Palaeography Books
Boydell & Brewer Ltd An Introduction to English Runes
Book SynopsisIntroduction to the use of runes as a practical script for a variety of purposes in Anglo-Saxon England.Runes are quite frequently mentioned in modern writings, usually imprecisely as a source of mystic knowledge, power or insight. This book sets the record straight. It shows runes working as a practical script for a variety of purposes in early English times, among both indigenous Anglo-Saxons and incoming Vikings. In a scholarly yet readable way it examines the introduction of the runic alphabet (the futhorc) to England in the fifth and sixth centuries, the forms and values of its letters, and the ways in which it developed, up until its decline at the end of the Anglo-Saxon period. It discusses how runes were used for informal and day-to-day purposes, on formal monuments, as decorative letters in prestigious manuscripts, for owners' or makers' names on everyday objects, perhaps even in private letters. For the first time, the book presents, together with earlier finds, the many runic objects discovered over the last twenty years, with a range of inscriptions on bone, metal and stone, even including tourists' scratched signatures found on the pilgrimage routes through Italy. It gives an idea of the immense range of informationon language and social history contained in these unique documents. The late R.I. PAGE was former Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Cambridge.Trade ReviewRemains the only book-length study providing a comprehensive and scholarly guide to the Anglo-Saxon use of runes. The new edition has been substantially updated and expanded...No serious library of Anglo-Saxon studies should be without it. -- John Hines * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *
£23.74
Thames & Hudson Ltd The Story of Writing
Book SynopsisWriting is one of humanity's greatest inventions. Without it there would be no history and no civilization as we know it. But how, when and where did writing evolve? This book discusses the history of decipherment and major writing systems, from cuneiform and Egyptian and Mayan hieroglyphs to alphabets and the scripts of China and Japan.Trade Review'The most accessible and informative book available on the major writing systems of the world' - History Today'Excellent … Robinson covers so much ground in such short order that you feel he must have got something wrong or left out something important. He hasn’t' - Bookdealer'Delightful to read … difficult to put down once started' - Communication ArtsTable of ContentsI. How Writing Works 1. Reading the Rosetta Stone • 2. Sound, Symbol and Script • 3. Proto-Writing II. Extinct Writing • 4. Cuneiform • 5. Egyptian Hieroglyphs • 6. Linear B • 7. Mayan Glyphs • 8. Undeciphered Scripts III. Living Writing 9. The First Alphabet • 10. New Alphabets from Old • 11. Chinese Writing • 12. Japanese Writing • 13. From Hieroglyphs to Alphabets – and Back? • Postscript in the New Millennium
£15.29
The History Press Ltd Teach Yourself Palaeography
Book SynopsisIf you want to learn to read and know about old handwriting, this is the only book you will need.Trade Review“This educational guide will help you master the reading of old handwriting from the 19th Century back to the court hands of the 16th. It covers the terminology used when transcribing, but the main emphasis is on practical learning in order to decipher old documents, on the importance of ‘having a go’ and persisting." * Family Tree magazine *
£16.19
Thames & Hudson Ltd Breaking the Maya Code
Book SynopsisPresents the inside story of one of the major intellectual breakthroughs of our time - the great decipherment of an ancient Maya script revised with the advanced developments. This title features 113 illustrations that provide details about the people and texts that have enabled us to read the Maya script.Trade Review'Coe’s thrilling account of the cracking of Mayan is like a detective story … great stuff' - Observer'A thrilling story of academic rivalry, bigotry, chewing gum and - wait for it - penis perforation' - Daily Mail'An entertaining, enlightening and even humorous history of the great searchers after the meaning that lies in the Maya inscriptions' - Anthony Burgess'Told with great vigour by Professor Michael Coe, who was himself involved; he offers an insider’s story with strong views of the personalities, competence and abilities of some colleagues' - History Today'A great story told clearly and passionately by a great Mayanist. It’s an inspiring example of the ultimate triumph of a truth in the knock-down, drag-out world of academic politics' - Science
£17.09
Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Adventures of Inanaka and Tuni: Learning to Write
Book SynopsisJourney back in time 3,800 years to Nippur, a city in ancient Babylonia, as a girl sets out on a quest to become a scribe. Follow along as Inanaka learns how to make a tablet and write her name, solves the many puzzles of the cuneiform writing system, and prepares with her family for a festival, all with the help (some of the time, at least) of her dog, Tuni.
£7.61
Reaktion Books History of Writing
Book SynopsisFrom the earliest scratches on stone and bone to the languages of computers and the internet, A History of Writing offers an investigation into the origin and development of writing throughout the world. Illustrated with numerous examples, this book offers a global overview in a format that everyone can follow. Steven Roger Fischer also reveals his own discoveries made since the early 1980s, making it a useful reference for students and specialists as well as a delightful read for lovers of the written word everywhere.Trade Review"[An] authoritative account. . . . If you're intrigued by writing's past, Fischer's book is well worth a read. . . . Brilliant."-- "New Scientist, on the first edition" "[It] is wonderful . . . to see a subject that embraces so much of human civilization handled with the wide knowledge and breadth of vision it deserves."-- "Nature, on the first edition"
£14.25
Pennsylvania State University Press A New Workbook of Cuneiform Signs
Book SynopsisBased on Daniel C. Snell’s original workbook and informed by his decades of teaching, this new and improved textbook provides an introductory course in basic cuneiform signs. Using a method of repetition that asks the student to actively produce the signs as well as passively read them, it efficiently teaches more than one hundred basic signs in their Neo-Assyrian forms, all of which have been chosen for their recurrence and usefulness to the student. The workbook includes instructions and drills, frequent quizzes to reinforce retention, and notes that both provide context about the ancient cultures that used cuneiform and introduce modern scholarly conventions.Designed for beginning students of cuneiform languages and cultures, A New Workbook of Cuneiform Signs is an easy and intuitive way to learn cuneiform. It is a valuable resource for students and teachers alike.
