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.

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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,

  • 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.

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I.       Cuneiform Tablets

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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

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Fragment of a Ptolemaic document in Greek on papyrus, circa 200 BCE.
The text concerns the sale of cattle at a cattle market (fragment purchased in London in the 1980s from the dregs of an antiquarian book-shop or antiquaries-shop which closed down in the 1940s)
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III.    Coptic & Syriac Texts

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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)
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IV.   Hebrew & Judeo-Arabic Texts

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Fragment of a leaf (one of two leaves) in Judeo-Arabic on paper. Yemen, 15th century CE (purchased online from an Israeli seller)
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V.    Arabic, Persian & Turkish Texts, plus a Bookbinding

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Verso of the same Leaf
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VI.     Armenian New Testament or Lectionary

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'Folio 1r' (purchased online from a U.S. seller)
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VII.   Ethiopic Manuscripts

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Facing pages of an opening within a Sermon manuscript in Amharic on vellum. Ethiopia, circa 20th century CE (purchased online from Ethiopia)
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VIII.  Sanskrit & Prakrit Palm-Leaf and Paper Manuscripts

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Next, please visit our Gallery of Texts on Parade.

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