Manuscript book of the Bible; written and illuminated at Ptepouhar, Fayyūm Province, Egypt, before Aug. 29, 893.
Sewing repairs on fols. 3, 12, 62, 71, 86, 87, 100, and 126.
One leaf is wanting; current binding includes single vellum flyleaves at beginning and at end of text and a vellum cancel (fol. 101A) at the place of the missing leaf.
Colophons: 1) fol. 126r: donation in Coptic: To the Monastery of St. Michael near present-day Hamuli; 2) fol. 126r: Date of donation in Greek: AM 609 (Aug. 29, 892-Aug. 28, 893).
Text edited (together with variants from 19 fragments) and translated into English by Drescher.
Written area ca. 269 x 186 mm. Divisions: Leather tab fastened to center of fore-edge of fol. 68 at major division of the codex; Ekthesis, major or reddened enlarged initial and paragraphus sign setting off paragraphs. Song of Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1-10), Psalm of David (2 Samuel 22:2-51), and list of names (2 Samuel 5:14b-16) marked by a small reddened diple or dotted diple in margin of each line (fols. 4r, 118v, 79r). Exceeding letters of last line of the page sometimes written below end of the line on ca. a third of rectos, and occasionaly also on versos at end of a quire; rarely below verso column a.
Script: Upright (colophon at fol. 126r and page numbers in a right-sloping and cursive hand). 10 lines = ca. 88 mm
Superlineation: Non-standard. Punctuation: Raised dot in conjunction with a space; spacefillers at end of textual units. Tremas rare.
Collation: Signed on first and last page of the quire, top inner margin. Quire ornaments (omitted more and more frequently towards the end of the codex); no monograms, headlines, or catchwords.
Scribes: Apaiouli and Isak.
About a column and a half on fol. 35v is copied by the same hand as M.612, M.587, and M.611, the first two being written according to their colophons by Isa(a)k of Ptepouhar and dated, like the present manuscript, to 892-893.--Cf. Drescher.
Decoration: frontispiece miniature of a large decorative cross, headpieces, tailpieces, marginal ornaments, paragraphus signs, coronis, major initials, signatures and page numbers, extended letters. Colors: deep reddish orange (Centroid 36), strong yellow (84), green now grayish olive green (127); often chemically altered.
Marginal annotations: on fol. 76r.