Codex Sinaiticus was copied by more than one scribe. Constantine Tischendorf identified four in the nineteenth century. Subsequent research decided that there were three, but it is possible that a fourth (different from Tischendorf’s fourth scribe) can be identified. Each of the three undisputed scribes has a distinctive way of writing which can be identified with practice. Each also had a distinctive way of spelling many sounds, particularly vowels which scribes often wrote phonetically. One of them may have been a senior copyist.
To make their manuscript, the scribes had to perform a series of tasks. They had to
- determine a format (there are very few surviving manuscripts written with four columns to a page);
- divide the work between them;
- prepare the parchment, including ruling it with a framework for the layout of columns and lines;
- prepare the manuscripts they were copying;
- get pens and ink together;
- write the text;
- check it;
- assemble the whole codex in the right order.
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