This programme to protect some 2,000 of Saint Catherine’s most vulnerable manuscripts was initiated in 1999.

Prototype of the stainless steel box and racking system.

The unique, all-stainless steel box developed for Saint Catherine’s is durable, non-damaging to the books contained within it and immune to the environmental conditions of Sinai. Damage to the Saint Catherine’s collections has arisen from inadequate shelving and difficulties in handling. Boxing will allow the monastery’s most precious codices and early printed books to be stored horizontally, as their structures demand, and protect them from physical damage.

The manuscripts requiring boxing include all the manuscripts written on parchment (which effectively means all the earlier manuscripts and the more important later manuscripts), all the manuscripts bound in Byzantine or Greek-style bindings (which are important, vulnerable to damage and need to be shelved horizontally) and other manuscripts of particular importance which are vulnerable without protection (including the small number of high-quality Islamic bindings).

The boxes will be manufactured by the UK firm Conservation by Design. The Swiss Friends of the Saint Catherine Foundation are providing funding for the first make of 200 boxes, which will be produced during the course of the current year.

Full details of the Boxing Programme are presented in Nicholas Pickwoad’s report, ‘Final Recommendations for the Box Design and the Manuscripts to be Boxed’ (download report).