Scripts on Parade

From Antiquity to the Modern World

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.  Welcome to this first exhibition on our re-launched website (May 2015).  We offer a sampling of specimens, with more to come.

1v rotated moreSo far:

I.       Cuneiform Tablets
II.     Antique & Byzantine Greek Texts
III.    Coptic & Syriac Texts
IV.    Hebrew & Judeo-Arabic Texts
V.      Arabic, Persian & Turkish Texts, plus a Bookbinding
VI.    Armenian New Testament or Lectionary

VII.   Ethiopic Manuscripts
VIII.  Sanskrit & Prakrit Palm-Leaf and Paper Manuscripts

Also:

You can visit the Gallery of Texts on Parade

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

*****

Here are specimens (most are fragmentary) of manuscripts and documents in various languages, including secular and religious concerns.  They represent, for example,

  • Judeo-Arabic leaf, Yemen, 15th-century CErecords of transactions
  • the Qur’an/Koran in different copies
  • an Abbasid biographical collection
  • an apocryphal ‘Life of the Virgin’ in Byzantine Greek
  • an Armenian New Testament or Lectionary
  • a Psalter in Ethiopic Ge’ez
  • a Sermon manuscript in Ethiopic Amharic
  • 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.

The Tags allow for searching for the specific script, language, type of text, writing medium, and other features.

*****

I.       Cuneiform Tablets

Search
Tablet inscribed in cuneiform on fired clay. Ur III = Third Dynasty of Ur / Neo-Sumerian Empire (21st to 20th century BCE) (purchased in London in the 1980s from the sale there by the estate from the collection of a Yale University professor)
« of 2 »

II.     Antique & Byzantine Greek Texts

Search
Fragment of a leaf in Greek on parchment,
from an apocryphal 'Life of the Virgin', Byzantium, circa 14th century CE (purchased online from Pirages 'in recent years')
« of 5 »

III.    Coptic & Syriac Texts

Search
Fragment of a leaf in Coptic on parchment, circa 9th century CE, possibly from a New Testament (purchased in London in the 1980s from the dregs of an antiquarian book-shop of antiquities-shop which closed down in the 1940s)
« of 7 »

IV.   Hebrew & Judeo-Arabic Texts

Search
Fragment of a leaf in Hebrew on paper, Yemen, 15th century CE (purchased online from an Israeli seller)
« of 4 »

V.    Arabic, Persian & Turkish Texts, plus a Bookbinding

Search
Legal document in Arabic on paper, dated AH 838 = 1434-1435 CE. Reused in a Yemeni bookbinding of the 15th century CE (purchased online from Sweden)
« of 23 »

VI.     Armenian New Testament or Lectionary

Search
'Folio 1r' (purchased online from a U.S. seller)
« of 3 »

VII.   Ethiopic Manuscripts

Search
Folio '1ra' in an Ethopian manuscript
« of 9 »

*****

1v rotated cropped to tailpiece

VIII.  Sanskrit & Prakrit Palm-Leaf and Paper Manuscripts

*****

Next, please visit our Gallery of Texts on Parade.

*****