Until recently, the Sana’a manuscript was believed to be the oldest pieces of the Quran in existence. The manuscript was first discovered in 1972 during renovations of the Great Mosque of Sana’a in Yemen. Construction workers uncovered a large cache of Quranic and non-Quranic manuscripts and parchments that were poorly preserved and heavily damaged.
The manuscript was identified as part of the Quran in 1981 and since then, the Yemeni Department for Antiquities – with help from foreign universities – has worked to restore the fragments. It has been radiocarbon dated to between 632 AD – 671 AD, with the lower codex dated with 99% accuracy to 671 AD.
