Parchment Manuscripts Research Articles

Disinfection and Straightening of Parchment Damaged by Microorganisms

Article Disinfection and Straightening of Parchment Damaged by Microorganisms was published on January 1, 1980 in the journal Restaurator. International Journal for the Preservation of Library and Archival Material (volume 4, issue 2).

Radiocarbon Dating of Parchment

A NUMBER of parchment manuscripts of known historial age, from the period of the Renaissance, have been measured by the radiocarbon method to assess the feasibility and accuracy with which such documents can be dated. This study was also intended to check the veracity of secular variations in the radiocarbon content of the biosphere with animal rather than tree ring tissue.

Instructions for the Softening of Parchment Manuscripts and Bookbindings

Article Instructions for the Softening of Parchment Manuscripts and Bookbindings was published on January 1, 1970 in the journal Restaurator. International Journal for the Preservation of Library and Archival Material (volume 1, issue 1).

Two Scottish Thirteenth-century songs, with the original melodies, recently discovered in Sweden

Two previously unrecorded Scottish songs were contained within a parchment manuscript of 13th century date. One was a hymn sung at the wedding of Princess Margaret of Scotland to King Eric of Norway at Bergen in 1281. The other was a hymn in praise of St Magnus, Earl of Orkney, who died in 1115 and was enshrined in 1135. He was the patron saint of Orkney, and in his honour the Cathedral of Kirkwall was built and dedicated.

A Papyrus Manuscript of the Minor Prophets

Among the parchment and papyrus manuscripts and fragments brought to this country by the University of Michigan Expedition under Professor Francis W. Kelsey, only one is of paramount interest to the Biblical scholar. There are indeed lectionaries and parts of lectionaries dating from the eleventh century and later, and even a single papyrus fragment of a Psalm, but the former are uninteresting textually, and the latter is too small to give much evidence.

New Manuscripts of the Bible from Egypt

MR. CHARLES L. FREER of Detroit, Michigan, has in his possession four very ancient manuscripts of parts of the Bible. He purchased these early in 1907, in Cairo, from a dealer named Ali Arabi, who stated that the manuscripts came from Akhmim (the ancient Panopolis), where, it will be remembered, the Apocryphal Gospel and Revelation of Peter was found in 1886 in an ancient burying-ground. He also stated that a female statue, now No. 381 in the Cairo museum, was found at the same time. It is clear that the manuscripts were dug up from some place where they were buried or lost in ancient times, but we have as yet no accurate information in regard to either time or place of discovery. Before the purchase by Mr. Freer the manuscripts had been examined by Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt, and on their recommendation Mr. Hogarth had advised the British Museum to buy them. Early in December, 1907, Mr. Freer invited me to examine and report on the manuscripts and has placed every assistance at my service in accomplishing the work.' The four manuscripts are of different sizes, shapes, and ages, but they apparently once formed volumes of a single Bible, so I shall refer to them by the Roman numerals I to IV in the order in which they would have stood in that collection. Manuscript I is a parchment manuscript of Deuteronomy and Joshua, written in a large, upright uncial hand of the fourth