Reading List
‘Book science’ is becoming increasingly recognized as an umbrella term uniting various fields and areas of interdisciplinary study of historical books and other written artefacts. If you have never heard of book science, here is a very short introductory reading list to acquaint you with some of the main methods and areas of research. It is by no means comprehensive, but it can get you started on your journey.
Read This First:
Panayatova, Stella, ed. The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts: A Handbook. Brepols, 2021.
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Panayatova, Stella. “Introduction: the Integrated Analyses of Illuminated Manuscripts.” The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts: A Handbook, Brepols, 2021, pp. 11-21.
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Ricciardi, Paola, and Patterson, Catherine Schmidt. “Science of the Book: Analytical Methods for the Study of Illuminated Manuscripts.” The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts: A Handbook, Brepols, 2021, pp. 35-71.
This book offers an excellent introduction to collaboration and to some of the main scientific methods of analysis currently available. Please excuse the quality of the PDFs!
Some Pitfalls, Controversies, and Ethical Considerations:
Loyer, Jessie. “Collections are our Relatives: Disrupting the Singular White Man’s Joy that Shaped Collections.” The Collector and the Collected: Decolonizing Area Studies Librarianship, edited by Meagan Browndorf, Erin Pappas, and Anna Arays, Library Juice Press, 2021 – not directly relating to scientific analysis but critical for thinking about the ethics of studying works of cultural heritage in a colonial context.
Rabin, Ira and Hahn, Oliver. “Detection of Fakes: the Merits and Limits of Non-Invasive Materials Analysis.” Fakes and Forgeries of Written Artefacts from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern China. edited by Cécile Michel and Michael Friedrich, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2020. pp.281-290. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110714333-013
Walton, Marc. “The Pitfalls of Using Scientific Methods to Authenticate Archaeological Artifacts.” SAS Bulletin 37.4, 2014, pp. 1–4. https://socarchsci.org/images/bulletin/SAS3704.pdf
Ink and Pigment Analysis:
Colini, C., Shevchuk, I., Huskin, KA., Rabin, I., and Hahn, O. “A New Standard Protocol for Identification of Writing Media.” Exploring Written Artefacts: Objects, Methods, and Concepts, edited by Jörg B. Quenzer, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2021, pp.161–182. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110753301-009
Dupey García, Elodie. “The Materiality of Color in Pre-Columbian Codices: Insights From Cultural History.” Ancient Mesoamerica 28.1, 2017, pp. 21–40. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536116000493
Gameson, Richard, ed. The Pigments of Medieval British Illuminators: A Scientific and Cultural Study. Archetype Publications, 2023.
Biocodicology:
Calhoun, Joshua. “Book Microbiomes: Foxing, Fungi, and ‘loveliness in all its forms’.” The Unfinished Book, edited by Deidre Lynch and Alexandra Gillespie, Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 460-473.
Fiddyment S., Teasdale M. D., Vnouček J., Lévêque É., Binois A., Collins M. J. “So you want to do biocodicology? A field guide to the biological analysis of parchment.” Heritage Science, 7.35, 2019.
Vnouček, Jıří. “Not all that shines like vellum is necessarily so.” Care and Conservation 17, 2021, pp. 27–59.
Radiocarbon Dating:
Brock, Fiona. “Radiocarbon Dating of Historical Parchments.” Radiocarbon 55.2, 2013, pp. 353–63. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033822200057477
Kasso, T. M., Oinonen, M., Mizohata, K., Tahkokallio, J. K. and Heikkilä, T. “Volumes of Worth—Delimiting the Sample Size for Radiocarbon Dating of Parchment.” Radiocarbon 63.1, 2021, pp. 105–120. https://doi.org/10.1017/RDC.2020.128
Plofker, K., Keller, A., Hayashi, T., Montelle, C. and Wujastyk, D. “The Bakhshālī Manuscript: A Response to the Bodleian Library’s Radiocarbon Dating.” The History of Science in South Asia 5.1, 2017, pp. 134-150. https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01666444/document
Recovery of Palimpsested Text:
Easton, Roger and Noel, William. “Infinite possibilities: Ten years of study of the archimedes palimpsest.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 154.1, 2010, pp. 50–76. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20721527
Father Justin Sinaites and Toth, Michael B. Spectral Imaging at St. Catherine's Monastery to Reveal Ancient Texts. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, -11-19, 2012. Video. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2021688998/.
Giacometti, A., Campagnolo, A., MacDonald, L., Mahony, S., Robson, S., Weyrich, T., Terras, M., and Gibson, A. "The value of critical destruction: Evaluating multispectral image processing methods for the analysis of primary historical texts." Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 32.1, 2017, pp 101–122. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqv036
Hone, J., "Pope’s Scrapes and Ghosts." The Review of English Studies, 75.319, 2024, pp 198–208. https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgae027
Kleynhans, T., Carr, M., and Messinger, D. "Low-cost, user friendly multispectral imaging system for the recovery of damaged, faded or palimpsested historical documents." Proc. SPIE 11727, Algorithms, Technologies, and Applications for Multispectral and Hyperspectral Imaging XXVII, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2585629
Zawacki, Alexander J., et al. "Fragments under the Lens: A Case Study of Multispectral versus Hyperspectral Imaging for Manuscript Recovery." Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures 12.1, 2023, pp. 123-143. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/dph.2023.0004.