£19.76
Oxford University Press The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture
Book SynopsisThe cuneiform script, the writing system of ancient Mesopotamia, was witness to one of the world''s oldest literate cultures. For over three millennia, it was the vehicle of communication from (at its greatest extent) Iran to the Mediterranean, Anatolia to Egypt. The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture examines the Ancient Middle East through the lens of cuneiform writing. The contributors, a mix of scholars from across the disciplines, explore, define, and to some extent look beyond the boundaries of the written word, using Mesopotamia''s clay tablets and stone inscriptions not just as ''texts'' but also as material artefacts that offer much additional information about their creators, readers, users and owners.Trade ReviewReview from previous edition Thanks are due to the K. Radner and E. Robson for the care with which they edited this voluminous book. * Bibliotheca Orientalis *Table of ContentsI. Materiality and literacies 1: Jonathan Taylor: Tablets as artefacts, scribes as artisans 2: Robert K. Englund: Accounting in proto-cuneiform 3: Grégory Chambon: Numeracy and metrology 4: Niek Veldhuis: Levels of literacy 5: Brigitte Lion: Literacy and gender II. Individuals and communities 6: Benjamin R. Foster: The person in Mesopotamian thought 7: Frans van Koppen: The scribe of the Flood Story and his circle 8: Hagan Brunke: Feasts for the living, the dead, and the gods 9: Michael Jursa: Cuneiform writing in Neo-Babylonian temple communities 10: Eva von Dassow: Freedom in ancient Near Eastern societies III. Experts and novices 11: Yoram Cohen & Sivan Kedar: Teacher-student relationships: two case studies 12: Dominique Charpin: Patron and client: Zimri-Lim and Asqudum the diviner 13: Michel Tanret: Learned, rich, famous and unhappy: Ur-Utu of Sippar 14: Nele Ziegler: Music, the work of professionals 15: Silvie Zamazalová: The education of Neo-Assyrian princes IV. Decisions 16: Sophie Démare-Lafont: Judicial decision-making: judges and arbitrators 17: Karen Radner: Royal decision-making: kings, magnates and scholars 18: Andreas Fuchs: Assyria at war: strategy and conduct 19: Anne Löhnert: Manipulating the gods: lamenting in context 20: Daniel Schwemer: Magic rituals: conceptualisation and performance V. Interpretations 21: Ulla Susanne Koch: Sheep and sky: systems of divinatory interpretation 22: John M. Steele: Making sense of time: observational and theoretical calendars 23: Fabienne Huber Vulliet: Letters as correspondence, letters as literature 24: Eckart Frahm: Keeping company with men of learning: the king as scholar 25: Heather D. Baker: From street altar to palace: reading the built environment of urban Babylonia VI. Making knowledge 26: Eleanor Robson: The production and dissemination of scholarly knowledge 27: Steve Tinney: Tablets of schools and scholars: a portrait of the Old Babylonian corpus 28: Mark Weeden: Adapting to new contexts: cuneiform in Anatolia 29: Francesca Rochberg: Observing and describing the world through divination and astronomy 30: Geert De Breucker: Berossos between tradition and innovation VII. Shaping tradition 31: Frans Wiggermann: Agriculture as civilization: sages, farmers, and barbarians 32: Barbara Böck: Sourcing, organising, and administering medicinal ingredients 33: Nicole Brisch: Changing images of kingship in Sumerian literature 34: Caroline Waerzeggers: The pious king: royal patronage of temples 35: Philippe Clancier: Cuneiform culture's last guardians: the old urban notability of Hellenistic Uruk
£40.99
The History Press Ltd Palaeography for Family and Local Historians
Book SynopsisFamily and Local Historians frequently encounter the challenge posed by the writing, and sometimes the translation, of the records which might most enable them to make further progress with their research. Many pamphlets, booklets and even books have been produced over the past century to help with old handwriting and abbreviations, but this new work, written by an author who has for years run courses on the subject, is the most practical and comprehensive yet for family and local historians. Based on some fifty facsimile reproductions of documents of graduated difficulty, culled from many useful sources, it provides transcripts, and translations where appropriate, together with advice on methods of transcribing. The alphabet, with commentary, of the numerous types of letter to be found in the examples (many being in the secretary and court hands which so often cause problems), and illustrations of forms of abbreviation will greatly help to unravel the difficulties of reading. Many documents before 1733 were written in Latin and the author includes an outline of the differences between classical and medieval usage and a vocabulary to cover the section in Latin. There are examples, from the 1400s to the 1700s, of a wide range of hands found in the most usual categories of record used by family historians, such as parish registers, wills and court rolls, and in many others which disclose helpful information on families and localities. Those who use this book will not need to be persuaded of the great enjoyment to be derived from pursuing research into family or local history and the pleasures of piecing together evidence to throw new light on old times. They may also find great enjoyment in the deciphering of documents, the means to that end. For the solitary searcher or a member of a class or local society, this will be the standard work upon which to rely for many decades to come.
£20.25
Oxford University Press Hieroglyphs
Book SynopsisHieroglyphs were far more than a language. They were an omnipresent and all-powerful force in communicating the messages of ancient Egyptian culture for over three thousand years; used as monumental art, as a means of identifying Egyptianness, and for rarefied communication with the gods.In this exciting new study, Penelope Wilson explores the cultural significance of the script with an emphasis on previously neglected areas such as cryptography, the continuing decipherment into modern times, and examines the powerful fascination hieroglyphs still hold for us today. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Table of Contents1. The origins of writing in Egypt ; 2. Hieroglyphic script and the Egyptian language ; 3. Hieroglyphs and art ; 4. 'I Know You, I Know Your Names' ; 5. Scribes and everyday writing ; 6. The decipherment of Egyptian ; 7. Hieroglyphs in the modern world ; Notes ; Chronology ; Further Reading ; Index
£9.49
Oxford University Press CyproMinoan Inscriptions Volume 1 Analysis
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£102.50
Oxford University Press Scribes and Scholars
Book SynopsisOne of the remarkable facts about the history of Western culture is that we are still in a position to read large amounts of the literature produced in classical Greece and Rome despite the fact that for at least a millennium and a half all copies had to be produced by hand and were subject to the hazards of fire, flood, and war. This book explains how the texts survived and gives an account of the reasons why it was thought worthwhile to spend the necessary effort to preserve them for future generations.In the second edition a section of notes was included, and a new chapter was added to deal with some aspects of scholarship since the Renaissance. In the third edition (1991), the authors responded to the urgent need to take account of the very large number of discoveries in this rapidly advancing field of knowledge by substantially revising or enlarging certain sections. The last two decades have seen further advances, and this revised edition is designed to take account of them.Trade Review'For the third edition the authors have not only brought the bibliographical notes up to date but also made extensive amendments and additions, both small and large, throughout the text.' James Diggle, Queens' College, Cambridge, The Classical Review'This is a very fine book indeed. The text is written with admirable lucidity, wit and charm. The book itself is a clearly printed and stout paperback, well worth the reommended retail price of $44.95, and of course, as befits a volume produced by the Oxford University Press on this topic above all, the text is flawless. Clearly I would recommend Scribes and Scholars as a valuable acquisition for a school library which could be consulted with profit by senior students ... this book, with its overwhelming proof of the centrality of Classics in the western tradition, is essential reading.' M. Dyson, University of Queensland, Ancient History, 1992, No. 2'This enlarged version remains a valuable resource for both graduate student and scholar. Scribes and Scholars is a book which has done much good and will continue to do so.' E. Christian Kopff, University of Colorado, Classical Bulletin (1992)'The third edition of this superb work has been carefully revised to reflect advances in classical scholarship since publication of the previous edition. The work is indispensable for classical students who have not read the previous edition, and recommended for those who want recent information on an essential subject.' Gerald O'Sullivan, Stockton State College, Classical WorldTable of ContentsPREFACE; ABBREVIATIONS; NOTES; INDEX OF MSS; GENERAL INDEX; NOTES TO THE PLATES; PLATES
£39.89
British Museum Press Write Your Own Egyptian HieroglyphsNames
Book SynopsisA handy and colourful illustrated guide to reading, writing and understanding ancient Egyptian names, epithets, titles and phrases.Table of Contents1. The importance of names in Ancient Egypt; 2. People and their names: how Egyptian names are written and what they mean; 3. Gods' names and epithets; 4. The animal world: how animal names express the nature of the creature; 5. Secret names and names for posterity; 6. List of useful Egyptian words and phrases.
£8.54
Cambridge University Press The Cambridge Companion to Medieval British
Book SynopsisThe scholarship and teaching of manuscript studies has been transformed by digitisation, rendering previously rarefied documents accessible for study on a vast scale. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval British Manuscripts orientates students in the complex, multidisciplinary study of medieval book production and contemporary display of manuscripts from c.6001500. Accessible explanations draw on key case studies to illustrate the major methodologies and explain why skills in understanding early book production are so critical for reading, editing, and accessing a rich cultural heritage. Chapters by leading specialists in manuscript studies range from explaining how manuscripts were stored, to revealing the complex networks of readers and writers which can be understood through manuscripts, to an in depth discussion on the Wycliffite Bible.Table of ContentsIntroduction. The matter of manuscripts and methodologies Orietta Da Rold and Elaine Treharne; Part I. How Do We Study the Manuscript?: 1. Describing and cataloguing medieval English manuscripts: a checklist Richard Beadle and Ralph Hanna; 2. Reading a manuscript description Donald Scragg; 3. Reading and understanding scripts Julia Crick and Dan Wakelin; 4. Working with images in manuscripts Beatrice Kitzinger; 5. The sum of the book: structural codicology and medieval manuscript culture Ryan Perry; Part II. Why Do We Study the Manuscript?: 6. Networks of writers and readers Elaine Treharne and Orietta Da Rold; 7. The written word: literacy across languages Jane Gilbert and Sara Harris; 8. The Wycliffite Bible Elizabeth Solopova; 9. Editing medieval manuscripts for modern audiences Helen Fulton; 10. Where were books made and kept? Tessa Webber; Part III. Where Do We Study the Manuscript?: 11. Charming the snake: accessing and disciplining the medieval manuscript Sian Echard and Andrew Prescott; 12. The curation and display of digital medieval manuscripts Suzanne Paul; 13. The trade A. S. G. Edwards; Further reading; Index.
