Szirmai, John - The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding
Szirmai, John - The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding Szirmai, John - The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding
Part I The Mediterranean heritage
Introduction The appearance of the codex can be traced to the first centuries of Christianity. Only indirect evidence points to its still earlier existence during the Hittite empire. Reliefs on stelae dating from the eighth century BC, excavated in Marash (south-east Turkey), depict codex-like objects with lines along the spine which resemble the board attachment of Coptic and Byzantine codices. Together with the images of a brush and double inkwell these representations are highly suggestive but still have to remain conjectural until archaeological evidence proves their former existence. 1 Archaeological finds support the assumption that the codex first began to replace the scroll in the eastern part of the Mediterranean basin. The codex seems to have been the preferred book form of the new religion. While 83 per cent of 290 Christian texts dating from the first four centuries were already bound in codex form, 88 per cent of 2435 Greek literary texts from the same period retained the traditional roll form. 2 However, the evidence from the several hundred early fragments that have come down to us, badly damaged due to the ravages of time and natural deterioration of organic materials, is limited almost exclusively to conclusions about the format and not the physical structure of the codex. But perhaps even more has been lost by the neglect and disinterest of scholars of previous generations, who were principally concerned with the texts. This neglect of the physical aspects of the construction of the codex is reflected in recent studies on the subject. E.G. Turner in The Typology of the Early Codex (1977 pp. XXI-XXII) acknowledges that he has "nothing to say on the subject of bindings, and that is a weakness'; in another eminent work, The Birth of the Codex by C.H. Roberts and T.C. Skeat (1983), not a single line is devoted to binding structures. Much ink has been spilt to little profit over the idea, promulgated for more than a century, that the codex was modelled on the example of writing tablets. Since this idea was first introduced by Wattenbach (1871 p. Ill), it has been reiterated by countless authors; authorities continue to assure us that 'there has never been any doubt about the physical origin of the codex, namely that it was developed from the wooden writing tablet' (Roberts and Skeat 1983 p. 1). Tablets of wood or other materials, with or without wax on the writing surface and joined in sets of two, three or more, have been used for recording notes, accounts, school exercises and various ephemera, from the Middle East to Britain and from Egypt to Scandinavia and northern Russia, and from the Bronze Age up to the nineteenth century. Even if there is evidence that whole literary texts have been recorded on wooden polypticha (Sharpe 1996b), the crude methods of connecting the rigid elements of a set of tablets (using hinges, metal rings or lacings) have nothing in common with the structures employed to join leaves of a codex. The derivation of the codex from the writing tablet is a
- Page 2 and 3: Contents Preface and acknowledgemen
- Page 4 and 5: Contents vii 7.8 Covering and decor
- Page 6 and 7: Preface and acknowledgements This b
- Page 8 and 9: Preface and acknowledgements XI (Ve
- Page 10 and 11: Preface and acknowledgements xiii S
- Page 12 and 13: Abbreviations Dates are abbreviated
- Page 16 and 17: surmise e sUentio: for too long its
- Page 18 and 19: decorated book covers have been fou
- Page 20 and 21: Figure 1.2 Diagram of tire construc
- Page 22 and 23: 'spine' see Chapter 2, note 3). The
- Page 24 and 25: gefunden sein mussté' (Schmidt 189
- Page 26 and 27: 5. The roman numerals refer to the
- Page 28 and 29: 16 The first multi-quire Coptic cod
- Page 30 and 31: extended link stitch (Gnirrep and S
- Page 32 and 33: Figure 2.2 Spine of the sixth-centu
- Page 34 and 35: A B C Figure 2.4 Two alternative me
- Page 36 and 37: Figure 2.5 The upper cover and back
- Page 38 and 39: pristine condition is the back cove
- Page 40 and 41: 307 fig. 24, p. 319 fig. 74). Sever
- Page 42 and 43: [a] pastedown [b] Figure 2.10 Two d
- Page 44 and 45: Chapter 3 Late Coptic codices 3.1 I
- Page 46 and 47: M 633 M 634 M 580 1 M 586 I h — 1
- Page 48 and 49: Figure 3.4 Various types of hinging
- Page 50 and 51: separately from the book and before
- Page 52 and 53: and 6.13). It should finally be men
- Page 54 and 55: Figure 3.10 Peg and strap fastening
- Page 56 and 57: 7. This double board of BL Or. 5000
- Page 58 and 59: 4.2 SEWING AND BOARD ATTACHMENT The
- Page 60 and 61: truly time-consuming procedure whic
- Page 62 and 63: elevant corners of the boards. Yet
Part I <strong>The</strong> Mediterranean heritage
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