About 30 years ago I purchased a carton of books at an auction.  The
book I wanted was in a lot and I had to take all of it.  The lot
consisted mostly of sailing books and a number of religious books all
dating from about the mid- to late- 1800s including a bible from 1795.

Along with the bible I came across an odd little handmade and
hand-lettered book.  It?s about 3 inches by 3.5 inches.  It?s front
and back covers are made of wood, smoothed by wear as though someone
carried it in a back pocket and referred to it daily, like a
devotional, and it has the patina of decades of use.  The pages, about
40 and bound with thin fibers of string, are parchment and are as
thick as postcard stock.  One page has a small clip in it and has been
repaired with surgical-like stitching as though sewing up an incision.
The illustrations are vibrant and colorful and depict angels and demons.

There is no name, no date, no publisher, no location, no copyright, no
information at all and I don?t even remember the place of the auction.
I?ve posted a couple of pictures of the first two pages, a middle page
that seems to have been altered and annotated , and a back page which
might be St. Francis Assisi at:

www.edisciences.com/ga_photo

Can anyone identify the alphabet?  Can anyone identify the language?

Thanks,

It is probably form of old cyrilics - language would be Church Slavonic

  http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ocslavonic.htm
  http://www.language-museum.com/s/slavonic-old-church.htm

 Characteristic letter is what looks  like inverted R  (ya) which is present in
 the modern russian alpahbet as well (as last letter).

 The icon at the beginning fits that identification as well


 http://www.musobl.divo.ru/ icons_e.html

 I cannot decipher the text, unfortunately; sorry about that.

 But I will give you a reference to history of the time and place:
 
" Apostles to the Slavs and fathers of Slavonic literature"

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0814422.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius


http://www.omda.bg/ENGL/HISTORY/kiril&meth.html

http://store.goarch.org/product.php?productid=17000&cat=439&page=1http://

Thank you very much!  Very fast response and I'll explore the links
you gave.  All the best...

My best guess: Coptic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_alphabet

The script is one from Ethiopia/Eritrea called Ge'ez.  The language
might be Amharic or Tigrinya.  You will see that the script here
clearly matches that shown in the photos you linked to:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tigrinya.htm

I agree with Pink and Eslvictoria that the images  - style of
illustration and text -  come from Ethiopia/Eritrea.

Here is a book with very of a very similar type:
http://cgi.ebay.com/MANUSCRIPT-GEEZ-ETHIOPIC-BIBLE-VELLUM-AMHARIC-COPTIC_W0QQitemZ270001484924QQihZ017QQcategoryZ356QQcmdZViewItem

This site also has similar:
http://www.bouwmanbooks.com/browse_cat_items.php?id=3