Ɵ Canon of Odes 3-7, in Middle Georgian, manuscript on parchment [Georgia, 13th or 14th century]

Ɵ Canon of Odes 3-7, celebrating the appearance of the Cross in the sky over Mount Golgotha in the reign of Emperor Constantius, son of Constantine the Great, in Middle Georgian, in nuskuri script, manuscript on parchment[Georgia, thirteenth or fourteenth century] Single leaf, with 28 lines in a formal nuskuri hand influenced by cursive letterforms, red rubrics, small initials in alternate red and black (set in margins), small spots and darkening to edges, else good condition, 200 by 150mm.; in cloth-covered card binding (with copy of report by Prof. Emeritus J. Neville Birdsall, dated 1992) Provenance: Schøyen Collection, Oslo and London, their MS 1598, acquired from Sam Fogg, London, in July 1992. Text: Georgian is the principal surviving example of the South Caucasian language group, completely unrelated to the Indo-European languages of Europe. It has a rich heritage, and was first mentioned as a spoken language by the Roman grammarian Marcus Cornelius Fronto in the second century AD., who noted its incomprehensibility. The script used to commit it to writing is derived from Greek. It was one of the earliest languages into which the Bible was translated, with the Gospels, the Epistles of Paul and the Psalms certainly existing in Old Georgian by the second half of the fifth century.The vast majority of medieval manuscripts in Georgian are in libraries in Tbiblisi and Kutaisi in Georgia itself, with a handful found in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the Greek patriarchate in Jerusalem, St. Catherine's on Mount Sinai, and Yerevan, Armenia.