#archives & manuscripts

[californiastatelibrary]

[hiddurmitzvah]

Detail of a painting of a sukkah. Image taken from f. 316v of Forli Siddur. 1383, Italian rite from the The British Library.

[fairuzfan]

The destruction of culture is an evident part of genocide. Al-Omari housed centuries old Palestinian manuscripts that convey aspects of the intellectual history of Palestinians. I am not sure of their status. Both literal and metaphorical life is being extinguished by Israel.

[therepublicofletters]

Biblioteca Domenicana Santa Maria Novella, Florence

[determinate-negation]

Birds' Head Haggadah, Southern Germany, 14th century

This Haggadah is believed to be the earliest known Haggadah printed as its own book, separate from the Jewish prayer book. The use of birds heads has been interpreted in a variety of ways, mostly to do with the prohibition on graven images.

[useless-catalanfacts]

First page of the codex Llibre del cor (“The choir’s book”) by Antoni Crispí, year 1536 for la Seu Vella cathedral of Lleida (Ponent, Catalonia).

From Museu de Lleida (Twitter / Instagram).

[awesomearchives]

Fuck yeah, open education! Here's a series of videos that start from 0, so you can learn about how manuscripts are described and studied.

[u-mspcoll]

Upcoming Exhibit and Lecture: Illustrating the Renaissance Book: From Illumination to Woodcut

Valerius Maximus (1st c. AD). Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX. Italy. 15th c. Parchment,126 fols. Fol. 5r

Full-page illumination from��Carta Executoria de hidalguia de sangre a pedimento de Don Juan de Mansilla como curador de Doña Francisca de Mansilla, hija de Baltasar de Mansilla, vecinos de la villa de Aranda de Duero. Valladolid, 1636 Parchment, 93 fols. Fol. 2r

Full-page woodcut depicting the procession of Priapus, the Greek god of animal and vegetable fertility. Hypnerotomachie, ou Discours du songe de Poliphile Ed: Jean Martin Paris: Jean le Blanc for Jacques Kerver, 1561 Fol. 69r. Loan courtesy of William P. Heidrich

Come explore a selection of manuscripts and early printed books from the 15th to the 17th centuries that were illustrated with illuminations and woodcuts! The display will be up in the Hatcher Gallery Exhibit Room from 6 September to 14 December.

And join us on Wednesday 13 September at 4p in the Hatcher Gallery event space or on zoom a for lecture based on the exhibit.

We hope to see you there!

[riesenfeldcenter]

One of the items featured at our open house this week was this manuscript with a copy of the death sentence from an 1828 murder case. Richard Johnson was one of the last two people publicly executed in New York, alongside Catherine Cashiere, on May 9th, 1829.

This manuscript includes a couple extracts: a stanza from Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," paraphrases of Mark 9:48 and Revelation 18:19, and part of Book I of Robert Pollok's The Course of Time, which summarizes the damnation sections of the Book of Revelation.

Probably our favorite part, however, is a recipe for "Potatoe Pudding," scrawled upside down at the bottom of the first page.

The pamphlet image included was found here.

[dailykafka]

Question!! I’ve been reading Kafka’s letters to Oskar Pollak, but I have been notified that there is only 11 of the 13(?) letters in “Letters to friends, family, and editors”. Where can I find the missing 2 letters? Thank you!! Have a blessed day!

Those letters were purposefully omitted by Max Brod so it's not accessible for the public. Even the letters that we know of are in some way altered. But I think the letters are kept either in national library of Israel or by private collectors.

[nuancedcreation]

An illustrated Videvdad Sadah

Yazd, Iran; 1647 Copied by Mihrbān son of Anūshīrvān son of Bahrām Shāh Source: The British Library

"Burjorji Ashburner was a successful Bombay merchant, a Freemason, and a member of the Bombay Asiatic Society. He was also a member of the Committee of Management for one of the most important Zoroastrian libraries in Bombay, the Mulla Firuz Library and made a special point of having copies made of some of the rarer items. In April 1864 Burjurji wrote offering some 70 to 80 volumes as a gift to the Royal Society, London, promising to add additional ones:

