Sprecher
Beschreibung
Biocodicology is the recently emerging field that aims to analyse the proteins and DNA of medieval manuscripts, originally focused on historical parchments. Here we present a summary of our three-year-long research extending the field of biocodicology into a novel direction of complex palaeobotanical and molecular multi-proxy studies aiming not only for identification of the plants as writing supports, but also for revealing the provenance of the plant-based manuscripts whose origin is not known or dubious. We study 14th-19th century-old palm-leaf manuscripts (PLMs) looking at the micro- and nano-layers of non-palm plant traces (e.g., micro-fragments of plant tissues, ash, phytoliths, and plant DNA traces) accumulated on the surfaces of the folios during their preparation, historical and contemporary preservation efforts, storage and handling. PLM production used to be a complex multi-step process that involved a wide number of area- and culture-specific plants; these, however, were never properly documented neither geographically nor chronologically. Little is known about the botanical and ethnobotanical aspects of this practice, as well as about the rationale for choosing certain plants. At present, this craftsmanship is almost completely eliminated, therefore the only way left to study PLM material history is palaeoecological reconstruction. Our studies introduce a novel analytical framework combining laboratory and metadata-based approaches to material analysis, provenance and production history of PLMs. Combining methods of life and natural sciences with textual and script studies, we work toward a comprehensive understanding of PLMs as both archives of their own history and novel sources of ethnobotanical and palaeoenvironmental data.