According to scholarly estimates, about 1,300 years ago…
A Palestinian scribe erased the text because parchment was scarce in the medieval desert. The scribe repurposed these pages for Greek text. Later, during the 10th century, a Georgian monk at St. Catherine’s Monastery wiped away the Greek writing and reused the pages again for Christian stories and hymns.
As centuries passed, the document broke apart. Some sections stayed at St. Catherine’s Monastery while others traveled to the Vatican Library in Rome during the mid-20th century. Kessel spotted the hidden Syriac text in Vatican folios while researching with the Austrian Academy of Sciences.