We have been quiet here on the project blog for a few months, but we have been busy. Robert Emil Berge, one of the postdoctoral researchers on the project, has built the infrastructure of our database of codicological and provenance details, and we have been doing our best to populate it.
A lot of this work involves revisiting publications and closely examining digital images, but we have also been visiting different collections to examine selected pieces in person and also to investigate archival documentation about manuscript purchases and excavation.
This process has been revealing. In some cases, we have been able to spot some small but important details that seem to have escaped notice until now (for instance, page numbers). And we have begun to be able to see some patterns across the corpus that were a little unexpected, like the continuing use of carbon-based inks for activities like annotations, corrections, and the addition of accents and other diacritical marks.
On the provenance side, some rich documentation of the British-American papyrus syndicate has become available from the British Library, and this has helped connect some dots between collections in the US and the UK. So, we’re keeping busy and some articles are in the pipeline. Keep an eye on the publications page in the coming months.
The Early History of the Codex 