Number Of Scribes Research Articles

One Scribe or Two? On the Copying of Sir Gawayn and the Carl of Carlisle in NLW Brogyntyn ii.1

ABSTRACT National Library of Wales Brogyntyn ii.1 (Porkington 10) is a fifteenth-century miscellany copied by a considerable number of scribes, though there is no consensus on the exact number. In the copying of Sir Gawayn and the Carl of Carlisle, some scholars have identified two scribes, others just one. This paper analyses different language levels within this poem with the objective of determining the likelihoods of having one or two scribes for this section of the codex. This is the first study to offer a detailed comparison between ff. 12r-22v and 23r-6r and other stints undoubtedly copied by the same scribe of 12r-22v. It presents data extracted from the manuscript which ultimately reveal different scribal patterns in the poem with respect to palaeographical and orthographic habits, although these do not signal dialectal differences in the localisation of the fragments.

The Book of the Dead Manuscripts of the Lady Hatnefer in the Egyptian Museum of Cairo: Two Hieratic Papyri and One Leather Roll (TR-No. 25–1–55–6)

Generally, the Book of the Dead in the New Kingdom was inscribed in hieroglyphic and cursive hieroglyphic scripts. However, a few examples were inscribed in hieratic handwriting at the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty. This paper will present interesting examples of these early sources. Three hieratic manuscripts from the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty belong to the lady Hatnefer, the mother of the renowned Senenmut. This group of hieratic manuscripts consists of two papyri and one leather roll. This paper will also shed light on the handwriting of the manuscripts and try to figure out the number of scribes who were involved in writing these manuscripts based on palaeographical analysis.

Laser surface treatment of CFRP composites for a better adhesive bonding owing to the mechanical interlocking mechanism

Adhesion can be greatly improved by the correct surface preparation techniques. One of the most common and useful technique is specific surface structuring which leads to mechanical interlocking and greater adhesion. This work describes the effect of laser‐induced line pattern surface structuring on the mechanical interlocking mechanism and so on the adhesive bonding of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites. Surface patterns with different laser scribes were obtained by CO2 laser treatment. The effect of the number of a laser shot, the scribe depth, the number of the scribe and the angle between the direction of the laser scribes and mechanical test direction on the adhesive bonding strength of CFRP/CFRP joints was investigated by performing the single lap shear tests according to the ASTM D5868‐01. After destructive tests, damaged surfaces were analyzed for determining the failure mechanisms. Mechanical tests showed that laser scribe characteristics especially the number of laser shot and the number of scribes have significant effects on the mechanical interlocking mechanism and so on the adhesion bonding strength. It is suggested that in order to improve the adhesion strength of CFRP/CFRP joints, mechanical interlocking mechanism shall be obtained by optimized laser scribe patterns. POLYM. COMPOS., 40:3611–3622, 2019. © 2019 Society of Plastics Engineers

Scribal Revision. A Post-Qumran Perspective on the Formation of Jeremiah

AbstractThis article describes the presence of three different degrees of scribal revision in Jeremiah: (1) multidimensional revision—the revision of multiple aspects of a text in a single moment by one scribe (such as relocating the Oracles Against the Nations and the addition of new headings); (2) single-dimensional revision—the revision of one aspect of a text (such as the addition of new headings by itself) again by one scribe in one moment; and, (3) incremental revision—the ongoing, piecemeal revision of one aspect of a text by an unknown number of scribes over a longer period of time. This article offers criteria for distinguishing these degrees of revision and applies the criteria to two categories of scribal expansion in Jeremiah: the insertion of names and titles and the addition of new headings. It concludes that these features took shape through a combination of all three degrees of revision.

Computerized Paleographic Investigation of Hebrew Iron Age Ostraca

This article surveys ongoing research of the Legibility Enhancement of Ostraca (LEO) team of Tel Aviv University in the field of computerized paleography of Hebrew Iron Age ink-written ostraca. We perform paleographic tasks using tools from the fields of image processing and machine learning. Several new techniques serving this aim, as well as an adaptation of existing ones, are described herein. This includes testing a range of signal-acquisition methodologies, out of which multispectral imaging and Raman spectroscopy have matured into imaging systems. In addition, we deal with semior fully automated facsimile construction and refinement, facsimile, and character evaluation, as well as the reconstruction of broken character strokes. We conclude with future research directions, addressing some of the long-standing epigraphic questions, such as the number of scribes in specific corpora or detection of chronological concurrences and inconsistencies.

