Proto-Canaanite

Archaeologists have recently discovered what may be the oldest example of a Hebrew text, a proto-Canaanite script written on a piece of pottery about 3,000 years ago and discovered during an archaeological dig at Khirbet Qeiyafa.  The archaeologists involved in the research believe the site and the artifact to be Hebrew, but other scholars caution that several societies of the period probably used proto-Canaanite to record non-Hebrew languages.

And here we can get an interesting comparison between different news outlets, as CNN has basically repeated the claims without question and unnecessarily tied the find to the Dead Sea Scrolls, while the BBC has explained the controversy and the fact that more research is necessary before hard(er) conclusions are established.  The most in-depth piece I have seen so far is over at the NY Times.

But despite the Biblical controversy the text is still a significant find, as it is the longest extant example of proto-Canaanite writing and may shed light on the development of scripts and language in the ancient Middle East.

Sweet

It’s snowing in October and no one is freaking out.

The Office

Walking out of the dorm. Autumn is coming along nicely.

Harassing the sheep that live next door.

My underground station.  I don’t have to take the train because the British Library is only 20 minutes away on foot, but I like to anyway.  Trains are cool.

Arrival at King’s Cross/St. Pancras.  Not quite as magical as it sounds in Harry Potter.

Walking toward the BL.

Courtyard and entrance.  Can’t say I’m a fan of the architecture, unfortunately.

Sculpture based on William Blake’s Newton.

The lobby.

Yes we can!  (On a side note, people here are just as excited about the election as Americans are.)

A bit busier than usual due to a children’s activity day.

The King’s Library (George III), behind glass at the heart of the building.  My friend Graham says, “Oh, we celebrate July 4th, too.  You know, pruning the dead wood and all that.”

In the locker room, putting my notebooks in the mandatory clear plastic bag which is all you’re allowed to take into the reading room.

Stuff to Do

Two really interesting events coming up for those near Buffalo and Madison:

So you want to be a rare books librarian in a digital world: A presentation by Sidney E. Berger, Ph.D. offered by the Department of Library and Information Studies, University at Buffalo, Buffalo NY

Monday, November 10, 2008 2:30-4, University at Buffalo, 553 Baldy Hall

Dr. Sidney E. Berger is a nationally recognized library scholar administrator, and director of the Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA.  Also a faculty member at Simmons College, Boston MA, Dr. Berger previously headed the special collections department at the University of California, Riverside and was curator of printed books and manuscripts at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester.  His Ph.D. is from the University of Iowa, in Medieval Literature and Bibliography, M.S. in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. He teaches a wide variety of classes, including The Preservation of Library Materials, Preservation Management, the History of the Book, and Bibliography. He runs his own handpress, makes paper, casts type by hand, and publishes extensively on literary and book arts topics.

This program is free and open to the public, RSVP and registration are not required.

The Librarian Spies: Philip and Mary Jane Keeney and Cold War Espionage
Louise S. Robbins
Professor and Director, School of Library & Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Thursday, November 13, 2008, 12:00 Noon – 1:00 p.m.
SLIS Commons
4207 Helen C. White Hall
University of Wisconsin-Madison

LOUISE S. ROBBINS is Professor and Director, School of Library and Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Her historical research, focusing on libraries and intellectual freedom during the McCarthy period, has won numerous awards. Her best known book, winner of the Eliza Atkins Gleason Book Award from the American Library Association’s Library History Round Table and the Willa Award from Women Writing the West, is The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown: Civil Rights, Censorship, and the American Library. It has even won her a spot on an Oklahoma Library Association centennial list of 100 Oklahoma Library Legends.  Robbins is also author of a number of articles and Censorship and the American Library:  The American Library Association’s Response to Threats to Intellectual Freedom, 1939-1969.

Robbins has lectured widely in the United States and abroad. Her teaching repertoire includes management, intellectual freedom, and libraries in the global knowledge society. She has been active in university governance and in the Association for Library and Information Science Education, including a two-year stint as president.

Warning: Contact Your Dr. If You Experience Melancholia or Gout

From The Kiss of Lamourette by Robert Darnton:

In a tract of 1775, J.G. Heinzmann listed the physical consequences of excessive reading: “susceptability to colds, headaches, weakening of the eyes, heat rashes, gout, arthritis, hemorrhoids, asthma, apoplexy, pulmonary disease, indigestion, blocking of the bowels, nervous disorder, migraines, epilepsy, hypochondria, and melancholy.

Of course, this was pre-prescription drug era, when you actually had to make an effort at something to get fun side effects.

Conservation

The website of the International Dunhuang Project has a section on conservation that features short videos of the processing of beautiful and fragile works, including the Diamond Sutra.  I think the clips would be even better with sound, but they’re cool nonetheless.  Further down the page there’s a nice glossary of conservation terms.  Just in case you want to learn some sweet new words, like friable and orpiment, that will impress people at parties.

Speaking of historical preservation, if you happen to be near the British Museum anytime soon they’re running a special (and free) exhibit on the subject.  It features real, live conservators working on artifacts and engaging with visitors, but only lasts until the 26th of October, so don’t delay.

Who’s Afraid of Christine de Pizan?

