Martin Schøyen (born January 31, 1940) is a
Norwegian businessman, traveller, historian,
paleographer and
collector of books.
He started collecting books in 1955. Currently his private collection, the
Schøyen Collection, contains more than 13,000 manuscript items, the oldest book is about 5,000 years old.
Some manuscripts
* Biblical manuscript in
Coptic language
Coptic (Bohairic Coptic: , ) is a language family of closely related dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language, and historically spoken by the Copts, starting from the third-century AD in Roman Egypt. Coptic ...
, dated to the 3rd century.
* 15
Dead Sea Scrolls
*
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of c ...
ian text from the 21st century B.C.;
Ur-Nammu's law-code
*
Babylonian calendar from 2000–1600 B.C.
At the Schøyen Collection
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* Tutankhamun's signet ring
* MS 5236
MS 5236 (inventory number of the Schøyen Collection) is an ancient Greek amulet of the 6th century BC, which is unique in two respects: it is the only known magic amulet of the time inscribed with a text that was stamped as opposed to incise ...
, an ancient Greek block print
Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Each page or image is create ...
dating to the 6th century BC
References
External links
The Schøyen Collection
Norwegian businesspeople
Norwegian book and manuscript collectors
1940 births
Living people
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