In the course of antiquarian researches...with special reference to the Parsee religion, I have had the good fortune to obtain some valuable ancient manuscripts in Zend, Pehlui, and Persian. I do not wish to keep to myself what may be useful in the literary world. [1]

His collection consisted of standard Arabic and Persian works in addition to nineteen specifically Zoroastrian manuscripts in Persian, Avestan and Pahlavi. A number of Bujorji’s manuscripts came originally from Iran. The oldest is an illustrated copy of the Videvdad sādah which was copied in Yazd, Iran, in 1647. Whereas Zoroastrian manuscripts are generally unillustrated except for small devices such as verse dividers and occasional diagrams, this one, exceptionally, contains seven coloured drawings of trees, used as chapter headings not unlike Islamic manuscripts of the same period.

The beginning of chapter 19 of the Videvdad sadah in which Zoroaster repels an attempt on his life by the demon Buiti, sent by the evil spirit Angra Mainyu. Note the elongated calligraphic script which is typical of the older manuscripts from Iran."

[aahsoka]

had an idea in the shower. what if the books in alethkar were like illuminated manuscripts. you could have womens script with little simple glyph translations above (like when they put old english over latin) and images to help comprehension when theres no one around who can read. maybe they would carve shells of different chitinous animals instead of using ivory (im assuming it would be thicker than like a regular crab shell on certain things like chasmfiends for example). not exactly sure about writing surface they dont talk a lot about like getting hides from certain animals lmfao. you set spheres into fancy covers like they did with gems. maybe if u put certain gems together it becomes a fabrial with a cool extra function. really detailed glyphs with intricate patterns like celtic knots . vorin religious figures.

do u understand the vision

[the-mediaeval-monk]

A very cool mystery solved!

[linguisticdiscovery]

The Boasian Trilogy

The American Philosophical Society Library recently sent me and the Chitimacha Tribe high-resolution scans of one of the coolest parts of the archival collection on the Chitimacha language—Morris Swadesh’s draft grammar, dictionary, and text collection.

This set of three resources is called the “Boasian trilogy” or “Boasian trifecta” in documentary linguistics. Franz Boas, the father of modern anthropology, taught his students—who became the first generation of American linguists—that a language could be fully documented by producing a grammatical description, a dictionary, and set of texts/stories in the language (since texts show the grammar and lexicon in use).

Linguists have continued to follow this framework, largely unchanged, for the past century. But while early American linguists were primarily engaged in “salvage linguistics”—documenting a language for the purposes of scientific research before it stopped being spoken—modern linguists tend to document languages with an eye towards producing community-oriented materials designed to help revitalize the language. You can’t really read these older materials without an advanced degree in linguistics, but modern grammars often aim to be more accessible to the communities of speakers who are trying to relearn the language.

That’s what I’m doing with the Chitimacha Tribe as well. Using these archival materials, I’m putting together a pedagogical grammar, dictionary, and collection of stories, which I’m trying to make as accessible as possible. It’s a huge project and it’ll be years before I’m done with all of it, but none of this would have even been possible without the excellent curation of these materials undertaken by the American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia.

If you’d like to support the work of the Society and help enable language revitalization for other indigenous communities, check out the link:

[onthefreighttrain]

Made a sillay funger oc From termina to be specific, a dark priest coming from the northern isles of Rondon, coming to research the other branches of the dark priests. Starting with dark priest robes, ceremonial dagger and a fur shoulder cape. The fur shoulder cape is strange Chevon seems to ignore any line of questioning about it only stating it is from their partner.

And their moonscorch! The chimera, going from night on day 2 they transform into the chimera, being found in a variety of places. They can be first found on the Church's rafters.

[u-mspcoll]

An Extraordinary New Acquisition!

We are delighted to announce an important recent acquisition made possible by the generosity of Katharine J. Kilgour: a manuscript containing the texts of a Book of Hours and a Psalter. Written in Latin and French, it was exquisitely illuminated by one of the leading miniaturists working in Paris in the first two decades of the sixteenth century: Jean Coene IV.  Read more!

Detail of miniature by Jean Coene IV, "Lamentation over the Dead Christ", in the opening of the Office of our Lady of Compassion, f. 28. Book of Hours & Psalter. Parchment manuscript, 256 folios. Paris, ca. 1505-1515.