Parchment – Four Contiguous Points
In-depth discussion of parchment colours and implications
Four Contiguous Points
This section walks the reader through a series of transitions in the Codex Sinaiticus. Transitions between the Codex Frederico-Augustanus pages (located at the Leipzig University Library), and the bulk of the pages located at the British Library. Distinct colour differences are notable between the two collections.
Images used on this page have been obtained from the Codex Sinaiticus Project at www.codexsinaiticus.org in accordance with the non-commercial personal, and educational use provision in their copyright statement.
As of December 2016, many of the images as well as the Physical Description of the individual folia of Codex Sinaiticus are no longer available on the project website. We certainly hope that the images and data will be made available again soon.
This first image is a collage of all the images of Codex Sinaiticus. The pages held in Leipzig University Library immediately stand out as much whiter and very easy to distinguish from all of the pages and fragments held at the three other locations by colour alone.
Below are paired images that show each transition.
It has been noted that there are stains on some pages that match stains on the opposing page. This is normal, and obviously occurred pre-1844 when the codex was in its bound state. These stains, caused by factors such as exposure to weather or careless storage are distinct from the significant whole-page staining/darkening seen in the British Library pages in comparison to the Leipzig pages.
Contiguous Point 1
Quire 34, Folio 8v
British Library
1 Chronicles (duplicate), 10:11 – 11:22 library: BL folio: 1b scribe: A
Physical Description
Parchment Comment: Cockerell has assembled this quire using parchment hook guards. He has inserted a new blank parchment sheet as quire leaf 2, indicating that there is a gap between BL folios 1 and 2 and that 20 folios exist elsewhere. No folio 3 in quire. Instead we see a parchment hook guard attached to folio 6.
Quire 35, Folio 1r
Leipzig University Library
1 Chronicles (duplicate), 11:22 – 12:18 library: LUL folio: i scribe: A
Physical Description
Parchment
Veining: e
Opacity: 92,76
Hair or flesh side: F
Follicle marks: h
Colour: S1005-Y20R
Surface appearance: S
Parchment thickness:
m1 10,5
m2 10
m3 11
m4 10
m5 13
m6 12
m7 15
average 11,6428571428571
variance 5
Contiguous Point 2
Quire 37, Folio 3v
Leipzig University Library
Tobit, 1:7 – 2:2 library: LUL folio: xix_v scribe: D
Physical Description
Parchment
Scar tissue: g
Veining: a12-15 + a-b5-6 + e + f + h
Opacity: 92,07
Hair or flesh side: H
Follicle marks: f + g + i
Axilla marks: d + f
Colour: S1005-Y20R
Surface appearance: M
Parchment thickness:
m1 13
m2 14
m3 13
m4 23
m5 15
m6 15
m7 15
average 15,4285714285714
variance 10
Quire 37, Folio 4r
British Library
Tobit, 2:2 – 3:6 library: BL folio: 2 scribe: D
Physical Description
Parchment
Opacity: 92,04
Hair or flesh side: H
Axilla marks: f-g
Colour: S1010-Y10R
Surface appearance: S
Parchment thickness:
m1 16
m2 19
m3 16
m4 20
m5 13
m6 15
m7 17
average 16,5714285714286
variance 7
Contiguous Point 3
Quire 46, Folio 8v
British Library
Jeremiah, 9:20 – 10:25 library: BL folio: 73b scribe: B1
Physical Description
Parchment
Hair or flesh side: F
Colour: S1010-Y
Surface appearance: S
Quire 47, Folio 1r
Leipzig University Library
Jeremiah, 10:25 – 11:23 library: LUL folio: xx scribe: B1, overwriting by corrector d
Physical Description
Parchment
Scar tissue: f
Veining: a1-13 + a-b7-13 + b16-12 + c19-20 + e + f + h + j
Parchment maker’s holes: d
Opacity: 92,76
Hair or flesh side: F
Follicle marks: e + f + g + h
Striation: h + f
Colour: S1005-Y20R
Surface appearance: M
Parchment thickness:
m1 15
m2 18
m3 13
m4 15
m5 17
m6 11
m7 14
average 14,7142857142857
variance 7
Contiguous Point 4
Quire 49, Folio 8v
Leipzig University Library
Lamentations, 2:5 – 2:20 library: LUL folio: xliii_v scribe: B1
Physical Description
Parchment
Hair or flesh side: F
Follicle marks: h
Striation: h
Colour: S1005-Y20R
Surface appearance: M
Quire 57, Folio 1r
British Library
Joel, 1:1 – 2:6 library: BL folio: 74 scribe: B2
Physical Description
Parchment
Skeletal marks: type Y, location Y
Opacity: 91,35
Hair or flesh side: F
Colour: S1010-Y10R
Surface appearance: S
Parchment thickness:
m1 11
m2 13
m3 13
m4 18
m5 20
m6 18
m7 19
average 16
variance 9
The above graph shows the CSP colour data of Quire 35 through Quire 64 broken down into blackness, yellowness, redness, and total pigment.
Clearly, the two Leipzig University Library sections show a consistent and low level of yellowness and redness. This is reflected in the CSP images of the white pages of the LUL sections.
The British Library sections clearly show an increased yellowness and significant variability in yellowness and redness. This is reflected in the darker, more yellowed CSP images of the BL sections.
Note also that there no spikes in blackness for any of the LUL pages, but these pages of increased blackness are only present in the BL pages.
Two of these pages are from CFA and two are from the British Library portion of Codex Sinaiticus. All four have been characterized with the colour code S1005-Y20R, yet from the CSP images they are NOT the same colour. The British Library pages are definitely darker and more yellow. Is this a case of colour vision variability between the researchers who did the colour characterization, or has this colour code been given to the lightest coloured of the British Library pages and then used for the CFA pages to make the colour data conform to the public perception (bolstered by the images in the 2011 facsimile by Hendricks Publishers) that the pages are all basically the same colour.
