Huge Digitisation Project at Sinai’s St. Catherine’s Monastery to Preserve Christian Manuscripts

A team of Greek historians, non-profit research organisation Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (EMEL) and The University of California, are leading a mission to digitise one of Christianity's most important archival libraries; one containing a 4th-century Greek manuscript of the Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus, which is the oldest surviving complete version of The New Testament, and the Codex Syriacus, an ancient copy of the gospel written in Syriac - and it's all happening at St. Catherine Monastery in Sinai. Other manuscripts in the Monastery's library cover broader topics such as science, medicine and Greek classics. 

4500 manuscripts written in ancient Syriac, Greek and Arabic will undergo a complex process of imagery that comprises of photographs taken in red, green and blue light; the photos are then composited with computer software to create a single high quality picture. The first stage of digitisation process alone, will be concluded in around three years with a cost of $2.75 million.