Palaeography in the context of "Jean Mabillon"

Epigraphy (from Ancient Greek ἐπιγραφή (epigraphḗ) 'inscription') is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the writing and the writers. Specifically excluded from epigraphy are the historical significance of an epigraph as a document and the artistic value of a literary composition. A person using the methods of epigraphy is called an epigrapher or epigraphist. For example, the Behistun inscription is an official document of the Achaemenid Empire engraved on native rock at a location in Iran. Epigraphists are responsible for reconstructing, translating, and dating the trilingual inscription and finding any relevant circumstances. It is the work of historians, however, to determine and interpret the events recorded by the inscription as document. Often, epigraphy and history are competences practised by the same person. Epigraphy is a primary tool of archaeology when dealing with literate cultures. The US Library of Congress classifies epigraphy as one of the auxiliary sciences of history. Epigraphy also helps identify a forgery: epigraphic evidence formed part of the discussion concerning the James Ossuary.

An epigraph (not to be confused with epigram) is any sort of text, from a single grapheme (such as marks on a pot that abbreviate the name of the merchant who shipped commodities in the pot) to a lengthy document (such as a treatise, a work of literature, or a hagiographic inscription). Epigraphy overlaps other competences such as numismatics or palaeography. When compared to books, most inscriptions are short. The media and the forms of the graphemes are diverse: engravings in stone or metal, scratches on rock, impressions in wax, embossing on cast metal, cameo or intaglio on precious stones, painting on ceramic or in fresco. Typically the material is durable, but the durability might be an accident of circumstance, such as the baking of a clay tablet in a conflagration.

The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the majority of the New Testament. It is designated by siglum B or 03 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and as δ 1 in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts. It is one of the four great uncial codices. Along with Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Sinaiticus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the 4th century AD.

The manuscript became known to Western scholars as a result of correspondence between textual critic Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (known usually as Erasmus) and the prefects of the Vatican Library. Portions of the codex were collated by several scholars, but numerous errors were made during this process. The codex's relationship to the Latin Vulgate and the value Jerome placed on it is unclear. In the 19th century AD transcriptions of the full codex were completed. It was at that point that scholars became more familiar with the text and how it differed from the more common Textus Receptus (a critical edition of the Greek New Testament based on earlier editions by Erasmus).

David Diringer (16 June 1900 – 13 February 1975) was a British linguist, palaeographer and writer. He was the author of several well-known books about writing systems.

Papyrus 47, also known as P. Chester Beatty III, is an early Greek New Testament manuscript written on papyrus, and is one of the manuscripts comprising the Chester Beatty Papyri. It is designated by the siglum 𝔓 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts. Manuscripts among the Chester Beatty Papyri have had several places of discovery associated with them, the most likely being the Faiyum. Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the early 3rd century CE. The manuscript contains text from the Book of Revelation chapters 9 through 17. It is currently housed at the Chester Beatty Library (Inv. 14. 1. 527) in Dublin.

In November 2020, the CSNTM in conjunction with Hendrickson Publishers released a new 1:1 high-resolution imaged facsimile edition of 𝔓 on black and white backgrounds, along with 𝔓 and 𝔓.

The Moscow Mathematical Papyrus, also named the Golenishchev Mathematical Papyrus after its first non-Egyptian owner, Egyptologist Vladimir Golenishchev, is an ancient Egyptian mathematical papyrus containing several problems in arithmetic, geometry, and algebra. Golenishchev bought the papyrus in 1892 or 1893 in Thebes. It later entered the collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, where it remains today.

Based on the palaeography and orthography of the hieratic text, the text was most likely written down in the 13th Dynasty and based on older material probably dating to the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt, roughly 1850 BC. Approximately 5.5 m (18 ft) long and varying between 3.8 and 7.6 cm (1.5 and 3 in) wide, its format was divided by the Soviet Orientalist Vasily Vasilievich Struve in 1930 into 25 problems with solutions.

The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII) is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, written on parchment. It is designated by the siglum A or 02 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and δ 4 in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts. It contains the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. It is one of the four Great uncial codices (these being manuscripts which originally contained the whole of both the Old and New Testaments). Along with Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the fifth century.

It derives its name from the city of Alexandria (in Egypt), where it resided for a number of years before it was brought by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Cyril Lucaris from Alexandria to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul in Turkey). It was then given to Charles I of England in the 17th century. Bishop Brian Walton assigned Alexandrinus the capital Latin letter A in the Polyglot Bible (a multi-language version of the Bible with the different languages placed in parallel columns) of 1657. This designation was maintained when the New Testament manuscript list system was standardized by Swiss theologian and textual critic Johann J. Wettstein in 1751. Thus Alexandrinus held the first position in the manuscript list.

The Codex Sinaiticus (/sɪˈnaɪtɪkəs/; Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), also called the Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonical books, and the Greek New Testament, with both the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas included. It is designated by the siglum א‎ [Aleph] or 01 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and δ 2 in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts. It is written in uncial letters on parchment. It is one of the four great uncial codices (these being manuscripts which originally contained the whole of both the Old and New Testaments). Along with Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible, and contains the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. It is a historical treasure, and using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the mid-fourth century.

Biblical scholarship considers Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the most important Greek texts of the New Testament, along with Codex Vaticanus. Until German Biblical scholar (and manuscript hunter) Constantin von Tischendorf's discovery of Codex Sinaiticus in 1844, the Greek text of Codex Vaticanus was unrivalled. Since its discovery, study of Codex Sinaiticus has proven to be useful to scholars for critical studies of the biblical text.