SCRIBAL VARIATION AND THE MEANING OF THE HOUMA AND WENXIAN COVENANT TEXTS' IMPRECATION MA YI FEI SHI 麻夷非是

AbstractThe article presents the findings of a survey of the imprecation phrase ma yi fei shi 麻夷非是 and its variations, as written (using brush and ink) on several thousand excavated covenant texts (mengshu 盟書) from Houma 侯馬 and Wenxian 溫縣. I argue that the findings support Zhu Dexi 朱德熙 and Qiu Xigui 裘錫圭's analysis of the phrase as mi yi bi shi 靡夷彼氏 “Wipe out that shi” (shi, I suggest, referring to the covenantor and his direct male descendants). Through comparison of scribal hands, I demonstrate that those variations which do not fit this analysis were produced by a small number of scribes and, in almost all cases, can be shown to be errors. I conclude that such variations are generally unreliable and do not require us to reject Zhu and Qiu's analysis. These examples suggest that formulaic, possibly archaic, stock phrases, such as this imprecation, were liable to be misinterpreted, even during the period in which they were in use. Identification of scribal hands and scribal errors was essential to this analysis, demonstrating not only the importance of this methodology in such research, but also the potential value of these particular materials for furthering our understanding of scribal habits and text reproduction in early China.

Gamelyn’s Place among the Early Exemplars for Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

Application of standard techniques from natural language processing on n-gram models of spelling enables quantification of the similarity between Middle English texts despite their lexical differences. Three studies employing similarity metrics confirm that a scribe’s spelling always is biased in the direction of his exemplars. This bias opens up a window on the number of scribes behind the exemplars for a text executed in a single hand, when other variables such as authorship and poetic form are held constant. A fourth study addresses nine manuscripts of Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem the Canterbury Tales with early textual contents. A one-way ANOVA/Tukey’s Range Test shows that none of these manuscripts is based on exemplars written in more than three hands, when allowance is made for variation due to poetic form. The results point to unified exemplars for the full text as the normal format for the poem’s transmission. The discussion suggests that the final tale ordering found in the first manuscripts is a product of collaboration between the poem’s first two scribes, probably working after Chaucer’s death and spuriously adding the Tale of Gamelyn.

Electrical losses induced by laser scribing during monolithic interconnection of devices based on a-Si:H

A laser patterning process for the quantification of electrical losses in thin film cells and modules is presented. This work is focused on the first and the third laser patterning, P1 and P3 using UV (355 nm), IR (1064 nm) and visible wavelengths (532 nm) with pulse duration of a few ns. The change in electrical parameters and dependence of the laser scribing parameters, as film removal threshold, number of scribes, overlaps, with different sizes of scribes and metallic contact, have been studied for the requirements concerning the electrical characteristics for minimizing the electric losses in the scribe. The investigation is primarily carried out in single solar cells. Several optical imaging techniques and monitoring the electrical characteristics in the dark and illumination conditions are used to assess the quality of the P3 scribes. Finally, a-Si:H modules are fabricated using the optimum combination of P1 and P3 process parameters, with valour’s of efficiency among 5%.

John Shirley's Heirs

ABSTRACT John Shirley compiled and wrote at least three miscellanies, probably more, in the first half of the fifteenth century; and Shirley's books appear to have remained accessible to a number of scribes in the decades following his death, to be used as exemplars for further miscellanies produced mainly in London for a century after his death. This article is an attempt to bring together what evidence we have for the network of scribes who inherited Shirley's books: what they copied from Shirley, what were their interests, how they may have had access to his books. John Shirley compiled and wrote at least three miscellanies, probably more, in the first half of the fifteenth century up to his death in 1456; and Shirley's books appear to have remained accessible to a number of scribes in the decades following his death, by what means we do not know, to be used as exemplars for further miscellanies produced mainly in London for a century after his death. (1) This article is an attempt to bring together what evidence we have for the network of scribes who inherited Shirley's books: what they copied from Shirley, what were their interests, and how they may have had access to his books. In a collection of essays on miscellanies, it will first be necessary to establish that Shirley's books and the books of later scribes who copied some of Shirley's texts can be considered as miscellanies, as understood elsewhere in this volume. Although most scholarly studies of Shirley's books have focused on their literary contents and Shirley's introductions, a closer look at their contents, as laid out so clearly in Tables 1 to 3 of Margaret Connolly's recent book on Shirley (pp. 30-31, 70-74, 146-49), reveals compilations more miscellaneous than these studies suggest. His earliest volume, London, British Library MS Additional 16165, includes besides literary works texts such as the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Master of Game, and a Latin Regula sacerdotalis. His second, as reconstructed from its parts in Sion College MS Arc.L.40.2/E.44, BL MS Harley 78 (fols [80.sup.r]-[83.sup.v]), and Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.3.20, includes besides literary works the translation of Deguileville's Pelerinage de la vie humaine, prognostications, prayers, and proverbs. His third, Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 59, while the most exclusively literary of his compilations, nevertheless includes a list of the Knights of the Garter in 1416, the Middle English translation of Augustinus de contemptu mundi, medical recipes, and an account of lucky and unlucky days. Those who copied his texts in succeeding decades also compiled miscellanies of literary, didactic, historical, and practical texts. For instance, BL MS Harley 7333 brings together the prose Brut, Middle English versions of Cato, proverbs, and Lydgate's verses on the kings of England with what we would more clearly define as literary texts. In John Shirley, Chapter 8, Margaret Connolly discusses the manuscripts of Shirley's 'successors', as she calls them. Manuscripts in which are copied one or more texts apparently derived from Shirley's manuscripts are BL MS Additional 34360; BL MS Harley 2251; Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library MS Eng. 530; BL MS Harley 7333; BL MS Cotton Titus A.xxvi (fols 61-207); John Stow's manuscripts, BL MSS Harley 367 and Additional 29729; and possibly BL MS Additional 5467 (Connolly, pp. 172-85). Other manuscripts discussed by Connolly as sharing a number of texts in common with Shirley manuscripts, though showing no signs of direct derivation, are BL MS Harley 7578 and Bodleian MS Rawlinson C.86 (pp. 177-78, 181-82). Others sharing some contents with this group of manuscripts are Leiden, University Library MS Vossius Germ. Gal. Q.9; Cambridge, Jesus College MS 56; Bodleian MS Fairfax 16; Cambridge, Trinity College MSS R.3.19 and R.3.21; BL MSS Harley 2255, Harley 372, Egerton 1995, and Lansdowne 699; and Lambeth Palace Library MS 306. …

