From Antiquity to the Modern World

Types of Texts preserved in Manuscripts and Written Records
on Papyrus, Parchment, Paper, and other Materials

Specimens in a private collection
Reproduced by permission

Descriptions by Mildred Budny

PART I.  Here we group, by their Type of Text or by their Writing Material, a selection of specimens drawn from our Galleries of Scripts on Parade and other parts of the same collection.

So far:

I.      Texts on Papyrus
II.    Biblical & Liturgical Manuscripts
III.  Koran/Qur’an Manuscripts
IV.   Sanskrit & Prakrit Palm-Leaf Manuscripts
V.    Chinese & Related Materials
VI.     Occult, Astrological & Magical Texts

Here are specimens — mostly fragmentary — of manuscripts and documents in various languages, including both secular and religious concerns.  They represent, for example, records of divers transactions, Biblical texts of various kinds, the Qur’an/Koran in different copies, an Abbasid biographical collection, an apocryphal ‘Life of the Virgin’ in Byzantine Greek, a variety of Arabic and Ottoman Turkish texts using watermarked European paper, and the components of a composite Yemeni bookbinding with reused leaves from older manuscripts.

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I.     Texts on Papyrus

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Deed of sale in Latin on parchment, with folded flap and attached tag but missing seal(s), circa 1200 CE. Deed of sale of a plot of land at Preston (Suffolk), near Ipswich (purchased in a group in London)

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II.    Biblical & Liturgical Manuscripts

[More Coming Soon]

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III.  Koran/Qur’an Manuscripts

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Recto of 2 fragments of a leaf from a Qur'an/Koran in Arabic in Kufic script on parchment, 9th or 10th century CE (purchased in London in the 1980s from the dregs of an antiquarian book-shop or antiquities-shop which closed down in the 1940s)

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IV.   Sanskrit & Prakrit Palm-Leaf Manuscripts

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Folio 96 recto of a 7-line 'Palm-leaf' manuscript in Prakrit on paper, with decorative rather than functional 'stringing holes', from Western India, Gujarat or vicinity, circa 1500 CE. From the text of the 'Kalpa Sūtra' ('The Book of Rituals'), a Jain text containing the biographies of the Jain Tirthankaras (purchased in the Portobello Road Market, London)

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V.     Chinese & Related Texts

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« ‹ of 4 › »

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VI.     Occult, Astrological & Magical Texts

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« ‹ of 4 › »

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You can visit the Gallery of Scripts on Parade.

Other Galleries are in the course of installation for Latin, Western European Vernacular, and other Languages.

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