If it were customary to send daughters to school like sons, and if they were then taught the natural sciences, they would learn as thoroughly and understand the subtleties of all the arts and sciences as well as sons.     – Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, 1404

Sometimes described as an early feminist and also as Europe’s first professional female writer, Christine de Pizan was born in Venice in 1365, the daughter of a highly respected court physician and astrologer who shortly thereafter relocated his family to the French court of Charles V.

The young Christine received an excellent education, becoming literate in French, Italian and possibly Latin, and at fifteen married a royal secretary.  The family prospered until the death of their patron Charles V in 1380, and disaster struck in 1390 with the deaths of both her father and husband.  Widowed, with three children and elderly female relatives to provide for, Christine eschewed her obvious options—remarriage or life in a convent—and took up the pen.  She began by writing courtly love poetry, the positive reception of which earned her noble patrons and allowed her to move on to a variety of literature, including autobiographical works and a life of Charles V.

In 1399 de Pizan initiated the Querelle,  “the most celebrated literary debate of the Middle Ages,” when she attacked the second half of the widely popular allegorical poem Le Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the Rose).  Christine objected to the work’s misogynistic themes, primarily its portrayal of women as immoral seductresses.  Following this controversy she composed her own allegory, The Book of the City of Ladies, a dialogue that examined the strengths and moral qualities of women and strongly rejected the male-dominated intellectual discourse of the age.  She followed it with The Treasure of the City of Ladies, a book of practical and empowering advice directed at women of all social stations.

Christine continued to write prolifically, adding historical and military subjects to her repertoire, until she retired to a convent in 1418.  This was where she completed her final book, a celebration of Joan of Arc.  The date of her death is unknown, but was probably around 1429.

— Sarah Lawson’s introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of The Treasure of the City of Ladies is available in its entirety via Google Books.  Definitely check out her discussion of the reception of de Pizan’s works over the ensuing centuries.

— The page above is from the largest of de Pizan’s extant manuscripts, a lavish presentation copy compiling 30 individual works that was commissioned by Queen Isabeau de Bavière of France in 1413.  It is currently held by the British Library (BL Harley MS 4431) and is partially available in a digital gallery here.  (Watch out, though.  The gallery view works well, but the link to “digital images and transcriptions” keeps crashing Firefox for me.)

Diamonds in the Rough

I’ve spent a lot of time on the Tube lately, and have become enamored of the Poems on the Underground.  When you happen onto one it’s like all the noise stops for a minute.

The program began in 1986, and three sets of poems are presented each year.  Check out the current set (scroll down a bit), visit the archive, or try a random poem of the day.

Dumb

Load of rubbish for which no one involved seems able to provide adequate justification.  The claim is that this has something to do with improving editorial quality, yet the categories seem to revolve more around how regional or narrowly focused a particular publication is deemed to be.  Surely any serious academic already knows much more about the major publications (and those in their areas of expertise) than can be indicated by a fairly ambiguous letter ranking.  And one would hope that, when in doubt, they would take a look at the editorial board and content rather than a letter grade.  So what purpose does this serve other than slapping “prestigious” and “not prestigious” labels onto people’s life work?

Imposition

I arrived in London last Sunday and the following day began induction week for my MA.  So far I’m loving it.  We had classes each day last week, including lectures in basic book history and excellent introductions to Senate House Library, the British Library and the St. Bride Printing Library.

I really enjoyed our guest lectures: Alan Cole of the Museum of Writing (part of Senate House Library) brought in a variety of writing artifacts, including a Sumerian pictograph tablet inscribed with a very early transitional form of A.  We even got to try our hand at writing with traditional instruments: reed pen on papyrus, Roman styli on wax tablet, and quill pen to paper.  Friday was spent at St. Bride’s, where Nigel Roche held an excellent session on the history and technology of printing and demonstrated the hand-casting of type.  Then we practiced composing lines of type and printing on an antique hand press.

I found the hands-on sessions extremely gratifying.  No matter how much you read, some concepts will be easier to grasp in person, particularly the production of type.  In that vein I present Nigel’s guide to understanding imposition—the layout of individual pages on each sheet of paper sent through the printing press.

What you need:

Step 1:  Turn the paper to landscape orientation and fold horizontally:

Step 2:  Turn the newly folded page to landscape orientation and fold again in the same way:

Step 3: Now you have a little booklet.  Rotate it so that the spine is held in your left hand and the loose edges are at the bottom.  Like so:

Step 4: Number the pages, including the opposite sides:

Step 5:  The last page should be #8.  Unfold the paper and look at the order of pages. Notice that the folds have created eight individual pages (four per side), making this book the size known as quarto.  (Of course, our example is smaller than a typical quarto.)

Also note that adding the page numbers across equals one more than the total number of pages. 1+8=9; 4+5=9, and so on.  This pattern will always be present no matter what size book is being produced.  For instance, a larger folio has one fold and four individual pages, and the page numbers always add up to five.

Finally, each side of the page has its own name: the side with page 1 is called the outer form.  The opposite side, with page 2, is called the inner form.  The entirety of the form would be composed together (with pages 1 and 8 pointing in the opposite direction from pages 4 and 5) and printed in one pull.  Once everything has been printed and ordered the pages are trimmed so that they’re no longer connected at the top.  In the early modern era the finished stack of pages was often sold unbound, allowing the customer to have the book bound to his or her own specifications.