Tag: Manuscript

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  A silk binding from Yemen

  It’s very rare to come across a binding that seems to be unrelated to any type of binding we know. But it does happen. A cloth binding on a Yemeni manuscript is a case in point.

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  Mundus Inversus in a Chained Library

  During the years that Leiden University maintained a chained library (1595-1653) the books were placed on the shelves upside-down. Read here why.

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  Shrunken pages

  A manuscript written partly on paper and partly on parchment suffered heavily from water damage. The effect is remarkable: it caused severe shrinkage of the parchment leaves only.

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  A Persian Quran for Public Worship

  Qurans do not often come in this size. This seventeenth-century copy is even more special because of its Persian translation.

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  A Piano on Java

  Pen drawings in a manuscript copy of the story 'Sarina. A Javanese woman' show a piano. But what is a piano doing on Java?

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  The Quran explained to Turkish readers

  Old Anatolian Turkish translation from the 16th century as a source for linguistic research.

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  Common but not ordinary: a Late 11th-Century Dioscorides Written in Two Scripts

  Not a single decorative element is encountered in this manuscript and the parchment is of particularly poor quality. But the mix of scripts on its pages reveal an interesting story.