Nicknamed the "Crown of Aleppo" by Jews, the Aleppo Codex is a Hebrew manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, and is generally seen as the most important witness to the accuracy of the Massoretic Text and the contributions of Aharon Ben Asher in its preservation.
The work consists of about 500 pages and was compiled about the year 930, making it about the oldest known copy of the complete Hebrew Bible. It was compiled in Tiberias but was then stolen by the Crusaders and went on an extraordinary journey until it ended up in Aleppo (Syria) where it remained for the next six hundred years. It disappeared in 1947 before it resurfaced and was purchased by the new state of Israel, where it now resides. Somewhere along its journey, however, it lost about 200 priceless pages.
Bibliography:
Matti Friedman, The Aleppo Codex. In Pursuit of One of the World's Most Coveted, Sacrd, and Mysterious Books. New York: Algonquin Books, 2013.
Useful Websites & Reports:
Ronen Bergman, "A High Holy Whodunit," The New York Times 29 Jul 2012
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