Bookbindings as Instruments of Classification
Defining, Ordering, and Transmitting Knowledge in Christian Egypt (4th-12th centuries)
2020–2023
RFE09
Bindings capture the onlookers’ gaze, inspiring religious veneration, aesthetical admiration, and manifesting the purpose for which the manuscript has been created. Hence, the materials and techniques adopted in the manufacture of bookbinding bear witness not only to the craftsmanship but also to the prestige of a manuscript, its use, and the context in which it has been produced or transformed. Therefore, apart from protecting the leaves, bindings are used to define, organise, and transmit specific knowledge. Furthermore, bindings bear witness to the events that stratify during the life of a manuscript and show how the perceived value of texts changes during their life cycle. For this reason, the project also studies practices of reuse in which old manuscripts are transformed into functional parts of bindings. For example, the papyrus codex AMS9, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden, shows how strips of an old parchment codex were reused to reinforce the central fold at the sewing.
This project examines the relationship between the binding and the context of manuscripts by examining a corpus of Egyptian Christian codices dated between the 4th and 12th centuries. The research aims to understand the role of early Egyptian bindings as tools that, by adding a layer of content beyond the textual one, help to identify the typology of texts and thus to classify them. The questions raised by this study are: what materials and techniques were available for the production of bindings, and what guided the choice of specific solutions? What information does the binding add to the textual content?
Through a systematic description of the characteristics of bindings, this research aims to reveal recurring patterns to propose a typological classification of Egyptian bindings. Furthermore, the material data are linked to the textual content of manuscripts and interpreted in light of the cultural context. Thus, the study aims to identify the criteria behind the choice of binding materials and techniques, thus highlighting their role in classifying manuscripts in Late Antique and Early Medieval Egypt. Finally, the development of good documentation practices, based on standardised terminology and methods, makes it possible to combine binding records from different project databases, in particular PAThs and Beta maṣāḥǝft, thus facilitating research from a comparative perspective.
People
Project lead: Eliana Dal Sasso