Another 10th-Century Book Binding from the New Collection of The Georgian Mss on Mount Sinai

Owing their frequent use, MSS lost their original covers. In this respect, material is very scanty in the 9th -11th cc. on bound MSS of the Byzantine period. The present paper offers a typological analysis of only one MS book, on the basis of a newly-discovered Georgian MS (N/Sin. Georg. 26.) in St. Catherine’s monastery on Mt. Sinai (Fig. 1; 2).
A stylized equilateral cross, with a circle and square, is stamped on the surface of the binding. In Georgian MSS an equilateral cross, a segment of a circle constituting part of the drawing, is attested in the MSS copied and bound by the outstanding Georgian man of letters Ioane Zosime, who flourished on Mt. Sinai, as well as in Paschalions copied in his hand, also stamped on MSS covers. Occurrence of crosses of the same outline several times, at different places – and not only on covers but on pages of MSS assumed the form of a tendency in Ioane-Zozime’s work.
As it became clear from the description of the binding, the cover (Fig. 2) of the MS of the new collection of Sinaitic MSS (N/Sin. Georg. 26) is identical with the lower part (Fig. 4) of the cover of the Sinai Polycephalon (Sin. Georg. 32-57-33). They point to the hand of a single executor who, in the present writer’s view, is Ioane-Zosime.