£23.99
Oxbow Books The Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic
Book SynopsisWriting is not just a set of systems for transcribing language and communicating meaning, but an important element of human practice, deeply embedded in the cultures where it is present and fundamentally interconnected with all other aspects of human life. The Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Practices explores these relationships in a number of different cultural contexts and from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including archaeological, anthropological and linguistic. It offers new ways of approaching the study of writing and integrating it into wider debates and discussions about culture, history and archaeology.Table of ContentsList of contributors Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1. Introduction: writing practices in socio-cultural context Philip J. Boyes, Philippa M. Steele and Natalia Elvira Astoreca 2. Towards a social archaeology of writing practices Philip J. Boyes 3. The lives of inscribed commemorative objects: the transformation of private personal memory in Mesopotamian temple contexts Nancy Highcock 4. A cognitive archaeology of writing: concepts, models, goals Karenleigh A. Overmann 5. The materiality of the Cretan Hieroglyphic script: textile production-related referents to hieroglyphic signs on seals and sealings from Middle Bronze Age Crete Marie-Louise Nosch and Agata Ulanowska 6. Visual dimensions of Maya hieroglyphic writing: meanings beyond the surface Christian M. Prager 7. Visibility of runic writing and its relation to Viking Age Society Sophie Heier 8. Words beyond writings: how to decrypt the secret writings of the masters of psalmody (Yunnan, China)? Aurélie NévotContents 9. A script ‘good to drink’. The invention of writing systems among the Sora and other tribes of India Cécile Guillaume-Pey 10. Why did people in medieval Java use so many different script variants? A.J. West 11. Cultures of writing: rethinking the ‘spread’ and ‘development’ of writing systems in the Bronze Age Mediterranean Theodore Nash 12. Script, image and culture in the Maya world: a southeastern perspective Kathryn M. Hudson and John S. Henderson 13. Writing and elite status in the Bronze Age Aegean Sarah Finlayson 14. Why με? Personhood and agency in the earliest Greek inscriptions (800–550 BCE) James Whitley 15. Names and authorship in the beginnings of Greek alphabetic writing Natalia Elvira Astoreca 16. Marking identity through graphemes? A new look at the Sikel arrow-shaped alpha Olga Tribulato and Valentina Mignosa Bibliography
£49.50
Oxbow Books Writing Around the Ancient Mediterranean:
Book SynopsisWriting in the ancient Mediterranean existed against a backdrop of very high levels of interaction and contact. In the societies around its shores, writing was a dynamic practice that could serve many purposes – from a tool used by elites to control resources and establish their power bases to a symbol of local identity and a means of conveying complex information and ideas.This volume brings together contributions by members of the Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) research team and visiting fellows, offering a range of different perspectives and approaches to problems of writing in the ancient Mediterranean. Their focus is on practices, viewing writing as something that people do within a wider social and cultural context, and on adaptations, considering the ways in which writing changed and was changed by the people using it.Trade Review[T]his volume, as a contribution to the research output of the CREWS project, encapsulates how the research of the CREWS core team and wider family has revolved around questions of the contexts and relatedness of writing systems and traditions * New Testament Abstracts *Table of ContentsApproaches to writing in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East Philippa M. Steele Relations between script, writing material and layout: the case of the Anatolian Hieroglyphs Willemijn Waal Word division in Sicilian inscriptions Robert Crellin What is an Alphabet good for? Csaba La’da Measuring particularity and similarity in archaic Greek alphabets with NLP Natalia Elvira Astoreca Borrowing, invention, remodelling: Observations on the rare letters of the Phrygian alphabet and the problem of formation of Anatolian alphabets Rostislav Oreshko Cypro-Minoan and its potmarks and vessel inscriptions as challenges to Aegean Scripts corpora Cassandra Donnelly Ductus in Cypro-Minoan writing. Definition, purpose and distribution of stroke types Martina Polig The introduction of the Greek alphabet in Cyprus, a case study in material culture Beatrice Pestarino The death of alphabets at the end of the Bronze Age. How does the Deir ‘Alla alphabet fit the picture? Michel de Vreeze Early Egyptian writing from the perspective of the embodied practitioner Kathryn Piquette The magic of writing Philip J. Boyes
£45.00
The History Press Ltd Fifty Mysterious Postcards: Pitman Shorthand
Book SynopsisThe lines, circles, ticks, hooks, dots and dashes of Pitman shorthand used by some postcard writers during the early twentieth century are obscure to most people. Could the mysterious messages contain scandalous gossip, tales of adventure or declarations of undying love?Fifty Mysterious Postcards presents fascinating examples from the ‘Golden Age’ of the postcard, each with a message written in the dying art of Pitman shorthand. The rules of Pitman have changed since the postcards were written and posted over 100 years ago, but careful transcription has unlocked their meaning to bring stories of penfriends, sweethearts, holidays and the First World War to life once more.Trade Review“The format mostly features spreads with the postcards – beauty scenes, landmarks, cute animals – with the original name and address written longhand and the message in shorthand.” * Best of British magazine *
£14.39
John Donald Publishers Ltd Scottish Handwriting 1150-1650: An Introduction
Book SynopsisReading original documents is the only way to achieve a sound basis in historical studies and to acquire a true perspective on cultural evolution. Much modern research has been applied to Scotland's history, but until this volume there has been no comprehensive study of the country's handwriting for nearly 250 years. The main body of this book consists of facsimile texts, each facing a detailed transcript and commentary. The historical background of handwriting usage is surveyed in the introduction, with emphasis on changing fashions. There is also guidance on how to deal with early language and abbreviations. The principal aim is to assist research students, local historians, genealogists and calligraphers in their studies; but this work also recovers a lost chapter in the history of Scottish studies.
