Record price for 13th-century Quran

AP Photo: This is an undated photo released by Christie's auctioneers of a 13th century Quran..
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071024/ap_on_re_eu/quran_sale

Record price for 13th-century Quran:

This is an undated photo released by Christie's auctioneers of a 13th century Quran which has sold for a world record at the London auction house Tuesday Oct. 23, 2007. The religious artefact went under the hammer for 1,140,500 pounds ($US 2,321,770) - the highest amount paid for an Islamic holy book. Written in 1203, the tome is the earliest-known complete, dated Quran, transcribed in gold and was part of a sale of art from the Islamic and Indian World. (AP Photo / Christie's,ho)

AP Photo: This is an undated photo released by Christie's auctioneers of a 13th century Quran... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071024/ap_on_re_eu/quran_sale



LONDON - A Quran written in 1203, believed to be the oldest known complete copy, has sold for more than $2.3 million at an auction.

Both were offered for sale by the Hispanic Society of America, and were purchased by trade buyers in London, Christie's said.

The record-setting Quran was signed by Yahya bin Muhammad ibn 'Umar, dated 17 Ramadan 599 (June 1203).

It was acquired in Cairo in 1905 by Archer Milton Huntington, who founded the Hispanic Society in New York City in 1904. Huntington, the adopted son of railroad and ship-building magnate Collis P. Huntington, died in 1955.

The calligraphy in the manuscript was done in gold outlined in thin black lines, and the marginal notes are in silver outlined in red.

The kufic Quran bridges a gap between the earlier style, copied on parchment of horizontal format, and the later style of vertical composition, often on paper, Christie's catalog said.

The kufic script takes its name from Kufah in Iraq, an early center of Islamic scholarship, according to the British Library.

Because the script's vertical strokes were very short but the horizontal strokes elongated, it was written on papers in a landscape format.