Codex Sinaiticus is a 1,600 year old form of the Bible or manuscript (Non-canonized; a minority text, not a Textus Receptus based Bible translation.) that is now available online. As their web site says about it’s history:

Codex Sinaiticus is named after the Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai, where it was preserved for many centuries. It is generally dated to the middle of the fourth century.

View it here if you like, which is pretty interesting:
http://www.codex-sinaiticus.net/en/manuscript.aspx

Codex Sinaiticus

You say your not Christian, so what does it matter? Think of the workflow to create this masterpiece. Then think of exactly why Johannes Gutenberg set forth to create the printing press and more importantly movable type; to automate the publishing process. We read on the web page that hosts the Codex this about how such a manuscript was produced. The production workflow; amazing how some elements remain the same:

Production

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:

1. determine a format (there are very few surviving manuscripts written with four columns to a page);
2. divide the work between them;
3. prepare the parchment, including ruling it with a framework for the layout of columns and lines;
4. prepare the manuscripts they were copying;
5. get pens and ink together;
6. write the text;
7. check it;
8. assemble the whole codex in the right order.
   Source: http://www.codex-sinaiticus.net/en/codex/production.aspx

Our publishing production process is as ancient as these scribes; yet none-the-less important. They made a layout with a master page or template to keep everyone on the same page, choose agreed upon file formats, assembled all the chapters together as a book and yes, as number 7 above points out, they preflight checked their creations or work before the final output (which was assembly in this case). Scribes would have likely paid a lot for FlightCheck back in the day, as would have Gutenberg (see video). Pretty neat to ponder.

“Religious truth is captive in a small number of little manuscripts which guard the common treasures, instead of expanding them. Let us break the seal which binds these holy things; let us give wings to truth that it may fly with the Word, no longer prepared at vast expense, but multitudes everlastingly by a machine which never wearies to every soul which enters life.”
— Johannes Gutenberg

Ironically, this manuscript is just about as old as the invention of movable type printing… Just years later, these same scribes may have been out of a job; or perhaps they became typesetters. Much like computers and the Internet today greatly changes our production workflow, yet it still does not take away that age old process of publishing.

Tags: Codex Sinaiticus, file formats, FlightCheck, Gutenberg, master page, Monastery of Saint Catherine, movable type, movable type printing, preflight, printing press, production workflow, publishing format, publishing process, publishing production process, scribes, typesetters

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 2:47 am and is filed under Markzware FlightCheck, Markzware News, Markzware Preflight For Print, Preflight News, Print and Publishing News, design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.