Palaeography facts for kids

William Shakespeare's will, written in secretary hand

Palaeography (UK) or paleography (US; ultimately from Greek: παλαιός, palaiós, "old", and γράφειν, graphein, "to write") is the study of ancient and historical handwriting (that is to say, of the forms and processes of writing; not the textual content of documents). Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of scriptoria.

The discipline is important for understanding, authenticating, and dating ancient texts. However, it cannot in general be used to pinpoint dates with high precision.

Images for kids

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  Drawing of the hieroglyphic seal found in the Troy VIIb layer

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  Table showing the Mandaic alphabet (Abagada) with some of the mysteries represented by the letters

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  Greek minuscule, 15th-century manuscript of Aristotle.

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  Detail of the Berlin papyrus 9875 showing the 5th column of Timotheus' Persae, with a coronis symbol to mark the end.

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  The Derveni Papyrus, a Greek Macedonian philosophical text dating around 340 BC, considered Europe's oldest manuscript

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  Greek papyrus with Homer's verses, 1st century BC

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  Copy of Herculanean Rolls, Greek papyrus 157–152

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  Section of the Codex Alexandrinus, the oldest Greek witness of the Byzantine text in the gospels.

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  Variants of paragraphos

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  Paper strip with writing in Kharoṣṭhī, 2nd–5th century

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  Rigveda manuscript in Devanāgarī (early 19th century)

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  Coin of Vikramadytia Chandragupta II with the name of the king in Brahmi script, 5th century

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  Folio14 recto of the Vergilius Romanus written in rustic capitals, also contains an author portrait of Virgil.

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  Latin script

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  Page from the Magdeburg's Chronica archiepiscoporum

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  A 10th-century codex of Origo gentis Langobardorum from Reims

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  8th-century Merovingian script

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  Alphabet in Visigothic script

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  A page in Carolingian minuscule (Book of Exodus)

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  Frontispiece, handwritten in Early New High German, of the so-called Stadtbuch from Bolzano, dated 1472

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  Handwriting by Niccolò de' Niccoli (1364–1437), which served as the origin of italic type.

See also

In Spanish: Paleografía para niños