It is named after its location in the library of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, the former residence ("seraglio") of the Ottoman sultans.
The manuscript was first studied and published, by Fyodor Uspensky in 1907 (L'Octateuque de la Bibliotheque du Serail a Constantinople).
Its 569 folios measure 42.2 × 31.8 cm, making it the largest, both in dimensions and number of pages, among the six surviving Byzantine Octateuchs.
[8] Uniquely, the Seraglio Octateuch is prefaced by a paraphrase of the Letter of Aristeas, which according to the handwritten introduction was composed (and possibly hand-written) by Isaac himself.
Due to the strong similarities in the selection and composition of certain scenes between these three, it is possible that they rely on a common, now lost, model probably executed in the mid-11th century.