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This study focuses on the analysis of a corpus of manuscripts found in Fustat (medieval Cairo, Egypt) in the biggest medieval “archive” found until now: the Cairo Geniza. The giant collection of mostly Jewish documents has been attracting scholars’ attention a lot but so far, the material aspects of these documents seem to have been mainly neglected.
Application of scientific methods of analysis, especially X-Ray fluorescence characterization, contributes to our understanding of the materials used for production of manuscripts during the Middle ages.
Our corpus of the 11th century manuscripts comprises manuscripts written by scribes belonging to three Jewish communities that co-existed in Cairo during this period: the Karaites, the so-called Jerusalemites (or Palestinian) and the so-called Babylonians (or Iraqi), three different communities with different traditions and different leaders. The differences manifest themselves also in the paleographical properties of the manuscripts produced within each community. Can we extend the differences detected by the paleographical analysis to differences in composition of the writing materials and especially the composition of the inks? Or can we relate the differences in the composition to the manuscript type (legal, private...), or to another criterion. In this presentation, we offer answers to some of the questions using statistical analysis of the measurements results.
This study focuses on the analysis of a corpus of manuscripts found in Fustat (medieval Cairo, Egypt) in the biggest medieval “archive” found until now: the Cairo Geniza. The giant collection of mostly Jewish documents has been attracting scholars’ attention a lot but so far, the material aspects of these documents seem to have been mainly neglected.
Application of scientific methods of analysis, especially X-Ray fluorescence characterization, contributes to our understanding of the materials used for production of manuscripts during the Middle ages.
Our corpus of the 11th century manuscripts comprises manuscripts written by scribes belonging to three Jewish communities that co-existed in Cairo during this period: the Karaites, the so-called Jerusalemites (or Palestinian) and the so-called Babylonians (or Iraqi), three different communities with different traditions and different leaders. The differences manifest themselves also in the paleographical properties of the manuscripts produced within each community. Can we extend the differences detected by the paleographical analysis to differences in composition of the writing materials and especially the composition of the inks? Or can we relate the differences in the composition to the manuscript type (legal, private...), or to another criterion. In this presentation, we offer answers to some of the questions using statistical analysis of the measurements results.
While studying the socio-geographic history of inks, division 4.5 of the BAM (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und Prüfung) together with the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures in Hamburg has developed a protocol for ink analysis. It consists of a primary screening to determine the type of the ink, and a subsequent in-depth analysis using several spectroscopic techniques. The XRF elemental analysis aims primarily at understanding the fingerprints of inks containing metals, making it possible to distinguish among different inks.
Our own research aims primarily at recreating a socio-geographic history of inks, parchment, and papyrus and includes the comparative analysis of the writing materials of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ink and papyrus in Ancient and Hellenistic Egypt, and inks in documents from various contemporary medieval communities in Fustat (first nucleus of Cairo). During many years of study, we concluded that the continuous production of Coptic manuscripts from late Antiquity to the Middle Ages offers a unique opportunity for historical study of the ink in a large geographic area. Thanks to the collaboration with the ERC project “PAThs” (www.paths.uniroma1.it), based at the University of Rome La Sapienza, and within the activities of a PhD research dedicated to this topic, we therefore created a new branch of our project focused entirely on the analysis of Coptic inks, pigments, and dyes. This pioneering systematic study of writing materials coming from a specific area and time frame (5th-10th century) aims not only at a better understanding of the complex Coptic multicultural and plurilingual society, but also and mainly at clarifying the links among the Coptic and other societies between the ancient and medieval eras. Finally, it will cast light on the history of the technological development of inks in the eastern world, from Antiquity to the middle ages.
The Cairo Genizah is a well-known “archive” discovered in the 19th century in Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, a district in Old Cairo (Egypt), located south of the center of modern Cairo. The giant collection of mostly Jewish documents that vary in genres, languages and writing supports contains a large number of early medieval Hebrew manuscripts, mostly in fragmentary form. The larger part of the Cairo Genizah is stored today in the Cambridge University Library, containing about 200,000 fragments.
The Genizah provides sources for the literary, linguistic, historical studies of the various aspects Jewish and non-Jewish life. As the documents attest, at least two Jewish communities co-existed in Fustat up to 11th century: a so-called Babylonian and Palestinian. These communities had different leaders, different traditions and lived independently. The differences manifest themselves also in the paleographical properties of the manuscripts produced by each community.
Although Genizah manuscripts have attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, the material aspects of these documents seem to have been largely neglected. The current study aims to obtain information on the composition of the writing supports and the inks used, in order to obtain insights on trade, local production techniques and social structures.
Can we extend the differences detected by the paleographical analysis to differences in composition of the writing materials ? Can we relate the differences in the composition to a community, to the manuscript type (legal, private...), or to another criterion?
Z02 is one of the three technically supporting projects at the CSMC. In collaboration with Z01 and Z03, it aims at bridging the gap between humanities and natural sciences and technology. To that purpose, we set up a laboratory with a range of high-end instruments, most of them mobile, allowing thorough non-destructive analysis of manuscripts. In addition to working on constantly improving the laboratory and the methods of analysis, a substantial part of our activities is dedicated to service, by supporting different research projects conducted at the center.
In this talk, we will present our equipment and the possibilities offered by the different techniques available regarding the different kinds of missions: typology and classification of inks, provenance studies, recovery of faded inscriptions and palimpsests, reconstruction of the history of manuscripts, authentication and dating. We will give a brief overview of our past and ongoing activities in the frame of the second phase of the CSMC. Finally, a selection of three projects will be presented in greater detail to highlight the possibilities of our laboratory and the diversity of missions which can be carried out:
- Support of project C08 on East Frankish manuscripts containing collections of formulae
- Identifying color materials applied in Muhammad Juki's Shahnamah with non-invasive combined methods
- Checking for the presence of metals in the Herculaneum papyri
The Cairo Geniza is an “archive” discovered in the 19th century in Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, a district in Old Cairo (Egypt). The collection of mostly Jewish documents that vary in genres, languages and writing supports contains a large number of early medieval Hebrew manuscripts.
The Geniza provides sources for the literary, linguistic, historical studies of the various aspects Jewish life. As the documents attest, at least two Jewish communities co-existed in Fustat up to 11th century: a so-called Babylonian and Palestinian. These communities had different leaders, different traditions and lived independently. The differences seem to manifest themselves also in the paleographical, codicological and some material properties of the manuscripts produced by each community.
The aim of this project is to compare the inks used in the Jewish documents depending on different variables: support (paper, parchment), purpose of the manuscript (legal, private, religious), provenance of the scribe. For the determination of the inks type and composition we had to choose non-invasive, non-destructive and portable techniques to analyze the corpus directly on-situ.
The analyses were carried out with a micro-X-ray spectrometer ArtTAX® (Bruker GmbH) and a digital stereomicroscope features built-in LED illumination at 395 nm and 940nm, Dino Lite.
We would like to stress that though the methods of material analysis listed above have been successfully employed in the field of cultural heritage and conservation including ancient and medieval manuscripts they have not yet been used to study fragments from the Cairo Genizah. Therefore, we believe that this research project is a pioneering study that will provide new insights into the history of Hebrew writing materials, their production techniques and materials and, thus, contribute new data to the field of Hebrew paleography.