£19.00
Liverpool University Press The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts
Book SynopsisFaulkner's authoritative English translation of Middle Kingdom coffin texts is essential for all Egyptologists. This new edition reprints his whole work in one volume.Trade ReviewI can only highly recommend this title to everyone dealing with the difficult and sometimes tricky writings of ancient Egypt,'
£109.50
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Writing Matters
Book SynopsisThe epigraphy of 1st-millennium-BCE Italy has been studied for many years, but these studies have largely concentrated on the languages encoded in the inscriptions and their semantic meanings. This book takes a more holistic approach that looks not only at content, but also the archaeological contexts of the inscriptions and the materiality of their ''supports'': the artefacts and monuments on which the inscriptions occur. The first writing in Italy was not a local invention, but was introduced by the Phoenicians and Greeks in the 9th8th centuries BCE. It was taken up by number of indigenous communities over the subsequent centuries to write their own languages, before these were eventually submerged by the spread of Latin. In a series of theoretical, methodological and interpretative essays, Ruth Whitehouse explores what can be learned about how writing was used by these communities and what it meant to them. The bodies of data considered relate to Venetic an
£80.75
Oxbow Books Dynamic Epigraphy: New Approaches to Inscriptions
Book SynopsisThis volume, with origins in a panel at the 2018 Celtic Conference in Classics, presents creative new approaches to epigraphic material, in an attempt to 'shake up' how we deal with inscriptions. Broad themes include the embodied experience of epigraphy, the unique capacities of epigraphic language as a genre, the visuality of inscriptions and the interplay of inscriptions with literary texts. Although each chapter focuses on specific objects and epigraphic landscapes, ranging from Republican Rome to early modern Scotland, the emphasis here is on using these case studies not as an end in themselves, but as a means of exploring broader methodological and theoretical issues to do with how we use inscriptions as evidence, both for the Greco-Roman world and for other time periods.Drawing on conversations from fields such as archaeology and anthropology, philology, art history, linguistics and history, contributors also seek to push the boundaries of epigraphy as a discipline and to demonstrate the analytical fruits of interdisciplinary approaches to inscribed material. Methodologies such as phenomenology, translingualism, intertextuality and critical fabulation are deployed to offer new perspectives on the social functions of inscriptions as texts and objects and to open up new horizons for the use of inscriptions as evidence for past societies.Trade Review[T]his volume presents creative new approaches to epigraphic material in an attempt to “shake up” how we deal with inscriptions. * New Testament Abstracts *Table of ContentsList of figures List of abbreviations Editor’s acknowledgments 1. Introduction: Thoughts on the nature of inscriptions Eleri H. Cousins 2. Towards a theoretical model of the epigraphic landscape Kelsey Jackson Williams 3. Materializing epigraphy: Archaeological and sociolinguistic approaches to Roman inscribed spindle whorls Alex Mullen 4. Written to be (un)read, written to be seen: Beyond Latin codes in Latin epigraphy M. Cristina de la Escosura Balbás, Elena Duce Pastor and David Serrano Lozano 5. Epigraphic strategies of communication: The visual accusative of Roman Republican dedications of spoils Fabio Luci 6. Inscribing the artistic space: Blurred boundaries on Romano-British tombstones Hanneke Salisbury 7. When poetry comes to its senses: Inscribed Roman verse and the human sensorium Chiara Cenati, Victoria González Berdús and Peter Kruschwitz 8. Lassi viatores: Poetic consumption between Martial’s Epigrams and the Carmina Latina Epigraphica Alessandra Tafaro 9. Epigraphy and critical fabulation: Imagining narratives of Greco-Roman sexual slavery Deborah Kamen and Sarah Levin-Richardson
£36.10
Reaktion Books A History of Writing
Book SynopsisFrom the earliest scratches on stone and bone to the languages of computers and the internet, "A History of Writing" offers an investigation into the origin and development of writing throughout the world. Commencing with the first stages of information storage knot records, tally sticks, pictographic storytelling the book then focuses on the emergence of complete writing systems in Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BC, and their diffusion to Egypt, the Indus Valley and points east, with special attention given to Semitic writing systems and their eventual spread to the Indian subcontinent. Also documented is the rise of Phoenician and its effect on the Greek alphabet, generating the many alphabetic scripts of the West. Chinese, Korean and Japanese writing systems and scripts are dealt with in depth, as is writing in pre-Colombian America. Also explored are Western Europe's medieval manuscripts and the history of printing, leading to the innovations in technology and spelling rules of the 19th and 20th centuries. Illustrated with numerous examples, this book offers a global overview in a form that everyone can follow.The author also reveals his own discoveries made since the early 1980s, making it a useful reference for both students and specialists as well as the general reader.Trade ReviewAn authoritative account ... if you're intrigued with writing's past, Fischer's book is well worth a read ... a brilliant book New Scientist It is wonderful ... to see a subject that embraces so much of human civilisation handled with the wide knowledge and breadth of vision it deserves Nature
£17.60
Tiger of the Stripe An Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography
£24.70
V&R unipress GmbH Living Memory
Book Synopsis
£40.79
York Medieval Press Reusing Manuscripts in Late Medieval England
Book SynopsisExplores the practices and processes by which manuscripts were crafted, mended, protected, marked, gifted and shared.
£22.79
Harvard University Press Early Tamil Epigraphy from the Earliest Times to
Book SynopsisThis book presents the earliest South Indian inscriptions (ca. second century B.C.E. to sixth century A.D.), written in Tamil in local derivations of the Ashokan Brahmi script. The work includes texts, transliteration, translation, detailed commentary, inscriptional glossary, and indexes.
£53.51
WW Norton & Co Shady Characters
Book Synopsis“An absolutely fascinating blend of history, design, sociology, and cultural poetics—highly recommended.”—Maria Popova, Brain PickingsTrade Review"If Eats, Shoots & Leaves whetted your appetite on the subject of punctuation, then you have a treat in store. Shady Characters is an authoritative, witty, and fascinating tour of the history and rationale behind such lesser known marks as the ampersand, manicule, the pilcrow, and the interrobang. Keith Houston also explains the octothorpe—otherwise known as the hashtag—and and my final comment on his book is #awesome." -- Ben Yagoda, author of How to Not Write Bad"Make no mistake: this is a book of secrets. With zeal and rigor, Keith Houston cracks open the &, the #, the † and more—all the little matryoshka dolls of meaning that make writing work. Inside, we meet novelists, publishers, scholars and scribes; we range from ancient Greeks to hashtagged tweets; and we see the weird and wonderful foundations of the most successful technology of all time." -- Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore"Funny, surprising, and, of course, geeky." -- Michael D. Schaffer and John Timpane - Philadelphia Inquirer"Might make you look at books… in an entirely new way." -- Andrew Robinson - Nature"Houston…is a tireless researcher and an amiable teacher." -- Jan Gardner - Boston Globe"A pleasurable contribution to type history, particularly for readers who haven’t considered the ampersand in any detail." -- Carl W. Scarbrough - New Criterion"Fascinating." -- Rob Kyff - The Courant"An absolutely fascinating blend of history, design, sociology, and cultural poetics—highly recommended." -- Maria Popova - Brain Pickings"For fans of Lynn Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves, this bestiary of lesser-known punctuation marks is a wonder." -- Publishers Weekly"I'm a sucker for this stuff. The @ is called a chiocciola (snail) in Italian! The & was once taught as a letter of the alphabet! The manicule has been with us for a millenium! Thank you, Keith Houston, for bringing these little mysteries out of the shadows of typographic history. " -- Constance Hale, author of Sin and Syntax"A mostly amusing, informative history of punctuation… Houston explores the roles a variety of punctuation marks have played in the popular imagination. The forgotten manicule, the modest dash and the ampersand all make appearances, as do intriguing characters from millennia past. The book is often engrossing… An unusual triumph of the human ability to find exaltation in the mundane." -- Kirkus Reviews"This book has more in common with Malcolm Gladwell than with standard history writing." -- Library Journal
£14.24
Cambridge University Press Systemic Functional Grammar
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£114.00
Cambridge University Press The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books From
Book SynopsisThis book, first published in 2003, presents a detailed survey of all book scripts in use in western and central Europe from c.1100 to c.1530 (with the exception of Humanistic script). This period has been poorly served in almost all other palaeographical handbooks. By adopting a largely new classification of scripts based on objective criteria, which incorporates many of the terms currently in use, this book aims to end the confusion which has hitherto obscured the study of late-medieval handwriting. It is based upon an examination of a very large number of dated specimens, and is thus the first survey to take full advantage of the incomparable palaeographical resource provided by the Catalogues of Dated Manuscripts. The text is illustrated throughout with 600 drawings of letters and symbols. There are 160 actual-size reproductions providing datable specimens of all the scripts discussed, accompanied by partial transcriptions and palaeographical commentary.Trade Review'… excellent new handbook … an excellent tool for the empirical analysis of Gothic book hands … it serves equally as a palaeographical training manual for the later Middle Ages and as a bibliographical reference guide, and in both respects fills a vital gap …' The Times Literary Supplement'… generously illustrated … Derolez has proposed a practical and satisfactory framework … equips the interested reader with a series of useful questions to ask when looking at script, and provides guidelines for interpreting the answers …' The LibraryTable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. The manuscript book in the late Middle Ages; 2. The Carolingian heritage; 3. Praegothica; 4. Northern textualis; 5. Southern textualis and semitextualis; 6. Cursive scripts in general; 7. Cursiva antiquior; 8. Cursiva; 9. Hybrida and semihybrida; 10. Gothico-humanistica and other 'hors systeme' scripts; Appendix; Abbreviated sources; Select bibliography; Index of manuscripts reproduced in the plates; General index; Plates.
£30.99
Cambridge University Press Writing and Society in Ancient Cyprus
Book SynopsisFrom its first adoption of writing at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, ancient Cyprus was home to distinctive scripts and writing habits, often setting it apart from other areas of the Mediterranean and Near East. This well-illustrated volume is the first to explore the development and importance of Cypriot writing over a period of more than 1,500 years in the second and first millennia BC. Five themed chapters deal with issues ranging from the acquisition of literacy and the adaptation of new writing systems to the visibility of writing and its role in the marking of identities. The agency of Cypriots in shaping the island''s literate landscape is given prominence, and an extended consideration of the social context of writing leads to new insights on Cypriot scripts and their users. Cyprus provides a stimulating case to demonstrate the importance of contextualised approaches to the development of writing systems.Table of Contents1. The advent of literacy on Cyprus; 2. Scripts and languages in geometric cyprus; 3. 'Understanding' undeciphered scripts and unidentified languages; 4. Visible languages and Cypriot identities; 5. Cypriot writing at home and abroad.
