Palaeography
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'''Palaeography''' ([[British English|British]]) or '''paleography''' ([[American English|American]]) (from the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] {{lang|grc|παλαιός}} ''palaiós'', "old" and {{lang|grc|γράφειν}} ''graphein'', "to write") is the study of ancient [[handwriting]], independent of the [[language]] ([[Koine Greek]], [[Classical Latin]], [[Medieval Latin]], [[Old English language|Old English]], etc.), preserved in [[papyrus]], [[parchment]], paper, wood, waxed [[tablet]], etc.
Palaeography is in many ways a prerequisite for [[philology]], and it tackles two main difficulties: first, since the style of a single alphabet has evolved constantly ([[Carolingian minuscule]], [[Gothic script|Gothic]], etc.), it is necessary to know how to decipher the individual characters. Second, scribes often used many [[abbreviation]]s, usually so that they could write the text more quickly, and sometimes to save space, so the palaeographer must know how to interpret them. Knowledge about individual letter-forms, ligatures, punctuation, and abbreviations, enables the palaeographer to read the text as the scribe intended it to be read.
The first time the term "palaeography" was used was perhaps in 1703 by [[Bernard de Montfaucon]], a [[Benedictine monk]]. During the 19th century palaeography fully separates from the science of [[diplomatics]]. [[Wilhelm Wattenbach]] and Leopold Delisle greatly contributed to this separation with their studies between the relationship to the human hand and writing. Their efforts were mainly the directed at Reconstiting "[[the ductus]]" i.e. the movement of the pen in forming letter, and to establish a genealogy of writing based on the historical developments of its forms.<ref name=fn_2>R. Marichal, “Paleography” in New Encyclopaedia New York: Gale-Thomson, 2003 Vol.X, p. 773.</ref>
The palaeographer must know the language of the texts, the abbreviations used, and the various styles of handwriting. Knowledge of writing materials is essential to the ancient study of handwriting and the identification of the periods in which they are written..<ref name=fn_3>Robert P. Gwinn, "Paleography" in The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, Vol. IX, 1986, p. 78.</ref> The fundamental work of the palaeographer is to decipher the writings of the past and to assign them a date and a place of origin. This is why the palaeographer must take into account the style and formation of the manuscript or text.<ref name=fn_4>Fernando De Lasala, Exercise of Latin Paleography (Gregorian University Rome, 2006) p. 7.</ref>
==Ancient Near East==
{{main|History of writing}}
{{see|Epigraphy}}
*[[cuneiform script]]
**[[Hittite cuneiform]]
*[[Egyptian hieroglyphs]]
*[[Anatolian hieroglyphs]]
*[[Middle Bronze Age alphabets]]
==Greek palaeography==
{{main|History of the Greek alphabet}}
*''[[Inscriptiones Graecae]]''
*[[Epichoric alphabet]]
*[[Cumae alphabet]]
==Indian palaeography==
*[[Brāhmī script|Brahmi]]
===North Indian palaeography===
*[[Devanagari]]
===South Indian palaeography===
{{Main|History of writing in South India}}
The earliest attested form of writing in South India is inscriptions found in caves, associated with the [[Chalukya]] and [[Chera]] dynasties. These are in variants of what is known as the [[Cave character]], and their script differs from the Northern version in being more angular. Most of the modern scripts of South India have evolved from this script, with the exception of [[Vatteluttu]], whose exact origins are unknown, and [[Nandinagari]], which is a variant of [[Devanagari]] that developed due to later Northern influence.
*[[Grantha script]]
*[[Tamil script]]
*[[Malayalam script]]
*[[Telugu script]]
*[[Kannada script]]
*[[Chalukya script]]
*[[Chera script]]
*[[Nandinagari]]
==Aramaic palaeography==
*[[Aramaic alphabet]]
*[[Syriac alphabet]]
*[[Mandaic alphabet]]
*[[Sogdian alphabet]]
== Latin palaeography ==
{{main|History of the Latin alphabet}}
===Antiquity===
See the following articles:
* [[Old Italic alphabet]]
*''[[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum]]''
*[[Roman square capitals]]
*[[Roman cursive]]
*[[Rustic capitals]]
===Middle Ages===
Prior to the time of [[Charlemagne]] several parts of Europe had their own handwriting style. His rule over a large part of the continent provided an opportunity to unify these writing styles in the hand called [[Carolingian minuscule]]. Simplistically speaking, the only scripts to escape this unification were the [[Visigothic script|Visigothic]] (or Mozarabic), which survived into the twelfth or thirteenth century, the [[Beneventan script|Beneventan]], which was still being written in the middle of the sixteenth, and the one that continues to be used in traditional [[Irish language|Irish]] handwriting, which has been in severe decline since the early [[20th century|twentieth century]] and is now almost extinct (the printed form was abolished by the [[Irish government]] in the 1950s).
