Occasional Paper seriesMultilayered Written Artefacts in Focus

12 June 2024

Photo: Private

Borno, Nigeria, private collection, MS.5 Konduga Qur’an, fol. 249a.

Far from being stable or unchanging entities, many written artefacts evolve over the course of time, acquiring ‘layers’. A new Occasional Paper deals with these complex written artefacts from an analytical point of view and proposes some relevant terminological distinctions.

Written artefacts are shaped by complex processes of production and use, as well as by different settings and patterns. These factors might be subject to change, depending on where, by whom, and how a written artefact is used after its creation. Hence, far from being stable or unchanging entities, many written artefacts evolve over the course of time, acquiring ‘layers’ akin to archaeological strata. Whether these layers extend, delete, or replace a written artefact’s contents, they always affect it on the material level, leaving identifiable traces that add to the written artefact’s complexity.

The new paper in the Occasional Paper series, which was written by José Maksimczuk, Berenice Möller, Thies Staack, Alexander Weinstock, and Jana Wolf, suggests calling such complex written artefacts ‘multilayered’ – a concept that is arguably best suited to capturing the outcome of continued, at times long-term, or intermittent uses of a written artefact. The paper also suggests further terms for a more precise analysis of the multilayered nature of written artefacts, including the distinction between ‘primary layer’ and ‘secondary layer(s)’, and between ‘closed’ and ‘open’ primary layers, as well as a taxonomy of the acts creating secondary layers (addition, subtraction, and replacement of content and/or material).

The Occasional Paper series brings together contributions with theoretical and terminological reflections by CSMC researchers. In the multidisciplinary working environment at the Cluster, they are regularly confronted with the challenge of communicating across disciplinary boundaries and developing general concepts that can be used to analyse different manuscript cultures. All of the papers presented in this series reflect the current and preliminary state of reflection and are therefore to be read less as a summary of definitive results than as a basis for further discussion. The authors of the individual contributions explicitly welcome remarks, comments, and critical objections. In order to make the Occasional Papers as easily available as possible, we publish all of them on our website as open access.