![Sample our Mathematics & Statistics journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5943/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Mathematics-Statistics.jpg"})
Abstract
The manuscript Add MS 73525 at the British Library is a random collection of seven folios, on which five different text fragments are found. The content of the first six folios is identified. Folio 7 presents an unknown script in wonderful workmanship, with three colours. Deciphering the script revealed ecclesiastical texts in English with a writing system based on monoalphabetic substitution extended by a rich set of alternative forms, ligatures and abbreviations. Although the author’s name and the date of writing is given in the text, there is not enough information to identify the person and to decipher the numerals of the date. The process of deciphering is described in the paper, followed by the substitution tables of the alphabet, the ligatures and abbreviations, and the numerals. Finally, the transliterated text is provided with remarks.
Disclosure statement
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Figure 1. Opening initial and text.
Figure 2. Excerpt from the Ten Commandments.
Figure 3. “Holy Ghost” in the text of the Athanasian Creed.
Figure 4. The name of St Athanasius on the verso side.
Figure 5. The alphabet.
Figure 6. Form groups in the letters.
Figure 7. Table of ligatures.
Figure 8. Table of abbreviations.
Figure 9. Potential and actual ligatures and abbreviations in the text.
Figure 10. Numerals.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Benedek Láng for his critique and encouragement.
Notes
1 Entry #39265, Pinakes. Accessed 4 March 2024. https://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/39265/.
2 http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_73525 – currently unavailable due to the lasting effects of the 2023 October cyber attack against the infrastructure of the British Library (see: Sir Roly Keating, “Knowledge under attack”, Knowledge Matters blog, 15 December 2023. Accessed 4 March 2024. https://blogs.bl.uk/living-knowledge/2023/12/knowledge-under-attack.html). The digital images of folio 7 have been uploaded to Wikipedia where they can be currently accessed (f7r at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:British_Library_Add_MS_73525.png, f7v at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:British_Library_Add_MS_73525_f7v.png, both referred to on the page “Undeciphered writing systems”. Accessed 4 March 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undeciphered_writing_systems).
3 Entry #39265, Pinakes.
4 Cillian O’Hogan, “Twenty-four More Greek Manuscripts Online”, Medieval manuscripts blog, 5 August 2014. Accessed 4 March 2024. https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2014/08/twenty-four-more-greek-manuscripts-online.html.
5 See e. g. Benedek Láng, The Rohonc Code (Penn State Press, 2021), 106.
6 the ligature does not seem to contain the N.
7 sic!
8 sic!
9 sic!
10 sic!
11 sic! Another possible reading: Gloorẏ. Apparently the scribe was still learning the script, just like in the two cases marked with footnotes above.
12 sic!
13 sic! The scribe confused ‘f’ with its symmetric pair, ‘l’.
14 sic!
15 The alternate ‘d’ shape may have been invented as an ‘ed’ ligature (see also line 19 and v.c2.22). Yet, its occurrences in words like ‘God’ and ‘Lord’ (r.c2.17, 23) suggest that it is (or has become) a ‘final d’ shape which is also confirmed by the author’s orthographic habit of omitting the ‘e’ in endings elsewhere, too.
16 sic!
17 The apostrophe was possibly added as an emendation of an accidentally omitted ‘i’.
18 The ‘i’ looks like a colon. It may be an occasional (hapax) alternate form of ‘i’, or simply the ink missed in the middle of the short stroke.
19 sic!
20 sic! Apart from the faulty spelling, the scribe confused the abbreviation of ‘th’ with the ending ‘ts’ sequence.
21 sic! Perhaps the dot of the ‘v’ melted into the stem to form an ‘o’.
22 sic!
23 sic!
24 sic!
25 sic!
26 sic!
27 sic! The ‘s’ is an amendment on the margin.
28 sic!
29 sic!
30 ‘n’ is written very roughly; perhaps it overwrites an ‘e’ if the scribe originally started writing ‘ete…’ without abbreviation, and then changed his/her mind to extend the ‘t’ into the ‘ter’ ligature, and to correct the ‘e’ to an ‘n’.
31 The ‘n’ is probably a correction of a previously written letter.
32 The ‘t’ is written without the dot, making it look like an ‘e’.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Levente Zoltán Király
Levente Zoltán Király was born in 1976. He earned a BSc in computer science at Eötvös Loránd University and an MA in divinites at Károli Gáspár University of the Hungarian Reformed Church. He is currently working at the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage. He is noted for his contribution to the research of the Rohonc Codex.
Gábor Tokai
Gábor Tokai, born in 1969, finished his studies in 2004 at the Faculties of Archaeology and History of Art, Eötvös Loránd University. He has worked at the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest since 1999, as an art historian since 2004, first in the Department of Drawings and then in the Sculpture and Medal Department since 2008. He has dealt with undeciphered scripts from the age of sixteen. He is noted for his contribution to the research of the Rohonc Codex.