UM Library Celebrates Language

Reconstructing Shenoute

Since the nineteenth century, scholars have tried to reconstruct the works of Shenoute by assigning leaves to their original codices.  Recently, Coptologist Stephen Emmel has pieced together the entire Shenoute’s corpus, and he is currently leading an international team of editors working on the first edition and English translation of Shenoute's works.

The Special Collections Library will play an important role in this scholarly endeavor. The Shenoute’s leaves have been digitized and we are actively promoting this collection by creating exhibit panels like this, and even physical exhibits like the one currently displayed in the Audubon Room:  “Sacred Hands, an exhibit of manuscripts with texts of the three Abrahamic faiths”.

The Special Collections Library holds internationally renowned collections of books, serials, manuscripts, posters, playbills, photographs, and original artwork. It is home to some of the most historically significant treasures at the University of Michigan and includes in its holdings some 275,000 published volumes, approximately 6,500 linear feet of archival material, about 450 incunabula (books printed before 1501), and nearly 1,400 early manuscripts on vellum and paper.