Presentations (Communicative Events) and Conference Objects

Repairs and Restorations as Evidence for the International Manuscript Trade

Riedel, Dagmar A.

I will compare the material evidence for restoration in two incomplete codices with medical literature (MS arab., colophon dated 642/1245, Bologna, BUB Ms 2954, https://amshistorica.unibo.it/1672; and MS pers., no date, Philadelphia, UPenn LJS 189, https://archive.org/details/ljs189/). Repair and restoration are integral to the manuscript trade in every manuscript culture, and their best practices evolve in conjunction with the manuscript trade. I argue that the comparative study of restorations yields evidence for how in Muslim societies the trade with damaged manuscripts changed between the seventeenth and the twentieth century, thereby providing new insight into how the manuscript-to-print transition in the nineteenth century impacted the sale of Islamic manuscripts to foreigners.

The official conference recording of an invited talk on 30 June 2022 at the international hybrid conference about "Oriental Manuscripts in Germany: Collection History between the Academic Thirst for Knowledge, Antique Trade across the Globe, and Imperial Claims to Power," organized and hosted by the Staatsbibliothek Berlin (SBB), Germany, 28 June-1 July 2022.

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More About This Work

Academic Units
Center for Iranian Studies
Published Here
January 9, 2023