A Sermon in Praise of Philosophy

Worcester Cathedral MS F.10 forms a random collection of Latin, English, and macaronic sermons which were gathered and copied by a fairly large number of scribes in the middle of the fifteenth century. These sermons, most of them anonymous, are for a variety of occasions and audiences and have been entered in no particular liturgical order, even if, as the presence of several sets of quire numbers indicates, the individual quires were reordered several times in the medieval period. The collection contains a number of pieces that were evidently preached to a university audience, as is shown by their addressing “magistri” and by internal references to a university milieu. Their locale was presumably Oxford. Besides such general university sermons, the collection also includes two that are labeled “Introitus Sententiarum” and three other pieces that agree with these in form — the scholastic sermon structure — and content — praise of theology or holy Scripture and Peter Lombard. These five pieces are introitus, academic speeches or sermons which, according to university statutes, bachelors as well as masters (or doctors) of theology were required to deliver as they began their courses on the Bible or on Peter Lombard's Sentences. In addition, the manuscript contains an item that is very similar to the introitus sermons in that it follows the scholastic sermon structure and praises its subject. The latter, however, is not theology but philosophy, and the thema on which the piece is based is not a biblical text but a quotation from Aristotle. A sermon on a secular text itself is a rarity in medieval sermon literature, certainly from England; and appearing as it does in a sermon collection, the piece seems to be a rarissima avis stuck in the wrong flock.

Manuscripts containing English decoration 871–1066, catalogued and illustrated: a review

In the period from Alfred's reign to the Norman Conquest scribes and artists in southern England once more achieved a high standard in bookmaking, comparable to the brilliant tradition which had been established in both the north and the south in the eighth century. Some codices survive which are rough in execution, written on poorly prepared membrane by unskilled hands, but the majority – by no means chiefly service books produced for ecclesiastical and royal patrons – demonstrate that by the end of the tenth century a large number of scribes understood the techniques of careful preparation of membranes and inks, had mastered the letter-forms of two scripts, Caroline minuscule and Anglo-Saxon square minuscule, and were disciplined to follow consistently a hierarchy of scripts for the openings of texts and major divisions, chapter titles, incipits and explicits. What remains must be only a fragment of the production of Benedictine monks and nuns, secular clerks and lay scribes. But however incomplete and unbalanced the evidence, the over-all level of accomplishment cannot be doubted.

Growth of libraries in India

The Indian civilization dates back to 3000 B.C., but there is no reliable evidence to show that any recorded material then existed.1 During the Ie the world’s longest poem, Muhabharatu, was composed in this period. So were the Vedas and Rumuyunu. It was during the timeofAsoka (269-232 B.C.) that his promulgations were inscribed on stone pillars and rocks in two different scripts to become the first official records inscribed in public places .s Thus, these inscriptions could be ascribed as the first libraries of India.3 Also the memorials and shrines built with sculptures of Buddha’s birth stories and discourses, and labelled with short inscriptions have been called “open libraries”.4 Of the earliest libraries, Nalanda university library has a distinct place. It was large enough to cater to the needs ofthousands ofstudents and hundreds of teachers. Foreign scholars used to visit this library to find authenticated copies of the sacred books of Buddhism. The library was housed in three splendid buildings; one of them was a nine-storied building. The size of the collection is not known, but it is estimated that it comprised hundreds ofthousands ofvolumes; one visiting scholar, I-tsing, is reported to have stayed for ten years to copy four hundred Sanskrit texts. The library is reported to have flourished until the twelfth century, but as it was completely destroyed, no further details about it are known.5 Besides Nalanda, the famous Chinese traveller, Hiuen Tsang, mentions in his work, Sipki, other Buddhist libraries at Tamralipti (now in West Bengal) and at 24 monasteries. These libraries consisted ofBuddhist scriptures and commentaries and were well equipped and had a number of scribes to copy manuscripts. Non-Buddhist works had no place in these collections; if gifts of such works were received, they were sold and their