One of the oldest books in existence will be up for auction
(CNN) – One of the world’s oldest books is expected to garner more than $2.5 million at auction later this year.
The Crosby-Schøyen Codex will go under the hammer at Christie’s Auction House in London on June 11.
The codex consists of 52 leaves, or 104 pages, said to have been written by a single scribe over a period of 40 years at a monastery in northern Egypt.
It is the earliest Christian liturgical book, written on papyrus in the coptic language, which replaced hieroglyphics in Egypt.
It likely dates back to sometime between the middle of the third or fourth centuries.
The codex is part of a larger discovery made in the 1950s comprising Biblical texts, Christian writings, and pagan literary texts.
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