Editio Princeps of 119 Unpublished Papyrus Pages of the Coptic Manichaean Psalmbook in the Chester Beatty Library

Basic data for this project

Description

The as yet unpublished first part of the ancient Coptic papyrus codex of the Manichaean "Psalmbook" is, despite the facsimile edition that was prepared by S. Giversen (The Manichaean Coptic Papyri in the Chester Beatty Library, vol. 3, Psalm Book Part I, Facsimile Edition [CdO 16], Geneva 1988), which includes 344 plates, accessible to only a very limited extent even to specialists in Coptology. The barely legible condition of the text requires the work of specialists in order to make the codex available to wider circles, such as historians of religion, for example. The project on the "Editio Princeps of the First Part of the Coptic Manichaean Psalmbook in the Chester Beatty Library" was supported by the DFG 2000–2004 and made it possible for Prof. Siegfried G. Richter to reconstruct the original order of the first 127 plates of the facsimile edition and to edit and translate 123 pages of Coptic text. Of the 222 pages that remain to be edited, 43 are the responsibilty of Prof. N.A. Pedersen (Denmark), 49 are the responsibility of Prof. G. Wurst (Augsburg), and Prof. Richter is responsible for 119 (plus 11 pages that are effectively empty), which he is editing with assistance from Dr. W.-P. Funk (Canada).