Yesterday I was able to see the Washington Gospels (W. Codex Washingtonianus I) in the basement of the Freer Gallery in Washington D.C. The Washington Gospels are the oldest biblical manuscripts in the United States dating back to the 4th or 5th century. They were acquired by C.L. Freer in Egypt in 1906
We were given a private viewing by the curator of the museum as the codex and various manuscript fragments from the collection are actually not on display.
It was my first time ever seeing manuscripts of that age and it was pretty wild wandering around the basement of the Freer Gallery (right next door to the original Smithsonian building) with an archeologist showing us various artifacts and letting us examine the manuscripts directly.
Definitely my top “nerd moment” of the month.
Here’s a picture of the curator since he asked that we not put pictures of the manuscripts themselves up on the web.
Wow. Seriously, wow.