Painting (and Writing) over Dante

With the advent of studies in the area of mise-en-page and the increased interest in the relationships among text, image, and material structures in medieval manuscripts, the inherent problems of interpretation and “intentionality” have often been concentrated in critics’ assignment of meaning and cultural “readings” to medieval illuminators. Yet numerous sources, especially the instructions to illuminators that remain still visible in unfinished manuscripts, confirm that methods of work in the illustrating of medieval texts were guided by very different criteria than interpretation. Instead, the material and mechanical realities of reproducing medieval texts, among them Dante’s Commedia, were often subject more to production efficiency, cost effectiveness, taste, and scribal and cultural norms. Examining the instructions to the illuminator of an unfinished copy of a uniquely edited Veneto copy of the Commedia, initially produced in the 1340s (Codex Italicus 1 of the University Library and Archives of Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest), this essay investigates the systems and constructions imposed on the Commedia by a new scribal culture in the reproduction and “visual glossing” of the poem.

Artificial intelligence based writer identification generates new evidence for the unknown scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls exemplified by the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa)

The Dead Sea Scrolls are tangible evidence of the Bible’s ancient scribal culture. This study takes an innovative approach to palaeography—the study of ancient handwriting—as a new entry point to access this scribal culture. One of the problems of palaeography is to determine writer identity or difference when the writing style is near uniform. This is exemplified by the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa). To this end, we use pattern recognition and artificial intelligence techniques to innovate the palaeography of the scrolls and to pioneer the microlevel of individual scribes to open access to the Bible’s ancient scribal culture. We report new evidence for a breaking point in the series of columns in this scroll. Without prior assumption of writer identity, based on point clouds of the reduced-dimensionality feature-space, we found that columns from the first and second halves of the manuscript ended up in two distinct zones of such scatter plots, notably for a range of digital palaeography tools, each addressing very different featural aspects of the script samples. In a secondary, independent, analysis, now assuming writer difference and using yet another independent feature method and several different types of statistical testing, a switching point was found in the column series. A clear phase transition is apparent in columns 27–29. We also demonstrated a difference in distance variances such that the variance is higher in the second part of the manuscript. Given the statistically significant differences between the two halves, a tertiary, post-hoc analysis was performed using visual inspection of character heatmaps and of the most discriminative Fraglet sets in the script. Demonstrating that two main scribes, each showing different writing patterns, were responsible for the Great Isaiah Scroll, this study sheds new light on the Bible’s ancient scribal culture by providing new, tangible evidence that ancient biblical texts were not copied by a single scribe only but that multiple scribes, while carefully mirroring another scribe’s writing style, could closely collaborate on one particular manuscript.

TRADITIONAL TEACHING METHOD - CONCEPT OF MORAL EDUCATION AND PEDAGOGY IN AATHICUUDI

This Paper tries to describe about the ancient teaching of Tamilnadu. How the education system was established by the early Tamils? And how one person become a teacher in the earliest and what are the names given to them and what are the tools used for the teaching. The earliest education based on moral development. Moral values are much needed “to inspire, propel, and equip the learners with adequate skills, awareness, and values was taught. However, this paper tries to answer for the origin of the Tamil alphabet and how the bardic culture and Thymesian culture evolves in ancient education. and also this paper deals how the scribal culture helps us for the teaching.

A Family of Lector-Priests at Edfu: Oriental Institute Stela E11455 and the 'Ib Family during the Early Eighteenth Dynasty

This article presents the study of two stelae from Edfu dating to the early Eighteenth Dynasty that represent members of the same extended family of lector-priests from Edfu (Oriental Institute E11455 and Princeton Y1993-151). The texts of both stelae were published in the early twentieth century; however, neither stela has been comprehensively published. The two stelae present the opportunity to revisit the family’s genealogy and chronological position. The study also considers dating criteria for late Second Intermediate period and early Eighteenth Dynasty stelae and assesses the contemporary positioning and role of lector-priests. Finally, it briefly addresses the influence of documentary scribal culture on monumental inscriptions vis-a?-vis the late Second Intermediate period–early New Kingdom Tell Edfu Ostraca.

Deuteronomy and Jeremiah

Scholars have recognized the close relationship between the books of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah since the outset of the twentieth century, though approaches to understanding that relationship have varied. Earlier generations tended to isolate the “Deuteronomistic” prose material and focus on the poetic passages as more authentic, but research increasingly recognized the significance of the prose discourses to the book’s function and form. More recent advances in the study of scribal culture and methodology demanded changes in the ways scholars evaluated this material, pointing to a far more complex relationship between Deuteronomy and Jeremiah than had previously been recognized. This chapter identifies new avenues of inquiry that shed light on this relationship and are suggestive of future trajectories of research.

Scribal Culture, Indigenous Modes, and Nahuatl-Language Sources from the 16th to 18th Centuries

While several indigenous languages from the Americas have been alphabetized and written, no Native American language has such an extensive corpus of historical texts as Nahuatl, the language of the Nahuas or Aztecs of central Mexico. Writing in Nahuatl but using Latin letters, colonial Nahua scribes or tlahcuilohqueh produced an unparalleled outpouring of texts throughout the colonial period. Prior to the Conquest, the Nahuas recorded information in codices, which consisted of pictographic glyphs painted on sheets of bark paper, analogous to European books. They thus readily perceived the parallels between their pictographic codices and European alphabetic texts and quickly saw the utility and potential of the new technology. All that was needed was an introduction to European writing techniques. For the most part, this came in the form of friars, some of whom established schools for elite Nahuas, such as the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco in the latter part of the 1530s. Some Nahuas likely also learned writing from professional Spanish scribes as well. These students of the friars and lay Spaniards would soon teach other Nahuas to write, such that only a few years after the opening of the Colegio, Nahua scribes, working entirely on their own, were producing written texts. These scribes then taught others, and by the 1550s Nahuatl alphabetic writing became a self-sustaining, independent tradition that touched nearly every corner of the Nahua world. Alphabetic writing overtook indigenous glyphs, and by the 17th century most Nahuatl texts were entirely alphabetic. Last wills and testaments made up the bulk of scribal output, along with other “mundane” Nahuatl documents of financial, legal, or governmental matters, which have proven highly illuminating to historians. There were also annals; local histories stretching back to preconquest times; and plays, songs, and speeches (huehuehtlahtolli). Nahua scribal culture thrived until the 19th century, when opposition to it from both the Spanish Crown and, later, the independent Mexican nation made Nahuatl texts obsolete and superfluous.