The Earliest Known Coptic Psalter The Text, in the Dialect of Upper Egypt, Edited from the Unique Papyrus Codex Oriental 5000 in the British Museum by Budge, E. A. Wallis - 1897

London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. , Ltd.. Good with no dust jacket. 1897. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Xiv, [ii], 154 pp. Two b/w plates between preparatory material and text. Limited edition of 350. Beautifully bound in 1/4 leather with dark red calf spine, 5 raised bands with gilt ruling, black spine label, gilt ruling to boards, green and dark red marbled hard covers, all in very nice condition, just a hint of wear. Fresh high quality endpapers and blanks, title page in red and black, text is clean and unmarked with a small bit of age darkening, binding tight. Marbled edges. A lovely copy, heavy for international shipping. In 1895 a box was discovered in the ruins of an ancient Coptic church in Upper Egypt that contained a book, dating from c700-900AD. This was the first known complete Sahidic psalter, the text of which shows how close the modern Coptic psalter hews to the ancient. E. A. Wallis Budge should need no introduction as the flamboyant yet hard working Egyptologist and philologist who was knighted in 1920 for his services to the British Museum. ; 4to 11" - 13" tall; 154 pages .