£85.50
Cambridge University Press SixteenthCentury Readers FifteenthCentury Books
Book SynopsisInvestigating the reception of medieval manuscripts over a long century, and the members of the Tudor gentry family who owned them, reveals an unexpectedly strong interest in works of the past, and the continuing intellectual and domestic importance of medieval manuscripts in an age of print.Trade Review'Overall, Sixteenth-Century Readers, Fifteenth-Century Books offers a compelling case study of a kind of reading and class of readers … it is well written, copiously documented, and should serve as a model to other researchers working in a similar vein.' Megan L. Cook, The Library'… this book is an important contribution to our understanding of how and why books were read during the English Reformation.' Hilary Maddocks, Script & PrintTable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Family matters: the Roberts family of Willesden; 2. Private faces in public places; 3. Devotional reading in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII; 4. Out of the cloister, out of the family; 5. Books and their uses; 6. Devotional reading in the reigns of Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I; Conclusion: Newly reformed readers?; Postscript: after the family: the manuscripts' later histories; Appendix 1. Timeline of key events during the lifetimes of Thomas and Edmund Roberts; Appendix 2. Summary list of contents of manuscripts owned by the Roberts family; Appendix 3. Manuscripts and printed books of uncertain association; Appendix 4. Other families named Roberts; Bibliography; Index of manuscripts; General Index.
£999.99
Museum Tusculanum Press Tocharian & Indo-European Studies: Volume 12
Book SynopsisTocharian and Indo-European Studies is an international scholarly journal dedicated to the study of two closely related Indo-European languages, Tocharian A and B, attested in Central Asian manuscripts from the second half of the first millennium AD. This volume contains 11 articles by some of the world''s leading specialists on Tocharian, as well as reviews of the most important publications in the field. The important article by Werner Winter was one of the last to be written by this outstanding scholar.
£42.50
Oxford University Press Indian Epigraphy A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit Prakrit and the Other IndoAryan Languages South Asia Research
Book SynopsisSalomon surveys all the inscriptional material - documents written in ink on various surfaces, or carved into stone and metal, as well as seals - in the Indo-Aryan languages. He presents the entire corpus of these inscriptions in a way accessible to specialists in the field as well as non-specialists.Trade ReviewThe scope of this survey is certainly impressive....any student of Indian history, religion, art, language, or literature who makes use of inscriptions in any way will find a great deal of useful original, and often fascinating material here....a broad and ambitious overview....As a guide and reference source summarizing what has been done so far in the field of Indian epigraphy, this is a most valuable work. * The Journal of Asian Studies *
£102.12
Oxford University Press A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology
Book SynopsisThis is the first Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology ever to be published. Dealing with the subject of documentation - which affects everyone''s lives (from every-day letters, notes, and shopping lists to far-reaching legal instruments, if not autograph literary masterpieces) - Peter Beal defines, in a lively and accessible style, some 1,500 terms relating to manuscripts and their production and use in Britain from 1450 to the present day. The entries, which range in length from one line to nearly a hundred lines each, cover terms defining types of manuscript, their physical features and materials, writing implements, writing surfaces, scribes and other writing agents, scripts, postal markings, and seals, as well as subjects relating to literature, bibliography, archives, palaeography, the editing and printing of manuscripts, dating, conservation, and such fields as cartography, commerce, heraldry, law, and military and naval matters. The book includes 96 illustrations showinTrade ReviewReview from previous edition affords many pleasures to the curious... an intellectual inventory. * Andrew Zurcher, Times Literary Supplement *Peter Beal's expertise and vast knowledge provide a most useful selection of terms * Carlo M. Bajetta, Notes and Queries *Table of ContentsPreface ; Acknowledgements ; Illustrations ; A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology 1450-2000 ; Select Bibliography
£50.35
British Association for Local History Reading Early Handwriting 15001700
£12.40
Pennsylvania State University Press Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook: Collected Papers in Hebrew and West Semitic Palaeography and Epigraphy
Book SynopsisThe editors have assembled here 55 key articles and notes by the well-known Harvard professor, organizing them under the categories Palaeography, Transjordanian Epigraphy, Hebrew Inscriptions, Aramaic Texts, and Old Canaanite and Phoenician Inscriptions. These essays, scattered in journals and various books, have now been brought together in one volume for easy access and attest to the life-long interest and contributions of one of the best-known epigraphers and palaeographers of the last 50 years.The appearance of Cross' "Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook" is the latest offering in the "Harvard Semitic Studies" series. This work carries on the rigorous standards of scholarship for which the series is known. Offerings such as "The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls", "Israelite Religion in the Light of Hebrew Inscriptions", and "A Grammar of Akkadian" attest to the outstanding scholarship found in the series.As one of the foremost scholars working in paleography and epigraphy, Cross needs little introduction to the readers of this journal. He is one of the foremost Semiticists of our time...While not everyone (e.g., Mendenhall, Helck) will agree with the import of scholarship in this volume, it nonetheless elucidates the history of its subject matter very fittingly...the book is the essential collection of a great many articles that otherwise would have to be gathered by the individual researcher. I highly recommend it for any graduate course in West Semitic paleography or epigraphy. Budding epigraphists cannot afford to be without this summary of a great scholar's work.
£83.14
De Gruyter Orthography as Social Action: Scripts, Spelling, Identity and Power
Book SynopsisThe chapters in this edited volume explore the sociolinguistic implications of orthographic and scriptural practices in a diverse range of communicative contexts, ranging from schoolrooms to internet discussion boards. The focus is on the way that scriptural practices both index and constitute social hierarchies, identities and relationships and in some cases, become the focus for public language ideological debates. Capitalizing on the now robust body of literature on orthographic choice and debate in sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics, the volume addresses a number of cross-cutting themes that connect orthographic practices to areas of contemporary interest in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. These themes include: the different social implications of self vs. other representation and the permeability of the personal/social and the public/private; how scriptural practices ("inscription") serve as sites for social discipline; the historical and intertextual frameworks for the meaning potentials of orthographic choice (relating to issues of genre and style); and writing as a broader semiotic field: the visual and esthetic dimensions of texts and metalinguistic "play" in spelling and its ambiguous implications for writer stance.
