Palaeographic

Palaeography, or paleography in American English, is the study of ancient handwriting and the deciphering, dating, and authenticity assessment of historical manuscripts. The adjective palaeographic describes methods, scripts, and writings associated with such materials. The field covers a wide range of writing systems—from ancient hieroglyphs and cuneiform to medieval Latin, Greek, and vernacular scripts—and seeks to interpret, transcribe, and analyze the physical evidence of documents.

Palaeographers examine letter forms, ligatures, spacing, and layout to classify scripts by period and region, identify scribal hands, and detect stylistic shifts. They also assess the material aspects of manuscripts (parchment, papyrus, ink, pigments) and codicological features (binding, foliation) as clues to provenance and dating. Radiocarbon dating and contextual historical data may supplement palaeographic dating, while ink and paper analysis can corroborate conclusions.

The practice is interdisciplinary, overlapping with codicology, diplomatics, and epigraphy, and underpins critical editions of texts, philological editions, and manuscript cataloging. Digital palaeography uses high-resolution imaging, multispectral photography, and computational analysis to improve legibility and to compare scripts across large corpora.

Historically, palaeography developed as a formal scholarly discipline in the early modern period, evolving with library science and archival studies. Contemporary palaeographers work in universities, libraries, museums, and digital humanities projects, contributing to our understanding of cultural transmission, scribal networks, and textual history.