Keynote Talks
Professor Dr Peter Stokes
Directeur d’études
École Pratique des Hautes Études – Université PSL
Although quantitative methods in palaeography have been known for many years, it is mainly over the last decade that palaeographers and others in the humanities have become increasingly aware of computational methods, and the Document Analysis community is similarly becoming increasingly aware of work in the humanities. Nevertheless, historical handwriting and the objects that contain them are complex and multidimensional, and it seems clear that understanding them fully will require further and deeper collaboration between computer sciences, natural scientists, humanists and others. Achieving this remains a real challenge, and so this talk will present some of the difficulties that have been encountered over the last ten years or so, some of the promising advances that have been made, and some thoughts about possible future progress.
Dr Sebastian Bosch
Manager of Instrumental Analytics at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures
Universität Hamburg
This talk presents the laboratory of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) in Hamburg, Germany. It offers the possibility to study written artefacts by means of material technology and aims to bridge the gap between the humanities, natural sciences and technology. The lab has a wide range of high-end instruments, most of which are mobile and allow non-destructive analysis of artefacts on site. This enables us to answer various research questions such as typology and classification of inks, provenance studies, recovery of faded inscriptions and palimpsests, identification of colourants, binders and paper fibres, reconstruction of the history of manuscripts, authentication and dating. This talk provides an overview of the available techniques and possibilities of our laboratory and then presents case studies from various interdisciplinary projects.