In the twelfth century Carolingian minuscule underwent a change in its appearance to bold and broken Gothic letter-forms. This style remained predominant with some regional variants until the fifteenth century when the [[humanistic]] scripts revived a version of Carolingian minuscule and it spread from the Italian [[Renaissance]] all over Europe.
====Further medieval scripts====
*[[Beneventan script]]
*[[Gaelic script]]
*[[Insular script]]
*[[Merovingian script]]
*[[Uncial script]]
*[[Visigothic script]]
===Modern period===
These humanistic scripts are the base for the [[antiqua]] and the handwriting forms in western and southern Europe. In Germany and Austria, the ''[[Kurrentschrift]]'' was rooted in the [[cursive]] handwriting of the later Middle Ages. With the name of the [[calligrapher]] Ludwig [[Sütterlin]], this handwriting counterpart to the [[blackletter]] typefaces was abolished by [[Hitler]] in 1941. After [[World War II]] it was taught as alternative script in schools only in some areas until the 1970s; it is no longer being taught.
==See also==
*[[Calligraphy]]
*[[Codicology]]
*[[Diplomatics]]
*[[Epigraphy]]
*[[Graffiti]]
*[[Historical Documents]]
*[[isograph]]
*[[Jean Mabillon]]
*[[List of New Testament papyri]]
*[[List of New Testament uncials]]
*[[Ludwig Traube (palaeographer)]]
*[[Philology]]
*[[Scribal abbreviation]]
*[[:Category:Palaeographic letter variants]]
==External links==
*[http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Palaeography 'Palaeography'.] ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'', 1911.
*[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/ Palaeography: reading old handwriting 1500 - 1800: A practical online tutorial], from the [[National Archives (UK)]]
*[http://www.medievalwriting.50megs.com A comprehensive survey of all the important aspects of medieval palaeography].
*[http://www.vl-ghw.lmu.de/palaeographie_en.html A scholarly maintained web directory on palaeography] (in German).
* [http://www.ext.upmc.fr/urfist/menestrel/paleo/00intro.htm Another scholarly maintained web directory on palaeography] (200 links with critical comments, in French).
* [http://theleme.enc.sorbonne.fr/sommaire69.html Comprehensive bibliography] (1,200 detailed references with critical comments in French).
*[http://www.scottishhandwriting.com Online Tuition in the Palaeography of Scottish Documents 1500-1750]
*[http://www.archive.org/details/greeklatin00thomuoft An introduction to Greek and Latin palaeography by Thompson, Edward Maunde] - Outdated (published 1912) but good and useful illustrated handbook, available as facsimile.
*[http://paleography.atspace.com Free palaeographical fonts]
==Further reading==
===Western palaeography===
{{refbegin}}
*Bernhard Bischoff, ''Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages'', Cambridge University Press, 1989.
*E. A. Lowe, ''Codices Latini Antiquiores: A Palaeographical Guide to Latin Manuscripts Prior to the Ninth Century'', Clarendon Press, 1972.
*Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, [http://www.archive.org/details/greeklatin00thomuoft ''An Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography''] Clarendon Press, 1912.
{{refend}}
===Indian palaeography===
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book |last= Burnell|first= Arthur Coke|title= Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D., Being an Introduction to the Study of South-Indian Inscriptions and MSS.|url= http://books.google.com/books?id=ywcIAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:0uBSjcXzFNp0oBfKEt|edition= Second enlarged and improved edition|year= 1878|publisher= Trübner & Co|location= London}}
*{{cite book |last= Ojha|first= Gaurishankar Hirachand|title= The Palæography of India/Bhāratīya Prācīna Lipimālā|edition= Third edition|year= 1959|publisher= Munshiram Manoharlal|location= Delhi|language= Hindi}}
{{refend}}
==References==
<references/>
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