£134.42
Tiger of the Stripe The History of English Handwriting AD 700-1400
£10.44
Brill Aspects of Manuscript Culture in South India
Book SynopsisThis volume, the outcome of a seminar organized at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, marks an important advancement in the study of South Indian Sanskrit manuscripts which are predominantly on palm leaf and rarely older than three to four centuries. Nevertheless, they continued a manuscript culture for around two millennia and had a profound impact on traditions of knowledge and culture. After an introductory essay (by J.E.M. Houben and S. Rath) addressing theoretical and historical issues of text transmission in manuscripts and in India’s remarkably strong oral memory culture, it contains twelve contributions dealing with South Indian manuscript collections in India and Europe (mainly of Vedic and Sanskrit texts) and with problems related to the scripts, the dating of manuscripts and India's literary and intellectual history. Contributors include: G. Colas, A.A. Esposito, M. Fujii, C. Galewicz, J.E.M. Houben, H. Moser, P. Perumal, K. Plofker, S. Rath, S.R. Sarma, D. Wujastyk, K.G. ZyskTable of ContentsPreface List of Contributors 1. Introduction: Manuscript Culture and Its Impact in “India”: Contours and Parameters - Jan Houben and Saraju Rath 2. On the Johan van Manen Collection: Its Origin and Background - Saraju Rath 3. A Cultural Encounter in the Early 18th century: the Collection of South Indian Manuscripts by the French Jesuit Fathers of the Carnatic Mission - Gérard Colas 4. The South Indian Drama Manuscripts - Anna Aurelia Esposito 5. The Jaiminīya Sāmaveda Traditions and Manuscripts in South India - Masato Fujii 6. Texts and Communities: The Manuscripts of the Lost Yāmalāsṭakatantra - Cezary Galewicz 7. From Palmleaves to a Multimedia Databank – a Note on the ‘Bhāsa-project’ - Heike Moser 8. The Sanskrit Manuscripts in Tamilnadu - P. Perumal 9. Indian Exact Sciences in Sanskrit Manuscripts and Their Colophons - Kim Plofker 10. Varieties of Grantha Script: the Date and Place of Origin of Manuscripts - Saraju Rath 11. From my Grandfather’s Chest of Palmleaf Books - Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma 12. Rāmasubrahmaṇya’s Manuscripts: Intellectual Networks in the Kaveri Delta, 1693-1922 - Dominik Wujastyk 13. The Use of Manuscript Catalogues as Sources of Regional Intellectual History in India’s Early Modern Period - Kenneth G. Zysk Index Plates
£165.60
Brill Tibetan Inscriptions: Proceedings of a Panel Held at the Twelfth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Vancouver 2010
Book SynopsisInscriptions are a rather neglected field within Tibetan Studies, because they are often located in places that are not easily accessible for both geographical and political reasons. It is thus especially welcome that two of the contributions to this volume deal with inscriptions documented on recent field trips to Tibet: Benjamin Wood discusses an inscription in Zha lu that relates an enigmatic conflict in the history of the monastery, and Kurt Tropper looks into an epigraphic cycle on the life of the Buddha in Tsaparang. Moreover, Nathan Hill provides a new interpretation of the beginning of the famous Rkong po inscription, and Kunsang Namgyal Lama surveys the various kinds of texts found on tsha tshas. An extra level of reflection is added to the volume by Cristina Scherrer-Schaub’s methodological considerations on the classification and interpretation of inscriptions.
£128.02
Brill Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish and Early Christian Studies
Book SynopsisAncient texts, once written by hand on parchment and papyrus, are now increasingly discoverable online in newly digitized editions, and their readers now work online as well as in traditional libraries. So what does this mean for how scholars may now engage with these texts, and for how the disciplines of biblical, Jewish and Christian studies might develop? These are the questions that contributors to this volume address. Subjects discussed include textual criticism, palaeography, philology, the nature of ancient monotheism, and how new tools and resources such as blogs, wikis, databases and digital publications may transform the ways in which contemporary scholars engage with historical sources. Contributors attest to the emergence of a conscious recognition of something new in the way that we may now study ancient writings, and the possibilities that this new awareness raises.Table of ContentsList of Contributors List of Abstracts Preface 1. Introduction: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish and Early Christian Studies Claire Clivaz PART ONE: DIGITIZED MANUSCRIPTS 2. The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library. The Digitization Project of the Dead Sea Scrolls Pnina Shor 3. Dead Sea Scrolls Inside Digital Humanities. A Sample David Hamidović 4. The Electronic Scriptorium: Markup for New Testament Manuscripts Hugh Houghton 5. Digital Arabic Gospels Corpus Elie Dannaoui 6. The Role of the Internet in New Testament Textual Criticism: the Example of the Arabic Manuscripts of the New Testament Sara Schulthess 7. The Falasha Memories Project. Digitalization of the Manuscript BNF, Ethiopien d’Abbadie Charlotte Touati PART TWO: DIGITAL ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND PUBLISHING 8. The Seventy and Their 21st-Century Heirs. The Prospects for Digital Septuagint Research Juan Garces 9. Digital Approaches to the Study of Ancient Monotheism Ory Amitay 10. Internet Networks and Academic Research: the Example of the New Testament Textual Criticism Claire Clivaz 11. New Ways of Searching with Biblindex, the Online Index of Biblical Quotations in Early Christian Literature Laurence Mellerin 12. Aspects of Polysemy in Biblical Greek. A Preliminary Study for a New Lexicographical Resource Romina Vergari 13. Publishing Digitally at the University Press? A Reader’s Perspective Andrew Gregory 14. Does not Biblical Studies Deserve to Be an Open Source Discipline? Russell Hobson Indices Author index Subject index
£132.80
Brill Indonesian Manuscripts from the Islands of Java, Madura, Bali and Lombok
Book SynopsisIndonesian Manuscripts from the Islands of Java, Madura, Bali and Lombok discusses aspects of the long and impressive manuscript traditions of these islands, which share many aspects of manuscript production. Many hitherto unaddressed features of palm-leaf manuscripts are discussed here for the first time as well as elements of poetic texts, indications of mistakes, colophons and the calendrical information used in these manuscripts. All features discussed are explained with photographs. The introductory chapters offer insights into these traditions in a wider setting and the way researchers have studied them. This original and pioneering work also points out what topics needs further exploration to understand these manuscript traditions that use a variety of materials, languages, and scripts to a wider public.Trade Review“This is a masterpiece of codicology, the like of which I have never encountered before. It is a comprehensive work of reference by a master of the subject with unparalleled expertise, presenting and preserving a vast knowledge.” – Prof. M.C. Ricklefs, Professor Emeritus, The Australian National University “This is a very interesting and original book on Indonesian manuscripts, by someone with a very wide and deep knowledge of the subject, clearly accumulated over a long period of time." – Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator for Southeast Asia, British Library, London "With its publication, this book became an indispensable tool for all those with an interest in the manuscript traditions of Indonesia, including those not falling within its specific geographical and cultural bailiwick. The somewhat conglomerative make-up of the book in no way detracts from its value (...) Here we have an assortment of assay tools gathered in this one hefty volume, a one-stop compilation of reference and research tools of the sort that until now have only existed in the form of field notes and personal research databases assembled individually (and rarely circulated) by scholars working in the field. Dr. van der Meij has provided in an instant a point of reference that all English-speaking investigators can use and cite as the field of Indonesian codicology, nearly unknown three decades ago, continues its rise to prominence amongst domestic and international scholars." – Timothy E. Behrend, in BEFEO 104 (2018). "Van der Meij bravely tackles a great many issues belonging to an immense field of study, more often than not breaking completely new ground. The fact cannot be lauded enough that in doing so, Van der Meij concretely discusses all kinds of aspects pertaining to the manuscripts of 'the Javanese-inspired world' with the help of photographs. This is a tremendous premium, because hitherto studies of Indonesian philology rarely contain images of the manuscripts under discussion." – E.P. Wieringa, University of Colone, in Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde 174 (2018).Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations List of Tables Notes to the Readerl Abbreviationsliv General Introduction The Present Book Languages Script Manuscripts in Arabic Multiple Languages and Scripts in Manuscripts The Chapters in the Book Topics not Discussed in the Book 1 Manuscripts Manuscripts as Physical Objects Complete and Incomplete Manuscripts Intact, Damaged and Repaired Manuscripts Old and New Manuscripts Illustrated and Illuminated Manuscripts Naturalistic Figure Depiction The Natural World in Javanese Illustrations Illuminations Wĕdana Commissioned Manuscripts Personal Manuscripts Large and Small Manuscripts ‘Authentic’ Manuscripts ‘Fake’ Manuscripts Manuscript Quality, Beautiful and Ugly Manuscripts Numbers of Manuscripts, Popularity of Texts Collective Volumes Fragments of Other Texts in Manuscripts Titles Multiple Titles 2 Access to Manuscripts Public Collections of Indonesian Manuscripts Semi-Public Collections Private Collections Lost Manuscripts Microfilms and Digital Manuscripts Blogs, Portals, Social Media and Digital Search Machines Catalogs 3 Lontar and Gěbang (Nipah) Manuscripts Lontar Manuscripts Protective Covers The Writing Process Numbering in Lontar Manuscripts Text in Lontar Maarti Texts Gĕbang (Nipah) Manuscripts 4 Verse, Verse Meters and Their Indications Verse Structures Page Lay-Out of Texts in Tĕmbang Macapat Sasmitaning Tĕmbang Kidung Kakawin Javanese Syi’ir 5 Mistakes and Corrections in Manuscripts Writers’ Own Indications of Mistakes Levels of Mistakes Indications of Mistakes and Corrections Mistakes Indicated and Corrected During Writing or Afterwards Corrections and Additional Notes and Editions of Texts 6 Dating and Calendars The Javanese Calendar 7 Colophons Manuscripts Copied with the Original Colophon Colophons in Javanese Texts from Java Colophons in Old and Middle Javanese Texts Colophons Added to Colophons Personal and General Information in Balinese Colophons Changes in Colophons Over Time Colophons in Balinese Manuscripts in Balinese Colophons in Sasak and Javanese Manuscripts from Lombok Colophon as Part of the Text or Not? Excuses for Mistakes and Poor Workmanship 8 Other Information on Dating and Ownership Manuscript Gifts to Scholars Ownership Information on Separate Pages Preceding or after the Text Personal Information on the Fore-Edge of the Book Block Library and Ownership Stamps Labels Other Indications of Ownership Signatures Hidden Names of Authors and the Places where They Live Name Hidden in Illuminations Pre-Printed Paper Appendix 1 Candra Sangkala in Manuscripts Appendix 2 Alternative Names for Macapat Meters Appendix 3 Pada Marks in Javanese, Sundanese and Madurese Manuscripts Appendix 4 Sasmita Salinining Tĕmbang from Java, Lombok, Bali and Sunda Appendix 5 Sasmita Wiwitaning Tĕmbang in Javanese Texts from Java Appendix 6 Verse Schemes of the Most Encountered Verse Meters in Bali According to I Gusti Putu Jlantik Appendix 7 Kakawin Verse MetersAppendix 8 Table to Calibrate the Javanese and Arabic Years to the Gregorian Calendar According to Djidwal 1932 Glossary Manuscripts Quoted Bibliography Index
£169.60
Brill Corpus of Soqotri Oral Literature: Volume 2
Book SynopsisFour years after the publication of the Corpus of Soqotri Oral Literature, volume I (Brill, 2014), this volume present the second installment of the Corpus. Inspired by D.H. Müller’s pioneering studies of the 1900s, the authors publish a large body of folklore and ethnographic texts in Soqotri. The language is spoken by more than 100,000 people inhabiting the island Soqotra (Gulf of Aden, Yemen). Soqotri is among the most archaic Semitic languages spoken today, whereas the oral literature of the islanders is a mine of original motifs and plots. Texts appear in transcription, English and Arabic translations, and the Arabic-based native script. Philological annotations deal with grammatical, lexical and literary features, as well as realia. The Glossary accumulates all words attested in the volume. The Plates provide a glimpse into the fascinating landscapes of the island and the traditional lifestyle of its inhabitants.Table of ContentsPreface On This Volume Abbreviations of Lexicographic Tools Introduction The Texts Text 1 The Son of Cowhide | ابن ذي الجلود Text 2 How People Make Use of Milk on Soqotra | كيف يستفيد أهل سقطرى من الحليب Text 3 How People Treat Meat on Soqotra | كيف أهل سقطرى يعملون باللحم Text 4 A Wife’s Betrayal of Her Husband | المرأة الخائنة لزوجها Text 5 Oh Generation … | يا أيها الجيل … Text 6 My Step-Mother Says … | تقول خالتي Text 7 The Cow Named Ditbaḥt | قصة البقرة ديتبحت Text 8 Little Isa | قصة الولد ديعسياتن Text 9 How People Plant Palm Trees on Soqotra | كيف يغرس أهل سقطرى أشجار النخل Text 10 Drying and Trampling of Dates | ألتجفيف والعجن Text 11 Kinds of Dates on Soqotra | تمر نخل سقطرى Text 12 Riddles | الألغاز Text 13 A Rich Man Who Had Nothing | التاجر الخيالي Text 14 The Devil’s Seed | نطفة إبليس Text 15 A Man’s Advice to His Friend | نصيحة الرجل لزميله Text 16 A Kind Jinni Woman | الجنية اللطيفة Text 17 A Jinni Woman Who Advises Well | الجنية الناصحة Text 18 A Jinni Woman with Nails | جنية ذات مسمار Text 19 A Prayer Heard | الدعاء المستجاب Text 20 Cinderella | رميدة Text 21 When Animals Could Talk | الحيوانات الناطقة Text 22 The Four Teats | الضروع الأربعة Text 23 The Two Liars | كذبة الاثنين Text 24 A Son Rebukes His Mother | الولد العاتب لأمّه Text 25 The Fairy | الجنية اللطيفة Text 26 The Sultan’s Assembly | اجتماع السلطان Text 27 How People Built a House in Former Times | كيف كان الناس يبنون المنزل في الماضي Text 28 The Wicked Stepmother | الأم الغادرة Text 29 A Boy’s Wit | نكتة الولد Text 30 The Story of the Tribe Eter | قصة آتر Appendices Glossary List of Plates Plates Bibliography
£172.80
Brill Voices on Birchbark: Everyday Communication in Medieval Russia
Book SynopsisIn Voices on Birchbark Jos Schaeken explores the major role that writing on birchbark – an ephemeral, even ‘throw-away’ form of correspondence and administration – played in the vibrant medieval merchant city of Novgorod and other cities in the Russian Northwest. Birchbark literacy was crucial to the organization of Novgorodian society; it was integrated into a huge variety of activities and had a broad social basis; it was used extensively by the laity, by women as well as men, by villagers as well as landlords. Voices on Birchbark is the first book-length study of this unique corpus in English. By examining a representative selection of birchbark texts, Jos Schaeken presents fascinating vignettes of daily medieval life and a holistic picture of the pragmatics of communication in pre-modern societies.Trade Review"Jos Schaeken has produced a subtle, impressively thorough (despite its brevity) and up-to-date guide to an important, intriguing and deceptively complex set of sources. His book is a very welcome addition to the lamentably limited English-language bibliography of the subject." -Simon Franklin, Clare College, University of Cambridge in Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics, 2019 "Le livre de J. Schaeken est une belle et multifacette représentation de tout le corpus des documents sur écorce de bouleau." -Timofey V. Guimon in Cahiers de civilisation Médiévale, 2019
£110.40
Brill Aztec Religion and Art of Writing: Investigating Embodied Meaning, Indigenous Semiotics, and the Nahua Sense of Reality
