CSMC Newsletter

Over the last two thousand years, shorthand has played a multifaceted and instructive role in a variety of different manuscript cultures; nevertheless, and probably not least because of the inaccessibility of this technique, it has been almost unanimously neglected by research. As the first ever peer-reviewed volume on the subject, New Approaches to Shorthand: Studies of a Writing Technology, the new volume of Studies in Manuscript Cultures, presents a much-needed introduction to shorthand and its history. Edited by Hanna Boeddeker and Kelly Minot McCay, the volume comprises eight contributions by specialists that showcase some of the many lines of inquiry that shorthand inspires across a range of perspectives. The book is available open access on the publisher’s website.

Many cultures around the world have had and still have certain initiation rites to mark the transition of a person from one phase of life to the next or from one stage to another. As different as these may be depending on the culture and purpose, there are some patterns and similarities that characterise these ritual acts. One of these similarities is that in numerous such practices, written artefacts play an important, sometimes even a key role. Edited by Jochen Vennebusch, the recently published volume on Written Artefacts in Rites of Passage does not primarily deal with the social, cultural, or religious dimension of the use of written artefacts in initiation rites, but with the material dimension. It is available open access on the publisher’s website.

On 13 and 14 November, a joint UWA/DESY workshop shows current applications of synchrotron radiation in the domain of cultural heritage. Aiming to connect curators, conservators, archaeologists, and art historians with DESY scientists, ‘Exploring Cultural Heritage with X-Rays’ offers a unique occasion for networking between different scientific communities and facilitates interdisciplinary research. The workshop will also provide an outlook on research possibilities at PETRA IV and a unique opportunity to formulate requirements towards an ideal experimental set-up by users from different fields. To participate, please register by 6 November.

An international conference in Beijing addressed ‘The Life Cycle of Manuscripts: The Ethics and Practice of Acquiring, Preserving, and Accessing Global Heritage’. Among the invited experts from the UK, Ireland, Germany, Ukraine, Hungary, and other countries was Markus Fischer from the CSMC. He talked about the potential of chemical and digital analyses of cultural artefacts and current challenges in these areas. Imre Galambos, professor at the University of Cambridge and former Petra Kappert Fellow at the CSMC, gave a presentation on scrolls from north western China.

Since 2021, the ‘Humanities-Centred Artificial Intelligence’ (CHAI) workshop has provided one of the few shared spaces where researchers working in the humanities and the computer sciences can meet and exchange ideas about joint projects. The fourth edition of the workshop took place on 23 September 2024 in Würzburg, where it was part of the 47th German Conference on Artificial Intelligence. CHAI 2024 was organised within the framework of the Institute for Humanities-Centred Artificial Intelligence, which is closely connected to the CSMC. The proceedings of the workshop have recently been published and are available open access.

With the ‘Palm-Leaf Manuscript Profiling Initiative’ (PLMPI), the five-year cultural heritage project ‘Digitisation and Preservation of Kerala Archives’ (DiPiKA), and ‘Tamilex’, a long-term academy project affiliated with the CSMC, there are several major research initiatives at the CSMC that have a direct connection with India. On 15 October, representatives of these projects had the pleasure of presenting their work to the Indian Consul General in Hamburg, Soumya Gupta. Among them were Markus Fischer and Giovanni Ciotti (PLMPI), Eva Wilden (Tamilex), and Sebastian Bosch for the Mobile Lab.

On 8 October, representatives of the CSMC welcomed the Tunisian consul, Nizar Jebabli, to Warburgstraße, who came to get an impression of the research and cultural heritage management activities at the cluster, especially our work in Tunisia, where the CSMC is involved since 2018 through the Kairouan Manuscript Project (KMP). During his visit, Mr Jebabli met director Konrad Hirschler, Doreen Schröter, who coordinates the CSMC’s cultural heritage initiatives, and Davidson MacLaren, who is responsible for international cooperation at the CSMC and has been involved in the KMP since its inception in his role as a cultural heritage manager.

Consisting of 22 students from 11 countries, a new cohort of students has commenced their MA studies at our Cluster. They come from China, France, Georgia, Germany, India, Iran, Jordan, the Netherlands, Russia, Türkiye, and the United States. Their areas of interest are as diverse as their nationalities, ranging from Archaeometry and Chemistry to Armenian, Ethiopian, Greek, Icelandic, Iranian, Islamic, Jewish, and Ottoman Studies, among others. The programme is overseen by Shervin Farridnejad, Head of the MA, and Merryl Rebello, coordinator of the Graduate School at the CSMC.

In the 14th and final episode of his video series on the ‘Written Artefacts of Nepal – Preservation and Documentation’, Bidur Bhattarai shows us a unique manuscript in the form of a vertical accordion, a thyāsaphū (‘folded book/manuscript’ in Newari/Nepalbhasa). Comprising 19 folios, it is 466 cm long (when unfolded), 26.4 cm high (when closed), 64 cm wide, and 2.1 cm thick, making it one of the largest artefacts of its kind, written in Devanāgarī script, to be found in the Kathmandu Valley. If you want learn more about this spectacular manuscript, also have a look at Bidur’s ‘Preliminary Notes on one of the Largest Known Puruṣa Leporello Manuscripts Produced in Nineteenth Century Nepal’, a research article which has recently been published in manuscript cultures, volume 20.