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

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')

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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 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)