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2020 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Historical Studies In her groundbreaking investigation from the perspective of the aesthetics of religion, Isabel Laack explores the religion and art of writing of the pre-Hispanic Aztecs of Mexico. Inspired by postcolonial approaches, she reveals Eurocentric biases in academic representations of Aztec cosmovision, ontology, epistemology, ritual, aesthetics, and the writing system to provide a powerful interpretation of the Nahua sense of reality. Laack transcends the concept of “sacred scripture” traditionally employed in religions studies in order to reconstruct the Indigenous semiotic theory and to reveal how Aztec pictography can express complex aspects of embodied meaning. Her study offers an innovative approach to nonphonographic semiotic systems, as created in many world cultures, and expands our understanding of human recorded visual communication. This book will be essential reading for scholars and readers interested in the history of religions, Mesoamerican studies, and the ancient civilizations of the Americas. "This excellent book, written with intellectual courage and critical self-awareness, is a brilliant, multilayered thought experiment into the images and stories that made up the Nahua sense of reality as woven into their sensational ritual performances and colorful symbolic writing system." - Davíd Carrasco, Harvard UniversityTrade ReviewIsabel Laack’s Aztec Religion and Art of Writing makes an important departure from the way aesthetics, semiotics, and studies of religion have been applied to our understanding of Aztec civilization and culture. Furthermore, by relocating the epicenter of scholarly “gaze,” to religion and regions beyond Christianity and Anglo-American or European contexts, Laack offers an innovative postcolonial aesthetic approach to religion. Laack’s bold methodological departure from her own graduate training provides encouragement for scholars of all stages to chart similar pathways for themselves. - Jury of the AAR 2020 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Historical Studies.Table of ContentsContents Foreword Acknowledgments List of Illustrations Introduction 1 Introducing the Subject 2 Indicating Sociopolitical Relevance 3 Realizing the Aesthetics of Religion 4 Outlining the Chapters 1 Methodology 1 Doing Research in a Postcolonial World 2 Writing History 3 Clarifying Perspectives and Objectives 4 Summary 2 Living in Cultural Diversity 1 Drawing on History 2 Living in the Central Highlands 3 Living in Religious Diversity 4 Conclusion: Diversity within the Nahua Tradition 3 Living in Relation: Being Human in Tenochtitlan 1 How the World Came to Be 2 How the Human World Came to Be 3 How the Cosmic Dynamics Unfold 4 Living in Cosmic Relations 5 Living in Social Relations 6 Living Properly—Living in Balance 4 A World in Motion: Nahua Ontology 1 Aztec Notions of “Divinity” 2 The Nature of Teotl 3 Teotl’s Realization: Nahualli and the Layers of Reality 4 A World in Motion: The Fifth Era 5 The Problem of Ephemerality: What Is Really Real? 5 Understanding a World in Motion: Nahua Epistemology 1 Epistemology 2 Knowledge Experts: Wise (Wo)Men and Scribes 2 People with Special Insights 3 The Inspiration of Knowledge and Its Expression 6 Interacting with a World in Motion: Nahua Pragmatism and Aesthetics 1 Human Agency: Seeking Balance 2 Human Duties 3 Interacting with Rituals 4 Involving the Senses and Aesthetic Media 5 The Concept of the Teixiptla 7 Expressing Reality in Language: Nahua Linguistic Theory 1 Nahua Oral Tradition 2 Reconstructing Nahua Songs 3 Thinking in Nahuatl 4 Nahua Imagery 5 The Relationship between the Spoken Sign and Reality in Nahuatl 6 Nahua Imagery and the Problem of Rationality 8 Materializing Reality in Writing: Nahua Pictography 1 The History of Writing Systems in Mesoamerica 2 The Writing System of the Nahuas 3 Social Text Practice 4 Books and Authors 5 Nahua Culture between Orality and Literacy 9 Understanding Pictography: Interpreting Nahua Semiotics 1 The History of Evaluating Aztec Writing 2 Different Kinds of Meaning and Knowledge 3 Seeing Reality: Nahua Semiotic Theory 4 Interpreting Nahua Pictography 10 Interpretative Results: Nahua Religion, Scripture, and Sense of Reality 1 From Religion to Being-in-the-World 2 From Scripture to Semiotics 3 Interrelationships: Semiotic Theory and Embodied Meaning Conclusion References Index Plates
£180.00
Brill Hrozný and Hittite: The First Hundred Years
Book SynopsisThis volume collects 33 papers that were presented at the international conference held at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in November 2015 to celebrate the centenary of Bedřich Hrozný’s identification of Hittite as an Indo-European language. Contributions are grouped into three sections, “Hrozný and His Discoveries,” “Hittite and Indo-European,” and “The Hittites and Their Neighbors,” and span the full range of Hittite studies and related disciplines, from Anatolian and Indo-European linguistics and cuneiform philology to Ancient Near Eastern archaeology, history, and religion. The authors hail from 15 countries and include leading figures as well as emerging scholars in the fields of Hittitology, Indo-European, and Ancient Near Eastern studies.Table of ContentsAbbreviations Introduction Part 1: Hrozný and His Discoveries 1 Hrozný’s Excavations at Kültepe and the Resurrection of a Bronze Age Palace Gojko Barjamovic 2 Hrozný’s Excavations, 1924–1925: Sheikh Sa’ad, Tell Erfad Jan Bouzek 3 Hrozný and the Decipherment of Hieroglyphic Luwian J.D. Hawkins 4 Bedřich Hrozný and the Aegean Writing Systems: An Early Decipherment Attempt Artemis Karnava 5 A Fruitful Collaboration between E. Sellin and B. Hrozný during his Viennese Years: The Cuneiform Texts from Tell Taanach and Their Impact on Syro-Levantine Studies Regine Pruzsinszky Part 2: Hittite and Indo-European 6 Consonant Clusters, Defective Notation of Vowels and Syllable Structure in Caromemphite Ignasi-Xavier Adiego 7 Tagging and Searching the Hittite Corpus Dita Frantíková 8 The Phonetics and Phonology of the Hittite Dental Stops Alwin Kloekhorst 9 Über die hethitische 3. Sg. Präsens auf -ia-Iz-zi Martin Joachim Kümmel 10 The Word for Wine in Anatolian, Greek, Armenian, Italic, Etruscan, Semitic and Its Indo-European Origin Reiner Lipp 11 Satzanfänge im Hethitischen Rosemarie Lühr 12 Hittite Historical Phonology after 100 Years (and after 20 Years) H. Craig Melchert 13 MUNUS/fduttarii̯ata/i- and Some Other Indo-European Maidens Veronika Milanova 14 One Century of Heteroclitic Inflection Georges-Jean Pinault 15 From Experiential Contact to Abstract Thought: Reflections on Some Hittite Outcomes of PIE *steh2- ‘to stand’ and *men- ‘to think’ Marianna Pozza 16 Hittite Syntax 100 Years Later: The Case of Hittite Indefinite Pronouns Andrei V. Sideltsev 17 Das unerwartete in der altassyrischen Nebenüberlieferung hethitischer Wörter Zsolt Simon 18 The Personal Deictic Function of Hittite kāša, kāšma and kāšat(t)a: Further Evidence from the Texts Charles W. Steitler 19 Lycian Erimñnuha Jan Tavernier 20 The Indo-European Feminine, the Neuter, and the Diagnostic Value of the τὰ ζῷα τρέχει rule in Greek and Anatolian Annette Teffeteller 21 Sidetisch – Ein Update zu Schrift und Sprache Christian Zinko and Michaela Zinko Part 3: The Hittites and Their Neighbors 22 The LÚ.MEŠ SAG and Their Rise to Prominence Tayfun Bilgin 23 Virginity in Hittite Ritual Billie Jean Collins 24 Venus in Furs: Sappho fr. 101 Voigt between East and West Alexander Dale 25 A Problem of Meaning: Variations in Hittite Landscape as Narrated in the Sun-god’s mugawar (CTH 323) Romina Della Casa 26 „Fehler“ und Fehlschreibungen in hethitischen Texten Susanne Görke 27 Personennamen der hethitischen Großreichszeit als Quellen religiöser Verhältnisse Manfred Hutter 28 Die Gottheit Nikarawa in Karkamiš Sylvia Hutter-Braunsar 29 From Nerik to Emar Patrick M. Michel 30 The Last Foothold of Arzawa: The Problem of the Location of Puranda and Mount Arinnanda Revisited Rostislav Oreshko 31 Phrygia and the Near East Maya Vassileva 32 The Disappearance of Telipinu in the Context of Indo-European Myth Roger D. Woodard 33 Foreign Medical Knowledge in Ḫattuša: The Transmission and Reception of Mesopotamian Therapeutic Texts in the Hittite World Valeria Zubieta Lupo Index
£242.40
Brill Mittani Palaeography
Book SynopsisIn Mittani Palaeography, Zenobia Homan analyses cuneiform writing from the Late Bronze Age Mittani state, which was situated in the region between modern Aleppo, Erbil and Diyarbakır. The ancient communication network reveals a story of local scribal tradition blended with regional adaptation and international political change, reflecting the ways in which written knowledge travelled within the cuneiform culture of the Middle East. Mittani signs, their forms, and variants, are described and defined in detail utilising a large digital database and discussed in relation to other regional corpora (Assyro-Mittanian, Middle Assyrian, Nuzi and Tigunanum among others). The collected data indicate that Mittanian was comparatively standardised – an innovation for the period – signifying the existence of a centralised system of scribal training.
£172.00
Brill Inscribed Objects and the Development of
Book SynopsisThe introduction of writing enables new forms of literature, but these can be invisible in works that survive as manuscripts. Through looking at inscriptions of poetry on garbage and as graffiti, we can glimpse how literature spread along with writing. This study uses these lesser-studied sources, including inscriptions on pottery, architecture, and especially wooden tablets known as mokkan, to uncover how poetry, and literature more broadly, was used, shared and thrown away in early Japan. Through looking at these disposable and informal sources, we explore the development of early Japanese literature, and even propose parallels to similar developments in other societies across space and time.
£95.20
