The Christian Great Martyr Catherine, who was born in Alexandria, came from a noble princely family and was famous far beyond the borders of her native city due to her outstanding mind and level of education. According to legends, she once managed to argue with 50 pagan philosophers.
Shortly before her death, Catherine had a vision: Jesus Christ called her his bride and even gave her a wedding ring. Soon the woman was wheeled and beheaded for refusing to renounce her faith. As the legends say, the angels took her remains and carried them to the tomb at the foot of the very legendary mountain where Moses received the Tablets of the Covenant from God.
In 527, the Byzantine emperor Justinian erected the monastery of St. Catherine on the Sinai Peninsula. Her name gradually became a cult one, and after the Crusades, all of Western Europe began to consider the saint as the patroness of student youth. The monastery itself became the center of educational activities and for a long time was under the protection of the Sinai Order of the Crusaders, so it was never ruined. The number of Christian relics stored within its walls is second only to the Vatican.
For 1,500 years, the library of the monastery complex, included in the list of World Heritage Sites, contains ancient manuscripts - religious books and all kinds of historical documents. The most valuable manuscripts are the Sinai and Syrian codices, the Gospel of Matthew and the world's oldest psalter.
At the end of August, it became known about the sensational find. Researchers have discovered early copies of the works of Hippocrates, three ancient Greek texts on medicine, as well as unique documents in extinct languages - for example, in Agvan (the language of Caucasian Albania), which until recently was known only thanks to separate inscriptions. How did scientists find them?
Because parchment was a valuable material, it was often used twice: the original text was erased and more recent writing was overlaid. For example, monks made copies of the Bible where the writings of Aristotle once were. Thanks to technology developed by specialists at the California Center, researchers have learned to find and read the original ancient documents.
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To reveal the ink marks left by the earliest authors, parchment is photographed using different parts of the light spectrum and from different angles. The resulting images are combined using special computer algorithms. This is such a significant event that the leading foreign media announced the approach of a "new golden age of discovery", because humanity has gained access to previously unknown texts.
However, Western experts believe that the richest heritage can be lost at any moment. Attacks against Christians have increased in the region, and the threat of Islamic fundamentalism is more real than ever.
Does this news have connotations? Perhaps the danger is exaggerated or artificially created, and under the plausible pretext of saving the Christian cultural heritage, the library will be taken out of the monastery (such proposals are already being received), after which it will forever disappear from our field of vision in the Vatican archives, Smithsonian museums or private collections.
We can only hope that in the near future, many of the found and decrypted manuscripts will become available to everyone.
Elena Muravyova for neveroyatno.info