Nag Hammadi is a City in North Egypt, where archeologists found a library of books, most of them with Gnostic texts, and all bound in similar style. These are the oldes codices that we know of.
This book is an experiment with writings: I developed this new coding system to write this text. The language is English and the text an excerpt of the Gospel of Thomas, one of the texts found in Nag Hammadi. Which matches with the binding style.
The idea was that an archeologist who finds somethings really exciting (like the Gospel of Thomas) often first has to work in decoding that. This feeling of “I have found something, but I don’t know yet what it is” was intended to be brought forward to a reader.
The covering paper is a rag paper that was dyed with pumpkin seed oil – the color has since faded considerably. The pages were dyed with tea and also slowly loose their color. Hand written text in a secret code in ink on parchment paper.
The book closes with the help of a wooded stick. The pattern on the bottom is laserprinted.
The general structure and binding resembles those structures found at the book in the gnostic library, found near Nag Hammadi.
Finished in September 2008.
price: £110 (contact me directly if you wish to purchase it)
