Palaeography (British) or paleography (American) (from the Greek *' palaiós , "old" and * ' graphein , "to write") is the study of ancient handwriting, independent of the language (Koine Greek, Classical Latin, Medieval Latin, Old English, etc.)
Palaeography is in many ways a prerequisite for philology, and it tackles two main difficulties: firstly, since the style of a single alphabet has evolved constantly (Carolingian minuscule, Gothic, etc.), it is necessary to know how to decipher the individual characters. Secondly, scribes often used many abbreviations, usually so that they could write the text more quickly, and sometimes to save space, so the palaeographer must know how to interpret them. Knowledge about individual letter-forms, ligatures, punctuation, and abbreviations, enables the palaeographer to read the text as the scribe intended it to be read.
Pa-le óg-ra’-fí, the science of reading, dating, and analyzing ancient writing on papyrus, parchment, waxed tablets potsherds, paper, or any other surface. As a rule, Paleography deals with Greek and Latin scripts and their derivatives, excluding Egyptian, Hebrew, Middle, and Far Eastern Scripts. "fn_1 .
The first time the term was used was perhaps in 1703 by Bernard de Montfaucon, a Benedictine monk. During the 19th century palaeography fully separates from the science of diplomatics. W.Wattenbach and Leopold Delisle greatly contributed to this separation with their studies between the relationship to the human hand and writing. Their efforts were mainly the directed at Reconstiting "the ductus" i.e. the movement of the pen in forming letter, and to establish a genealogy of writing based on the historical developments of its forms. fn_2 .
The palaeographer must know the language of the texts, the abbreviations used, and the various styles of handwriting. Knowledge of writing materials is essential to the study ancient study of handwriting and the identification of the periods in which they are written. fn_3 . The fundamental work of the palaeographer is to decipher the writings of the past and to assign them a date and a place of origin. This is why the palaeographer must take into account the style and formation of the manuscript or text. fn_4
- paleography - History of the Latin alphabet
- paleography - See also
- Beneventan script
- paleography - External links
- 'Palaeography'.
Encyclopaedia Britannica , 1911.
- 'Palaeography'.
- paleography - Further reading
- Bernhard Bischoff, Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages , Cambridge University Press, 1989.
- paleography - References
- paleography - References
- paleography - Related topics