Research Fields

Written artefacts can tell us much more than what meets the eye. Apart from their written content or design, the materials used, and their great variety, they store a wealth of information.

Inscriptions are omnipresent. They shape landscapes and cityscapes as well as interior spaces and include diverse artefacts ranging from inscribed vases to graffiti.

Each and every written artefact is unique. In many manuscript cultures, however, some written artefacts are assigned a special status, the status of an original.

Far from being stable or unchanging entities, many written artefacts evolve over the course of time, acquiring ‘layers’ akin to archaeological strata.

Written artefacts hardly ever come alone. In most cases, they are part of collections that occupy delimited spaces: a box, a folder, a niche in a wall, a shelf, a room, or a separate building.

The study of written artefacts produces a wealth of data. With AI technology, humanities research can be automatically made available as data again to be used by computational processes in future investigations.

Every day, people create written artefacts to help them organise their activities and thoughts. A particular type of such written artefacts is commonly called ‘notebooks’.

Multilingual written artefacts provide tangible evidence for linguistic and cultural interactions. They might be embedded in various social domains, such as administration, education, religion, trade, or family life.

In many cultures, the modes in which contents are transmitted in written artefacts are not homogenous. Different graphic systems form a multigraphic visual matrix that often demands multi-modal ways of reading.

Humans leave written traces wherever they set their foot. With a particular focus on the Global South, the Research Field ‘Graffiti’ works towards formulating a general framework for the study of graffiti as a global phenomenon.

The selection of materials for written artefacts is not accidental. Written artefacts are defined by material choices that at the same time affect their circulation, accessibility, and preservation.