD), Cheyenne Chief Little Shield's Ledger Book recording the Indian War of the Platte River in 1865.
• MS 5236, an ancient Greek block print from the 6th century BC
• Tutankhamun's signet ring
• Some ancient Buddhist manuscripts, taken from Afghanistan to preserve them from the Taliban.
• Since 1994, the Schøyen Collection has acquired 60 Dead Sea Scrolls fragments from 15 different scrolls.^[8]

References

External links

• The Schøyen Collection