HotB

Where is cuneiform from/What group of people is linked to cuneiform?

Sumer/Sumerians

Papyrus

the paper-like material upon which the ancient world wrote its books and conducted its business

Hieroglyphica

sacred carved [letters]

cuneiform

Sumerian system of writing in which angular symbols were pressed into clay with a wedge-shaped stylus

Gaius Plinius Secundus

gives a vague description of how to make papyrus - slice papyus reeds and press into sheets, use muddy water (?) to bind together

Pergamon/Pergamom

Greek city-state now located in Turkey that was known for its library, which rivaled the Library of Alexandria, and the invention of parchment.

oak galls

nutlike tree growths caused by burrowing wasp larvae used to make ink

“Book of the Dead”

Ancient Egyptian collection of incantations entombed with the dead to help them navigate the afterlife

alum

a mineral salt that causes animal tissues to contract

What other skins were used to write on in the ancient world?

hippos, hyenas, lions, leopards, donkeys, cattle, sheep, pigs

membrana

skin that Rome used as leather for writing materials, often made from treated animal hides.

Dead Sea Scrolls

ancient Jewish texts discovered near the Dead Sea, notable for their historical and religious significance.

gewil

whole parchment that could be used in Jewish tradition for writing sacred texts, often made from animal hides.

kelaf

the “flesh side” of the animal skin used as parchment

duxutus

the hair side of parchment paper in Jewish tradition

tefillin

scrolls contained in small boxes worn on the head and left arm in Jewish tradition

mezuzah

scrolls placed on doorposts in Jewish tradition

De diversis artibus

“The Various Arts,” a twelfth-century arts-and-crafts manual written by Theophilus Presbyter, detailing techniques and materials for various crafts including metalwork and painting.

herse

drying fame used to stretch skin to be used as parchment

lunellarium

a moon-shaped knife used to scrape a herse (drying frame) clean

murex

a type of sea snails used for dyes

grimoires

people who wrote with their left hands

Friedrich Gottlob Keller and Charles Fenerty

Friedrich Gottlob (German) and Charles Fenerty (Canadian) introduced the use of wood pulp to be used as paper

jian

individual bamboo slips (like slips of paper) used in ancient China for writing, bound into mat-like rolls of fixed lengths ranging from eight inches to over two feet

jiance

bamboo scrolls

Cai Lun

credited with inventing paper, a eunuch, “died of worry” told to kill himself

chu

mulberry-like tree used for making paper in ancient China

Brussonetia papyrifera

paper mulberry used for making paper which is still used in China, Japan, and Korea to make paper in the ancient style

“couched”

A term referring to when sheets of paper are turned out from the mold onto a flat surface for drying before being pressed and finished.

write

to convert spoken language into sings scratched on stone and impressed in clay

bullae

spherical clay “envelopes” that sometimes held tokens

ostraca

makeshift media in Ancient Egypt, often broken pot fragments and slivers of limestone

Rosetta Stone

a stone tablet that held inscriptions of Egyptian hieroglyphics, demotic (simplified Egyptian script), and Greek

demotic

simplified Egyptian script

Champollion

A French linguist who succeeded in deciphering hieroglyphics by figuring that hieroglyphics were used both phonetically or pictographically

protokollon

the first, blank sheet of a roll that protects the rest when rolled up

elefantinon melan

“elephant’s skin” used by Greek writers as a writing ink/pigment

palimpset

a document that has been erased and then reused

Menes

Ancient Egpytian pharaoh regarded as the unifier of Upper and Lower Egypt, most likely a fictionalized representation of a real king named Narmer

papyrus scroll

portable volume[s] consisting of a series of written, printed, or illustrated pages bound together for ease of reading

simulacrum

“imitation” of another piece of writing

Prisse

(Achille-Constant-Theodores Emile Prisse d’Avennes) a French engineer who protected many Egyptian monuments and who smuggled many panels and a scroll abroad to France, published work on hieroglyphics

Mouseion

a temple dedicated to the Muses and a center for learning and scholarship in ancient Alexandria.

biblos (Greek)

papyrus

biblion (Greek)

scroll

kollemata (Greek)

sheets in a scroll

tomes (Greek)

long book cut shorter into an individual scroll

volumen

tomes rolled into an individual scroll

bibliotheke (Greek)

stone or wooden jars used in the Library of Alexandria to store volumes of books

sittybos (Greek)

