Investiture of St. Gabriel Archangel fragments

Accession number: 
MS M.668.1
Title: 
Investiture of St. Gabriel Archangel fragments
Created: 
Egypt.
Credit: 
Purchased by J.P. Morgan (1867-1943) in 1916.
Description: 
2 fragments from 2 leaves (2 columns, more than 20 lines) : vellum, ill. ; 181 x 230 mm, 165 x 137 mm
Provenance: 
Part of a lot purchased in 1916 by Francis Willey Kelsey (1858-1927) on behalf of J.P. Morgan (1867-1943) through the agency of Dr. David L. Askren, an American missionary and physician residing in the Fayyūm.
Notes: 

Manucript fragments from the Book of Investiture of St. Gabriel Archangel, attributed in MS M.593 to Stephen Protomartyr, written in Egypt.
Text: "This is the Book of the Investiture of St. Gabriel Archangel the messenger of life [---]." Gabriel Archangel is celebrated in the Coptic Church on Kiyahk 22 (December 18 or 19 Julian), Baramhāt 30 (March 26 Julian), Ba'ūna 26 (June 20 Julian), and probably also on the 13th of each month.
Full text of present fragment in Depuydt.
Divisions: Ekthesis, reddened enlarged initial, and paragraphus sign (probably Touton style with diple in a and obelus in b, but only a reddened obelus in b is preserved).
Script: Upright (many right-sloping letters in title on fol. 1r a). 10 lines = ca. 78 mm
Superlineation: Non-standard? Punctuation: Cluster of 4 reddened dots. Tremas.
Collation: Uncertain, but hypothetically the first bifolio or leaves 1 and 8 of the first quire of the codex (assuming regular quire structure in eights). That fol. 1 is the first leaf of the codex has been inferred from the title at the top of column a of the recto and the sequence of hair and flesh. That fol. 2 is the eighth leaf of the first quire of the codex and the conjugate of fol. 1 has been inferred from the sequence of hair and flesh (is H/F, hence can only be leaves 2, 4, 6, or 8 in the same quire as fol. 1, or leaf 2 in the following quire, assuming the Gregory Rule is observed), and the fact that the gap between fols. 1 and 2 is c. 24 columns or 6 leaves of text, to judge from the parallel in MS M.593, in which the text corresponding to the gap between fols. 1 and 2 covers c. 21 columns and the average number of letters per line (c. 11-14) is slightly higher than the average found in the present manuscript. Fragments are moreover often preserved in conjugate pairs. No remains of signatures, quire ornaments, monograms, headlines, or catchwords.
Decoration: Headpiece, extended letters. Color: Red (chemically altered).
Related fragments include:

Language: 
Coptic, the Sahidic dialect
Classification: