On and on he prayed, a mellifluous outpouring of imagery and biblical fragments, so filled with hope that Steed could hear sobs from every part of the crowded deck.

Inside you'll find manuscripts, miniature paintings, books, bindings and calligraphies - including maybe the West's most stunning collection of Korans - and the world's second-oldest biblical fragment.

Of keen interest to historians, linguists, classicists, philosophers, archaeologists, as well as others, the collection includes biblical fragments, religious writings, public and private documents, private letters, and writings on astronomy, astrology, mathematics, and magic.

Regarding the Catholic Mass, it may indeed be a patchwork of biblical and pre-Christian fragments.

Mr. Conlon began with a group of Mussorgsky choruses, including a scene from a student setting of Sophocles' "Oedipus in Athens," and two particularly bellicose biblical fragments, "The Destruction of Sennacherib" and "Joshua."

"Seven Gates of Jerusalem" sets biblical fragments from Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel and commemorates that city's 3,000 years of history.

In particular, the Palestinian piyyutim generally make up the most ancient of the texts found, the earliest of which date to the 8th or 9th centuries and predate most of the known Palestinian biblical fragments.

This includes Hebrew and Aramaic papyri with biblical fragments such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Greek documents such as the Septuagint.

They remember it as the home of the Dead Sea Scrolls, those fabled biblical fragments housed in the Shrine of the Book, a marvelously eccentric building whose curvy roof looks a bit like a Hershey's chocolate kiss.

So far, Dr Marchand has recovered nine biblical fragments in Gothic.