Catalogue of the Coptic Inscriptions in the Sudan National Museum at Khartoum (I. Khartoum Copt.)

The Sudan National Museum at Khartoum holds the world’s largest collection of Christian inscriptions from Nubia South of the modern frontier with Egypt. The aim of this volume is to present a comprehensive and accurate edition of its Coptic inscriptions. The catalogue comprises all of the museum’s inscriptions written predominantly in Coptic, as far as they could be located within the museum’s storerooms and exhibition halls. The inscriptions recorded in this book, with a very few exceptions, are of a funerary nature. The exceptions are all dedicatory texts. The author explains that since knowledge of Medieval Nubia remains meagre, and since written sources for the long period and the large area are concerned are scarce, even the tiniest fragments of inscriptions are included, the evidentiary value of which is uncertain. The catalogue pays ample attention to questions of archaeological context, language variation and literary culture.