Lewis, Agnes Smith (1843–1926)
Lewis, Agnes Smith (1843–1926)
Scottish Orientalist. Born Agnes Smith in Irvine, Ayr, Scotland, in 1843; died in 1926; daughter of John Smith (a Scottish jurist); sister of Margaret Dunlop Gibson; married Reverend Samuel Savage Lewis, in 1887 (divorced 1891).
Agnes Smith Lewis was born in Scotland in 1843, educated in private schools and by tutors, and became especially proficient in modern Greek, Arabic, and Syriac. Before her marriage in 1887 to Reverend S.S. Lewis, she wrote a number of novels and travel accounts. In 1892, with her twin sister, Margaret Dunlop Gibson , she journeyed to the Middle and Near East and discovered in the library of the convent of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai a palimpsest (a manuscript on which the original writing has been erased and written over imperfectly enough that the original can still be deciphered). It contained the Four Gospels in Syriac, representing the oldest text then known of any part of the New Testament.