Szirmai, John - The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding

[a]
pastedown
[b]
Figure 2.10 Two different methods of board construction: fa], the first leaf of the first quire is pasted down on
the inner face of the upper board; fb], all leaves of the first quire are pasted together in situ to form the upper
board (fa] is reconstructed after Bodmer P. XVI, fb] is based on Bodmer P. III).
binding (Joshua, 185 x 125 mm, eight quires, two pairs of sewing stations, thread diameter
of c. 1 mm) that was split into two parts, which are today retained as Bodmer P. XXI and
Dublin, Chester Beatty Library Acc. no. 1389 (Shore 1963 pp. 9-10 and pis. I, II; Kasser
1963 p. 9 and pi. I). The binding of Bodmer P. XVII (Kasser 1961b pp. 7-8 and pi. I), a
seventh-century papyrus codex, probably repaired and in worn condition, deserves mention
for its blind-tooled leather covering and its coarse cloth lining (see note 7).
An improvement to the method of board attachment described above is evident in
the bindings of two other Bodmer papyri. The badly damaged binding of Bodmer P. Ill
(232 x 165 mm, seven quires of six leaves each, two pairs of sewing stations) seems to have
had pasteboards that were made of the complete first and last quires comprising 24 reused
papyrus leaves; the sewing thread (diameter c. 1 mm) was thus embedded in the centrefolds
of the two quires of the in situ constructed boards (Kasser 1958). Unfortunately, the upper
cover and the first part of the text are virtually lost; the lower cover has retained its pastedown
consisting of the last blank leaf of the textblock and some of its leather covering. In
Bodmer P. XVIII (145 x 140 mm, six quires, three sewing stations, thread diameter c. I
mm) the first and last quires making up the board are of four sheets of (reused?) papyrus
(Kasser 1962a). Figure 2.10[b] shows the principle of this construction in which the boards
are soundly integrated with the sewing structure.
NOTES
1. Father T.C. Petersen recorded many of his observations on the Freer Gospels in his unpublished typescript
on the Coptic bindings in the New York Picrpoint Morgan Library (see Chapter 1, note 9); a detailed description
is contained in another of his typescripts (1957) which is preserved together with curatorial records
(Washington DC Freer Gallery of Art, Acc. no. 06,274; information kindly provided by Marianna S.
Simpson, Curator, Freer Gallery of Art/Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington DC, in her letter of 3
November 1992).
2. The sewing terminology is based partly on the proposals put forward by Spitzmeuller (1982-3) and extended
by Palmer Fldridge (1993), attempting to describe stitches in terms of the thread movement, and partly on