How can different writing initiatives be distinguished?

Reconstruction of Writing Processes and Stages in Written Artefacts

Andreas Janke

A central task in the study of WAs is the reconstruction of the writing processes that constitute the content and the singularity of a WA. The goal is to narrow down the time and place of the scripts, and to determine the number of scribes involved, as well as the chronological sequence of their entries, corrections, including later additions.

Many of these questions are traditionally investigated with the methods of palaeography, which primarily work comparatively and classify related aspects. Since the respective results are limited to visual examination, the use of scientific material analysis is necessary to verify, falsify, concretise, or significantly expand the results of palaeographic investigations.

Therefore, from the materials of one or more WAs data is obtained that will help to answer these questions. For example, significant results have been achieved through the non-destructive chemical analysis of inks. XRF spectroscopy has proven to be a promising method for identifying trace elements (e.g. copper, zinc, aluminium, manganese) in order to classify iron gall inks and determine different ink types. For this purpose, a finger print model is created that sets these trace elements relative to the main component iron. The analysis of carbon inks or mixed inks also benefits from an XRF analysis to determine certain contaminations. In such cases, however, the application of Infrared Reflectography provides further necessary results.

This identification of ink types provides new evidence that may be combined with the results of the palaeographic investigation. For example, two different ink types could refer to two different scribes, or to one scribe but to different writing initiatives.