Lesson 3. Palaeography, Daniel Flaut.Pdf
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Lesson 3. Palaeography Learning tasks: by completing this unit of study, the student will be able to: ¾ Define Palaeography and to highlight the key moments in its evolution as science. ¾ Present a brief History of writing and some types of writing. ¾ Reveal some general paleographic particularities. ¾ Identify writing materials, writing instruments and writing inks. I. Definition; The evolution of Palaeography as science Palaeography is one of the oldest Auxiliary Science of History. The term comes from Greek (παλαιός palaiós, "old" and γράφειν graphein, "to write") and means, in translation, the old writing. Palaeografia is the Auxiliary Science of History that deals with the reading of the old writing or, more precisely, with the deciphering of different forms and writing alphabets that were used in the past. Basics of Palaeography was set out by Jean Mabillon (1632‐1707) in his famous book entitled De re diplomatica libri VI (Paris, 1681). Jean Mabillon wrote about the correct reading of the documents, he demanded to be know the evolution of the writing, the date of writing of the act, to specify the age of the act, the place of writing and the falsity or the truth of the document. The fundamental laws of Palaeography have been established, however, by Bernard de Montfaucon (1655‐1741) in his book entitled Paleografia graeca sive de ortu et progressu litterarum (Paris, 1708), which remained a standard work in the specific field of Greek Palaeography for more than a century. With the guidelines given by Jean Mabillon and with the examples brought by Bernard de Montfaucon was all that was necessary for the science of Paleography to be completely constituted. Palaeography is characterized by the language of the written texts and the material on which are written. This explains why there are many paleographies, some illustrated with special manuals which have become classics. Of these, we mention: Maurice Prou, Manuel de paléographie latine et française (Paris, 1924); F. Steffens, Lateinische Paläographie (Berlin, 1929); G. Gardthausen, Griechische Palaeographie (Leipzig, 1911‐1913), etc. Palaeography also includes: the old Tachygraphy, Musical notation (any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols) and Stenography (from the Greek stenos ‐narrow and graphē or graphie –writing, the process of writing in shorthand). From Palaeography were separated Papyrology and Codicology. Daniel Flaut, Introduction to the Auxiliary Sciences of History II. Brief History of writing; types of writing The writing was one of the great achievements of humankind. The writing is a visual representation and lasting of the language that allows its preservation and transmission. The invention was realized independently, in several places, when was felt the need to communicate. In old times, communities have communicated between them remotely via some signs and signals: objects with a specific meaning, talking knots (Khipu), beads (strings of beads of amber), knots at handkerchief. Notched sticks were used for counting. In the Ancient East was realized the transition from signaling to the writing itself. The pictographic writing is the writing in which the presentation of the idea or the concept is made by drawing. The cave drawings in Jämtland ‐ Haiden (Sweden) and Pasiega (Spain) have been considered such writings. This form of writing is very widespread in North America and Africa. The ideographic writing is the writing which represent directly, through stylized signs, the ideas contained by the object. It was widespread in the Ancient East. The Chinese have used the ideographic writing until today. The transition from the ideographic writing to the phonetic writing was done by the acrophonic method, according to which the phonetic value of the writing sign is given by the first letter of the object (word) depicted by the sign writing. In the phonetic writing, to each phoneme (mainly speech sound) corresponds a grapheme (distinctive graphic sign). The phonetic writings formed alphabets, which representing all graphic signs in which are played main sounds of the spoken language (phonemes). The decisive invention was carried out at Byblos, in the thirteenth century BC, where is attested on the inscription of the sarcophagus of Ahiram. An inscription of 38 words is found on parts of the rim and the lid of the sarcophagus. It is written in the Old Phoenician dialect of Byblos and is the oldest witness to the Phoenician alphabet of considerable length discovered to date. It is writing from the left to the right and has spread very fast. The order, the name and the form of the Phoenician alphabet underlie all others alphabets. The Greek writing appears, for the first time, in the Mycenaean era, the so‐ called Linear B, deciphered in 1952 by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick. The archaic Greek writing changes the direction from one line to another, the so‐ called boustrophedon. Its etymology is from βούς, bous, "ox" + στρέφειν, strephein, "to