CSMCCentre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures

With five ‘Concepts and Methods Units’, UWA restructured itself at the beginning of its new funding phase. The ancient historian Kaja Harter-Uibopuu heads one of these groups, which focuses on the central UWA topic of ‘Material Choices’. Here she explains what she aims to achieve with this group.

The CSMC and the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), a constituent college of Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL), have long maintained close academic ties. With the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, this partnership has now been placed on a formal and sustainable foundation.

From 30 August to 4 September 2026, the 20th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR 2026) will take place in Vienna. The prestigious conference will once again host the Workshop on Computational Paleography, co-organised by Hussein Mohammed.

The computer scientist will hold the Chair of ‘Knowledge-Based Databases’ at the University of Lübeck for one year, starting on 1 April. One focus of this Chair is to develop methods to enrich data with knowledge about context, meaning and user intent, thereby making it intelligently usable.

The Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’ (UWA) and the Institute for Jewish Studies are looking for a doctoral researcher in the field of Jewish Studies or a closely related field. The position is part-time and fixed term, with a duration of three years.

Can synchrotron X-rays shed light on the material biographies of cuneiform tablets? In a recent study, CSMC and DESY researchers analysed artefacts from two local collections in a non-destructive way. The paper is available open access.

Researchers from the Ajami Lab have continued their work on the Jos Museum manuscript collection deposited at the Kaduna Museum in Nigeria. This February, they established cataloguing and research procedures for identifying Ajami, and reviewed conservation principles relevant to the entire collection.

A new episode of the popular science programme on ZDF is devoted to ‘magical symbols’ and their deciphering. Several researchers from the CSMC are featured in it.