Creating Originals

Research Field C

Every written artefact is unique. In many manuscript cultures, however, some written artefacts are assigned a special status, the status of an original. These objects are given a higher value in many different ways: they are collected, bought and sold at high prices, carefully preserved, treated with respect and even awe; they have great efficacy in legal, religious, economic, literary, and other contexts. Their special value may result from the materials employed, the special craftsmanship involved in their production, the person or persons responsible for them, or from the power associated with them. The numerous types include, among many others, autographs, art works, legal documents, letters, diaries, notes, test and experiment reports, and minutes and proceedings. As different as these types are, they all share a specific relationship between the object and the various parties involved in its production, use, and perception, i.e. the written artefact and the surrounding society.

‘Creating Originals’ (Research Field C) is studying the role of the materiality of written artefacts within these relations, focusing especially on two different levels: the individual and the societal. Accordingly, the examination of originals in the field of personal written artefacts has been a central aspect of our work. Various types of personal manuscripts have been analysed, and this endeavor has, among others, led to two collected volumes. The first, Personal Manuscripts: Copying, Drafting, Taking Notes (edited by Jürgen Paul and David Durand-Guédy), offers a broad approach to manuscripts that were produced for the writer’s own use. A specific type of personal written artefacts is discussed in the volume Manuscript Albums and their Cultural Contexts. Collectors, Objects, and Practices (edited by Janine Droese and Janina Karolewski). Such albums are collections of handwritten or -drawn entries by others and thus offer special challenges for manuscriptological theories and terminologies. Second, we have been discussing the question of how different societies used different ways and tools for authenticating written artefacts. Two workshops explored various forms of legal authentication, first focusing on seals (organised by Claudia Colini and Philippe Depreux) and then on a wider range of practices such as copying or signing (organised by Hannah Boeddeker, Elsa Clavé, Claudia Colini, Michael Kohs, and Ulla Kypta). This focus is reflected, for example, in Hannah Boeddeker’s dissertation Parlamente schreiben: Stenographie, Protokoll und politische Kultur, completed in 2023, which deals with the history of parliamentary shorthand writing.

Bringing the two perspectives together, the group realised a joint publication addressing one of the central concepts of the research field: in Originators: Transformation and Collaboration in the Production of Original Written Artefacts we investigated the plurality of people who were relevant in producing an original, in other words, the originators. The volume comprises 13 case studies ranging from Mesopotamian cuneiform writing to modern dance, which show how diverse groups of people worked together to create an original.

During the discussions, it became clear that museums and collections as well as (scholarly) literature play a special role in the process of creating an original. The way in which written artefacts are presented reflects and at the same time shapes their perception and appreciation by the communities in which they are embedded. Therefore, further work focuses on investigating the way written artefacts are displayed and framed in places accessible to the public. In order to promote the exchange of knowledge, we work together with relevant museums in Hamburg.

Spokespersons: Ulla Kypta, Uta Lauer, Janine Droese