Palimpsests!

Wilson, Nigel.  ”The Archimedes Palimpsest: A Progress Report.”  The Journal of the Walters Art Museum 62 (2004), 61-68.

                This particular article is very interesting, and it shows the importance of palimpsests to historians.  This article deals with a particular manuscript found by a German Byzantinist, Heiberg, in Istanbul in 1908.  Soon after the First World War the manuscript mysteriously ended up in the hands of French family who, despite the beggings of various historians, did not sell the texts to any museums.  After unsuccessfully attempting to sell the manuscript, the French family finally sold it for a relatively low price to a museum where it was available to be studied by many historians. 

                The manuscript was shown to be a palimpsest.  The newer writing was a eucholion, or a collection of prayers.  The underwriting consisted of three books of Archimedes which were copied sometime in the latter half of the tenth century, probably under the reign of Constantine VII Porphyrogentitus (the purple-born).  The upper writing was from either the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century.  The three books of Archimedes are On Floating Bodies, Stomachion, and the Method.  On Floating Bodies, surprisingly, is about floatation and why some things can float and others cannot.  The Stomachion, due to a mistransliteration of a word due to the poor condition of the manuscript was thought merely to be about a children’s puzzle until new technology allowed a better reading.  This better reading allowed historians to figure out the manuscript was an essay about combinatorics (it is a branch of mathematics dealing with countable objects… look it up on Wikipedia if you are really that interested).  The Method deals with the Greek concept of infinity and an early form of calculus. 

                This manuscript shows that advanced mathematics were known to the Byzantines and that classical authors continued to be read, studied, and copied throughout the Byzantine period.  The fact that these manuscripts were scraped and then written over also suggests that they were in high enough quantity (or at least that multiple copies had already been made) to destroy the original. 

                Although this article was mostly about the nature of the palimpsest, Wilson also goes into some of the interesting points about the script.  The script does not make it clear where the Archimedes manuscript was written or even where the palimpsest process occurred.  The Archimedes scribe used more abbreviation than would be found in an ecclesiastical or even any other text.  Most of these abbreviations are of uncommon technical terms.  This means that the manuscript was copied for people knowledgeably in advanced (well, advanced for the tenth century) mathematics.  The scribe also made some odd correction when he made mistakes in word order.  When these kinds of mistakes are made, most scribes will put an alpha above the word that is first and a beta above the word that follows.  This scribe drew two dashes over the word that was supposed to be second and one dash above the word that was supposed to be first.  Corresponding dashes were also placed in the margins.

Alexiad

Taking a look at the Alexiad

Neville, Leonora.  “Lamentation, History, and Female Authorship in Anna Komnene’s Alexiad.”  Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 53 (2013), 192- 218.

                Byzantines wrote in three levels of writing, Attic, Koine, and demotic.  Demotic was not actually written down until about the late eleventh or early twelfth centuries.  Koine was usually reserved for either religious texts or state documents (koine was the official language of the court).  Attic was reserved for copies of the Classics and creating new works based on Classical styles.  The most widely written of the styles was histories.  Greeks had a long tradition of writing histories going back to Herodotus.  Previous kingdoms had kept records and made monuments describing historical events, but these were often propaganda.  Herodotus systematically interviewed eyewitnesses to the events he wrote about.  When he reported myths and uncertain accounts he usually identified them as such.  The Byzantines kept this tradition alive into the Late Middle Ages.  The most widely read of these medieval histories is the Alexiad.

                The Alexiad was written by the princess Anna Komnene about the reign of her father Alexios Komnenos (ruled 1081- 1118).  It is considered an important primary source for both the workings of the Byzantine court and the First Crusade (from the Byzantine perspective of course).  Anna wrote in Attic style to emulate the Classical authors, but her style was much different than other authors of her time.  She was an eyewitness to these events and she also sought the accounts of others.  Her narration differs from other contemporary authors through her use of emotional outbursts in her narrative.  These outbursts have often confused historians and have led some to criticize the Alexiad.  Edward Gibbon, probably the most hated historian by Byzantinists, claimed that these outburst just showed the vanity of a female author. 

                Neville explains that many other historians have tried to explain Anna’s emotional outbursts.  These outbursts revolve around her memories of dead loved ones such as her husband, brother, mother, and father.  Few modern historians take on Gibbon’s views, but they are still uncertain why Anna included these outbursts for people who were long dead.  Neville claims that Anna’s outbursts follow a long tradition of Greek women.  Greek women traditionally were the mourners and leaders of lamentation.  Most of the contributions of women in Classical writings are lamentations and mournings.  This was an acceptable form of expression for women, who generally had less freedoms than they do now.   Anna was well versed in Classical works, especially the Iliad and the Odyssey.  These works are full of women interrupting their dialogue with outbursts of lamentation.  This behavior would have seemed normal to the readers of Anna’s day.  Neville claims that Anna used this method to make her writing easier for her male counterparts to digest because women did not usually meddle in the intellectual sphere in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.  Neville also notes that it is ironic that the method Anna used to make herself more acceptable to her contemporaries has confused modern historians.  I have also found it ironic that none of these historians have entertained the idea that Anna was genuinely sad about all of these deaths.