(Romans preferred “titulus” —> “title”)

protruding tags affixed to one end of a scroll so that they could be identified without being unrolled

umbilici (Roman)

a pair of sticks, one attached to each end of a scroll to facilitate rolling and unrolling

pithoi

storage jar that could hold large quantities of books or scrolls

diptych

twofold writing tablet

polyptychs

collections of three tablets or more

Oxyrhynchus

Once Egypt’s third-largest city after the Alexandrian invasion where numerous ancient texts and manuscripts were discovered, garbage heap for the city

recto

the side of a papyrus scroll on which the fibers ran horizontally, “front” side of the page

term also used to mean the inner surface of a scroll on which scribes wrote

verso

the back side of papyrus that was not written on

orihon

concertina-folded book, a mythical scroll-codex hybrid that seemed to present believable if not definitive proof that one had evolved into the other

amatl

a papyrus like material derived from tree mark for more than a millennium and used by the Aztec and Maya people

amoxtli

books made from amatl of the Aztec and Maya people

memoriali libri

Caesar’s “memorandum book” or “notebook” made up of “leaves” (paginas)

pugillares

small, portable writing tablets used by Roman writers in Caesar’s time

tabellae

larger tablets than pugillare also used for writing on

pugillares membranae (Roman)

parchment notebooks

sabakh

nutrient-rich soil found in Upper Egpt

piasters

Egyptian cents

Nag Hammadi codices

a collection of ancient texts discovered in Egypt, containing early Christian and Gnostic writings found by two brothers in an earthenware jar;

St. Cuthbert Gospel

a pocket-sized manuscript containing the Gospel of John, attributed to St. Cuthbert and considered one of the oldest surviving books in Europe.

folio

each of the single sheets in a book, folded in half and attached to the spine

leaves

two halves of each folded folio

Coptic stitching

a style of binding that uses a continuous thread to sew together the folios of a book.

codices

writing on any tablet

“folder”

a flattened, polished sliver of bone the size and shape of a tongue depressor used for creasing folios and sundry other tasks

“lying press”

a general-purpose press used to hold a book in place during a variety of operations

headband

made by piercing holes near the top of each gathering and stitching them through the leather of the cover to help keep the book in one piece

(Tailband) - headband at bottom

A headband + tailband = endbands

“anthropodermic bibliopegy”

the practice of binding books with human skin

“case binding”

a method of binding where pages are sewn together and then enclosed in a rigid cover, providing durability and protection for the book.

George Routledge

British publisher who sold “yellow-back” railway novels that were sewn together but were finished with lurid/vibrant paper covers pasted onto boards made of straw pulp which made them cheaper than leather- or cloth-bound books

tuatha

Irish tribes in Ireland prior to Christianity coming to Ireland

illuminate

to embellish illustrated manuscripts with gold or silver

das Todtenbuch

another name for “the Book of the Dead”

An Cathach

an early illuminated manuscript of the Psalms, believed to be one of the oldest surviving manuscripts in Ireland.

Iona

island off the coast of Ireland known for its early Christian settlement and the production of illuminated manuscripts.

The Book of Durrow

an early illuminated manuscript created around the 7th century, known for its intricate designs of wavering lines of text

Lindisfarne Gospels

a beautifully illuminated manuscript of the Gospels created in the 8th century at a monastery off the coast of Northumberland notable for its intricate artwork of the Gospel writers and amplifying initial letters into sprawling, abstract shapes

Book of Kells

an illuminated manuscript created around the 9th century, famous for its lavish decoration, vibrant colors, and intricate designs that feature biblical texts and intricate illustrations (Ireland)

diminuendo

a metrical approach to linking large, decorative capitals to small unadorned body text

scriptio continua

a writing style without spaces between words, used in ancient manuscripts of the Romans

scriptorium/scriptoria

scribes’ writing rooms

antiquarii

scribes who specialized in careful, “antique” writing

scriptores

less practiced scribes entrusted with more mundane tasks

corrector

an experienced scribe engaged by more exacting scriptoria to proofread newly copied manuscripts

minium

orange lead that was the most indelibly associated with the art and craft of illuminated manuscripts

rubrica

red ink pigmented with minium

rubricators

scribes who used rubrica to decorate letters and symbols; headings called “rubrica”

miniators

illustrators who painted with minium

“Book of Hours”

A Christian devotional book popular in the Middle Ages, it contained prayers, psalms, and illustrations for specific hours of the day.

“sizing” paper

Paper treated with a mixture for improved ink absorbency by reducing its absorbency and preventing the unsightly blooms of ink

“Slaughterhouse”

The term Chinese papermakers used for the sizing room because so many pages were ruined or lost