Incunabula

@incunabula

Bibliophile. Rare book collector. The history of writing, and of the book, from cave painting to cuneiform tablet to papyrus scroll to medieval codex to Kindle.

Joined August 2017

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  1. Retweeted

    This gold pendant with Khitan Small Script inscriptions on one side in regular script and on the other side in seal script was published in "Radiant Legacy: Ancient Chinese Gold from the Mengdiexuan Collection" 金曜風華: 夢蝶軒藏中國古代金飾 (ISBN 978-962-7055-21-1) ...

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  2. 17 hours ago

    "The bees of Notre Dame, whose escape from the inferno seemed almost miraculous, are thriving and conserving their energy ready to produce honey this summer, just as they have every year since they took up residence on the sacristy roof in 2013."

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  3. Retweeted
    22 hours ago

    saying goodbye to one collection item at a time: this 1540s Oxford contained my favourite - this half leaf of a massive Decretals with the majority of the miniature still intact (Magd D.21.6)

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  4. Feb 2

    "South Estonian has historically been divided into the Tartu, Mulgi and Võro dialects – of these, the only one to retain a significant number of native speakers (10 000's) is Võro, spoken principally in Võru and Põlva counties in south-eastern Estonia."

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  5. Jan 30

    More useful advice from the US State Department Travel Advisory for Mali.

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  6. Jan 30

    Timbuktu is - tragically - in the most dangerous part of one of the most dangerous countries on earth for US citizens to visit. US travel advisory says: "If you decide to travel to Mali: Draft a will."

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  7. Jan 30

    Father Stewart has the kind of old-fashioned physical courage that we've seldom seen in the world of ancient texts since Rawlinson scaled the cliffs to read the Behistun Inscription.

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  8. Jan 30

    If this worked I'd, at a minimum, be able to order a beer in Tangut.

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  9. Retweeted
    Jan 30

    🆕 research: This stela from Balchiria, Corsica, is estimated to be ~6,000 years old. It's engraved with some sort of goat person, a design that is unlike anything seen in the Western Mediterranean at this time (🆓)

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  10. Jan 30

    I can recommend William Layher's excellent article on this subject "Horrors of the East: Printing Dracole Wayda in 15th-century Germany", available here (but institutional login needed, unfortunately):

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  11. Jan 30

    This woodcut seems to have been first used in the pamphlet "Dracole Waida" printed by Hans Sporer in Bamberg in 1491 [GW 12526]. It was likely used in original and recut form for decades afterwards as well. Here's an image from Sporer's pamphlet and an off-print of the woodblock.

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  12. Jan 30

    From the late 15th century pamphlets appeared in Bavaria, Franconia & Saxony publicizing the extreme and unusual cruelties committed by Vlad Tepes 'The Impaler’ in Wallachia, otherwise known as Vlad Dracula. This is the original woodcut printing block from one of these pamphlets.

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  13. Retweeted

    The mythical forest of Broceliande has been “located” at several areas including the forest of Fougeres in Ille-et-Vilaine When these forests contain dolmens they are often seen in local folklore as being Merlin’s tomb or the home of Morgan etc.

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  14. Jan 30

    "Due to "suspicions around the authenticity and origins" of some of the artwork, inspectors seized around 30 objects from four exhibition stands. In addition, during the opening of the fair on Friday, two merchants from both Mali and France were arrested."

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  15. Jan 30

    King Sejong (r.1419-1450) invented the Korean Hangul alphabet. He composed this collection of odes praising the Buddha in 1448 and ordered them printed to test the suitability of his new alphabet as a medium of literary expression. The full original work is no longer extant.

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  16. Jan 30

    King Sejong's Wŏrin ch'ŏn'gang chi kok "The Song of the Moon Shining on a Thousand Rivers". A facsimile of the unique copy of the 1448 original, the earliest surviving Korean book printed in the strikingly modern-looking & geometric Hangul script, invented by King Sejong himself.

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  17. Jan 30

    Good thread from , who has an interesting - and plausible - hypothesis to explain the origin of oblong format codices in the production of very early Qur'an's.

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  18. Jan 29

    Tate Britain is advertising for a "Head of Coffee" (yes, seriously) with a starting salary of nearly £40,000 – significantly more than the average wage of a London-based museum curator.

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  19. Jan 29

    The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon rather than in Rome. This papal bulla of Innocent VI (1352-1363) "Sollicitudo pastoralis" written in a fine chancery hand, was issued at Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, 6 July 1353.

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  20. Jan 29

    The Descent of Ishtar by Diana White, printed by the Eragny Press in 1903 and bound by Katherine Adams (her wonderful binder's stamp shown here). Adams received her first commission from William Morris in 1901, and went on to bind for many of the greatest collectors of the era.

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