orbis quintus

Alun has a great post up questioning the reasoning connecting the seven rivets to the Pleiades, and how this method for determining when to insert the thirteenth month in the lunar year is arbitrary.

He’ll certainly be doing followups.

In repairs to the monastery Deir al-Surian in Egypt, one whole manuscript, the Book of Holy Hierotheos, was found in a drainpipe, and later inspect of the earth beneath the floor yielded 600 fragments of manuscripts ranging from the 6th century to the 9th century.

There seems to be a lot of manuscripts at Deir al-Surian that have never really been “lost” as such, but have endured some rather extreme conditions over the centuries. Conservation efforts are underway.

The story originally appeared in Forbes, but it’s probably going to be more stable in this archive at Copts.com.