turn" (cf. strophe), because the hand of the writer goes back and forth like an ox drawing a plough across a field and turning at the end of each row to return in the opposite direction. The adaptation of the Phoenician writing is made in 1000 BC. The Greek alphabet reached its classical form around 400 BC. The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega. The history of the Latin writing and its derivatives is divided into five periods: Antiquity; Barbarian Period (fifth to eighth century); Carlovingian Reform; Gothic Period (twelfth to sixteenth century); Sixteenth‐Century Reform and Modern Writing. On two occasions there has been a systematic reform in the Latin writing intended to restore it to its primitive purity: under Charlemagne, and in the sixteenth century. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Greek alphabets of Southern Italy. Its letters are composed of the following elements: of 2 Daniel Flaut, Introduction to the Auxiliary Sciences of History vertical lines called ascenders; horizontal lines, called bars or crosses; convex lines, designated under the name of paunches or curls. Today, the Latin alphabet spread is very large, being adapted to the different languages spoken in all five continents. III. General paleographic particularities General paleographic particularities, found in the alphabetic writing, are: ¾ Abbreviations. One of the chief difficulties in reading documents is the frequency of abbreviations. The working conditions and the need to save the underlying material forced the scribes to use different methods of accomplishment. Greek Palaeography. In the Greek writing two sorts of abbreviations are to be distinguished: 1. Those of religious Manuscripts are the most ancient, being found in uncial Manuscripts and transmitted by tradition to the minuscule. The abbreviation is effected by the suppression of vowels and indicated by a bar. 2. In minuscule Manuscripts abbreviations are made by interrupting the word and cutting off the last letter with a transverse line. For the reader's assistance the scribe retained the characteristic consonance of the last syllable. Latin Palaeography 1. Abbreviation by a sigla (or single letter), represents the whole word of which it is the initial (for example, A. for Annus). The sigla is doubled to indicate the plural (for example, D. N. for Dominus Noster; DD. NN. for Domini Nostri). 2. Abbreviation by suspension consists in leaving the word unfinished (for example, Cap = Caput or Capitulum). 3. Abbreviation by contraction consists in deleting some parts of the word (for example, ). 4. A small letter placed above a word indicates the suppression of one or several letters. A vowel written over another vowel indicates the initial letter and the termination. 5. Letters enclosed in larger letters found chiefly in inscriptions on titles of Manuscripts. 6. Monograms ‐ the letters of a single word combined in a single figure. This custom must have been borrowed from the Greek chanceries in the Carlovingian period. 7. A ligature is made by joining two or more characters in a way they wouldn't usually be, either by merging their parts, writing one above another or one inside another. 8. Nomina sacra (sacred names). It refers to traditions of abbreviated writing of divine names or titles in early Holy Scripture (for example, DS = Deus, S = Sanctus, SPS = Spiritus). 9. Tetragrammaton. It refers to the Hebrew written form of YHWH, one of the names of the God of Israel. ¾ Numerals Greek Palaeography. In the Greek Manuscripts, numerals are expressed by letters of the alphabet followed by an accent. Three archaic letters are made use of. 3 Daniel Flaut, Introduction to the Auxiliary Sciences of History From 1000 the same letters are used with accents written beneath. Arabic numerals reached the Greeks through the West. These not appear in Manuscripts before the fifteenth century. Latin Palaeography. Roman numerals never ceased to be used, and with two exceptions they were placed between two points. ; ; Numbers were indicated by the multipliers‐ IIIIxx = 80, Vxx = 100. Roman numerals were nearly always written in minuscules. IV. Writing materials, writing instruments and writing inks Papyrus is the writing material which facilitated the birth of the library or the archive and eased the writing circulation. This material of writing is produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, which grows in the Nile Delta, in Egypt. Pliny the Elder, in his Naturalis Historia, describes the methods of preparing papyrus. The best papyrus was produced in Alexandria, Egypt. Arabs have taken over the production of papyrus after they conquered Egypt. Papyrus was used in Italy and Sicily. This material of writing was used by the pope until the tenth century and in Italy until the eighth century. After that, papyrus was used only in solemn occasions. The disappearance of papyrus was caused by the decay of trade in the Mediterranean Sea due of wars with the Arabs, by its high cost and by the difficulty of preserving this material of writing in regions with humid weather.