英国伯明翰大学发现 '最古老' 可兰经手稿

choi

BBC Chinese, July 22, 2015
www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/uk/2015/07/150722_oldest_koran_pages


, which is an abbreviated translation of

Sean Coughlan, 'Oldest' Koran Fragments Found in Birmingham University. BBC, July 22, 2015.
www.bbc.com/news/business-33436021

Quote:

(a) "These [radiocarbon dating] tests provide a range of dates, showing that, with a probability of more than 95%, the parchment was from between 568 and 645.

" 'They could well take us back to within a few years of the actual founding of Islam,' said David Thomas, the university's professor of Christianity and Islam.  'According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad received the revelations that form the Koran, the scripture of Islam, between the years 610 and 632, the year of his death.'  Prof Thomas says the dating of the Birmingham folios would mean it was quite possible that the person who had written them would have been alive at the time of the Prophet Muhammad.

(b) "Prof Thomas says that some of the passages of the Koran were written down on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels - and a final version, collected in book form, was completed in about 650.

Note:
(a)
(i) University of Birmingham
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Birmingham
(1828- ; public)
(ii) Birmingham
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham
(the most populous British city outside London with 1,092,330 residents (2013 est.); Today Birmingham's economy is dominated by the service sector; The city's name comes from the Old English Beormingahām, meaning the home or settlement of the Beormingas [name of an Anglo-Saxon tribe])

(b) folio (n; from Latin, abl. of [noun neuter] folium leaf, [a sheet or a leaf of paper]): "a leaf especially of a manuscript or book"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/folio

* ablative (Latin)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablative_(Latin)

, whose meaning I do not understand (but you need only the concept).

choi

(c) The "shoulder blades 肩胛骨 of camels" in Quotation (b) was incorrectly translated as "锁骨" ("托马斯教授说，《可兰经》的手稿会写在羊皮、石头、棕榈叶和骆驼的锁骨上，而最后成书的版本完成于公元650")

(i) The clavicle ("collarbone" or "collar bone" in daily English) is 锁骨.
(ii) clavicle (n; Latin, diminutive of Latin [noun feminine] clāvis [key], akin to Greek kleid-, kleis key, kleiein to close)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clavicle

锁骨 (from Greek “to close”; kanji in Japan 鎖骨).
(iii) Clavicle. Encyclopaedia Britannica, undated
http://www.britannica.com/science/clavicle
("The clavicle is present in mammals with prehensile forelimbs and in bats, and it is absent in sea mammals and those adapted for running. The wishbone, or furcula, of birds is composed of the two fused clavicles")
(iv) In conclusion: a camel has no clavicle.

(d) "The manuscript, written in 'Hijazi script,' an early form of written Arabic, becomes one of the oldest known fragments of the Koran. * * * Dr [Muhammad Isa] Waley, curator for such manuscripts at the British Library, said 'these two folios, in a beautiful and surprisingly legible Hijazi hand, almost certainly date from the time of the first three caliphs.  The first three caliphs were leaders in the Muslim community between about 632 and 656."
(i) Hijazi script
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijazi_script

* for pronunciation, see Hijaz
www.thefreedictionary.com/Hijaz
(ii) So the Birmingham discovery concerns just TWO folios (as shown in the photos).

(e) "The manuscript is part of the Mingana Collection of more than 3,000 Middle Eastern documents gathered in the 1920s by Alphonse Mingana, a Chaldean priest born near Mosul in modern-day Iraq.  He was sponsored to take collecting trips to the Middle East by Edward Cadbury, who was part of the chocolate-making dynasty."
(i) Alphonse Mingana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Mingana
(1878 - 1937; born in Sharanesh, Ottoman Empire [present-day Iraq], died in Birmingham, England)
(ii) Chaldean
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaldean
(may refer to "Chaldea ('the Chaldees'), Hellenistic designation for a part of southeast Babylonia between the 9th and 6th centuries BC")

Due to its Greek origin, the English adjective Chaldean and noun Chaldea have "ch" pronounced like "k"--similar to chaos and chasm (two Greek nouns).
(iii) Edward Cadbury (1873 – 1948)
(iii) Cadbury
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadbury
(Cadbury was established in Birmingham, England in 1824, by John Cadbury [1802 – 1889] who sold tea, coffee and drinking chocolate)