Scripts on Parade -

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.

So 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

See the detailed Report, with a Booklet, on these New Testament Leaves in Old Armenian

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.

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

records 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.

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I. Cuneiform Tablets

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)

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II. Antique & Byzantine Greek Texts

Fragment of a Ptolemaic document in Greek on papyrus circa 200 BCE Text concerns the sale of cattle at a cattle market

Fragment of a leaf in Greek on parchment from an apocryphal 'Life of the Virgin' Byzantium, circa 14th century CE (purchased

Added drawing or sketch in ink in the lower margin

Verso of a fragmentary leaf in Greek on parchment from an apocryphal 'Life of the Virgin', Byzantium, circa 14th century CE

Close-up of the same

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III. Coptic & Syriac Texts

Fragment of a leaf in Syriac on parchment, circa 9th century CE, possibly from a New Testament

Coptic fragment on papyrus, 9th or 10th century CE

Coptic fragment on paper, 10th century CE

Fragment in Coptic on paper 10th century CE (purchased in London, England, 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. Hebrew & Judeo-Arabic Texts

Fragment of a leaf in Hebrew on paper, Yemen, 15th century CE

First recto of a fragmentary bifolium in Arabic on paper, from a small manuscript, probably occult, circa 16th century CE

Fragment of a leaf in Judeo-Arabic on paper. Yemen, 15th century CE

Fragment of a leaf (one of two leaves) in Judeo-Arabic on paper. Yemen, 15th century CE

First recto of a fragmentary bifolium in Arabic on paper, from a small manuscript, circa 16th century CE. Text probably occult (purchased at 'Tarshish' in Jerusalem in 1985)