In 1896, the Coptic Berlin Codex (aka. the Akhmim Codex), given the accession number 8502, (Berolinensis Gnosticus 8502) was unearthed in Akhmim, Egypt. It was a papyrus bound book (a codex), dating to the 5th century, found in the desert and taken to Berlin, where it was finally completely translated in the 1950s. Few people paid attention to it until the 1970's, when it suddenly became very interesting to a new generation of scholars of early Christianity in the wake of the more famous group of early Gnostic Christian documents that was found at Nag Hammadi in 1945. Coptic is an adjective referring to the original inhabitants of Egypt, the Copts. ... Akhmim, or Ekhmim, ia a town of Upper Egypt, on the right bank of the Nile, 67 mi by river south of Assiut, and 4 mi above Suhag, on the opposite side of the river where there is railway communication with Cairo and Assuan. ... Blank papyrus. ... A codex (Latin for book; plural codices) is a handwritten book from late Antiquity or the Early Middle Ages. ... Gnosticism is a blanket term for various religions and sects most prominent in the first few centuries A.D. General characteristics The word gnosticism comes from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis (γνῶσις), referring to the idea that there is special, hidden mysticism (esoteric knowledge) that only a few possess. ... The term Christian means belonging to Christ and is derived from the Greek noun Χριστός Khristós which means anointed one, which is itself a translation of the Hebrew word Moshiach (Hebrew: משיח, also written Messiah), (and in Arabic it is pronounced Maseeh مسيح). ... Nag Hammâdi is a village in the middle of Egypt, called Chenoboskion in classical antiquity, about 225 kilometres north-west of Aswan with some 30. ...

The "Berlin Codex" is a single-quire (a quire is a set of leaves which are stitched together - for more information see bookbinding) Coptic codex bound with wooden boards covered with a leather that neither resembles tanned leather, nor does it resemble parchment or alum-tawed skin (i.e. skin that has been dressed with alum to soften and bleach it) . Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of separate sheets of paper or other material. ... Modern leather-making tools Leather is a material created through the tanning of hides, pelts and skins of animals, primarily cows. ... This page is about making leather. ... Parchment is a material for the pages of a book or codex, made from fine calf skin, sheep skin or goat skin. ... For alum meaning graduate, see Alumn. ...

Bound together among the texts in the Berlin Codex are two sections of a fragmentary Gospel of Mary, the Apocryphon of John, The Sophia of Jesus Christ, and the Act of Peter. These texts are often discussed together with the earlier Nag Hammadi texts. The Gospel of Mary was found in the Akhmim Codex, a text acquired by Dr.Rheinhardt in Cairo in 1896. ... The Secret Book of John (Apocryphon of John) is a 2nd century gnostic text of secret teachings, given a Christian context: the teaching of the savior, and the revelation of the mysteries and the things hidden in silence, even these things which he taught John, his disciple, are its opening... The Sophia of Jesus Christ is one of many Gnostic tractates from the Nag Hammadi codices, discovered in Egypt in 1945. ...

External link

• Contents of the berlin Codex appended to an analyis of the Nag Hammadi "library"