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ing”, he remarks, “has lately become a lost art” (Lewis, Papyrus in
Classical Antiquity [1974], pp. 92-94).
From around the mid-eighth century, approximately coincident with the
Carolingian renewal, scribes in Greek orthodox monasteries and in the Byz- antine capital of Constantinople began copying old uncial manuscripts, most of which were probably written on papyrus, into Greek minuscule on the more permanent though more expensive medium of parchment. Be- sides greater permanence, another advantage of writing on parchment was that the material, as expensive as it was, could be produced locally, thus ensuring a constant supply, while papyrus, which had to be imported from factories in Egypt, was subject to supply interruptions as a result of wars or politics. The Greek minuscule hand, with its capital and lower case letters and much higher character count per page, also enabled a more economical and perhaps more legible use of the expensive writing material. The earliest surviving dated example of a manuscript written in Greek minuscule is the Uspensky Gospels. This codex was probably written in Constantinople by monk named Nicholas. Later it belonged to the monastery of Great Lavra of St. Sabas, known in Arabic as Mar Saba, a Greek Orthodox monastery overlooking the Kidron Valley in the West Bank east of Bethlehem in Pal- estine. In 1844 Bishop Porphiryj Uspienski took it along with other man- uscripts, including a portion of the Codex Coislinianus, to Russia. The Uspensky Gospels is preserved in the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg (Gr. 219. 213. 101).
Throughout the ninth century scholars undertook transcription of the earlier uncial manuscripts into the new Greek minuscule, and nearly all of the earliest surviving Greek texts that have come down to us are from the ninth century or shortly thereafter, written in minuscule. Perhaps because the earlier uncial manuscripts from which these manuscripts were copied were deteriorating by the ninth century, relatively few Greek manuscripts prior to this date have survived. It is also possible that because the earlier manuscripts were written in hands that had become increasingly unfamiliar, and were difficult to read, they were considered obsolete after they were
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