AWOL - The Ancient World Online

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

[First posted in AWOL 15 October 2021, updated 30 April 2025]

ISSN: 2365-9696

Edited by: Michael Friedrich, Harunaga Isaacson and Jörg B. Quenzer

The series Studies in Manuscript Cultures (SMC) publishes monographs and collective volumes contributing to the study of written artefacts. This field of study embraces disciplines such as art history, codicology, epigraphy, history, material analysis, palaeography and philology.

SMC encourages comparative approaches, without regional, linguistic, temporal or other limitations on the objects studied; it contributes to a larger historical and systematic survey of the role of written artefacts in ancient and modern cultures, and in so doing provides a new foundation for ongoing discussions in cultural studies.

Book Open Access 2026

Accumulating Notes

Note-taking and Multilayered Written Artefacts

José Maksimczuk, Thies Staack

Volume 49 in this series

Book Open Access 2026

Erasing and Rewriting in Manuscript Cultures

Practices of Text Obliteration and Manuscript Reuse in a Global Perspective

Michele Cammarosano

Volume 48 in this series

Book Open Access 2026

Material Cultures of Archiving

An Introduction to a Global and Historical Practice

Markus Friedrich

Volume 47 in this series

Book Open Access 2025

Manuscript Treasures from Afro-Eurasia

Scribes, Patrons, Collectors, and Readers

Jacopo Gnisci, Sophia Dege-Müller, Jonas Karlsson, Vitagrazia Pisani, Alessandro Bausi

Volume 46 in this series

Book Open Access 2025

The Zhangzhung Nyengyü 'Tsakalis': A Cross-Disciplinary Analysis

Agnieszka Helman-Ważny

Volume 45 in this series

Book Open Access 2025

Genealogical Manuscripts in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Markus Friedrich, Jörg B. Quenzer

Volume 44 in this series

Book Open Access 2025

Producing Buddhist Sutras in Ninth-Century Tibet

The ‘Sutra of Limitless Life’ and its Dunhuang Copies Kept at the British Library

Brandon Dotson, Lewis Doney

Volume 43 in this series

Book Open Access 2025

Palimpsests and Related Phenomena across Languages and Cultures

Jost Gippert, José Maksimczuk, Hasmik Sargsyan

Volume 42 in this series

Book Open Access 2024

New Approaches to Shorthand

Studies of a Writing Technology

Hannah Boeddeker, Kelly Minot McCay

Volume 41 in this series

Book Open Access 2024

Vernacular Chinese-Character Manuscripts from East and Southeast Asia

David Holm

Volume 40 in this series

Book Open Access 2024

Female Agency in Manuscript Cultures

Eike Grossmann

Volume 39 in this series

Book Open Access 2024

Exploring Multilingualism and Multiscriptism in Written Artefacts

Szilvia Sövegjártó, Márton Vér

Volume 38 in this series

Book Open Access 2024

The Ancient World Revisited: Material Dimensions of Written Artefacts

Marilina Betrò, Michael Friedrich, Cécile Michel, Jesper Eidem, Gianluca Miniaci

Volume 37 in this series

Book Open Access 2024

Manuscripts and Performances in Religions, Arts, and Sciences

Antonella Brita, Janina Karolewski, Matthieu Husson, Laure Miolo, Hanna Wimmer

Volume 36 in this series

Book Open Access 2023

Graffiti Scratched, Scrawled, Sprayed

Towards a Cross-Cultural Understanding

Ondřej Škrabal, Leah Mascia, Ann Lauren Osthof, Malena Ratzke

Volume 35 in this series

Book Open Access 2024

Manuscript Albums and their Cultural Contexts

Collectors, Objects, and Practices

Janine Droese, Janina Karolewski

Volume 34 in this series

Book Open Access 2023

Tied and Bound: A Comparative View on Manuscript Binding

Alessandro Bausi, Michael Friedrich

Volume 33 in this series

Book Open Access 2023

Andronikos Kallistos: A Byzantine Scholar and His Manuscripts in Italian Humanism

Luigi Orlandi

Volume 32 in this series

Book Requires Authentication 2024

A Short History of Paper in Imperial China

Jean-Pierre Drège

Volume 31 in this series

Book Open Access 2023

Personal Manuscripts: Copying, Drafting, Taking Notes

David Durand-Guédy, Jürgen Paul

Volume 30 in this series

Book Open Access 2023

Libraries in the Manuscript Age

Nuria de Castilla, François Déroche, Michael Friedrich, European Research Council (ERC)

Volume 29 in this series

Book Open Access 2023

Bon and Naxi Manuscripts

Agnieszka Helman-Ważny, Charles Ramble

Volume 28 in this series

Book Open Access 2022

The Syntax of Colophons

A Comparative Study across Pothi Manuscripts

Nalini Balbir, Giovanni Ciotti

Volume 27 in this series

Book Open Access 2022

Manuscript and Print in the Islamic Tradition

Scott Reese

Volume 26 in this series

Book Open Access 2021

Exploring Written Artefacts

Objects, Methods, and Concepts

Jörg B. Quenzer

Volume 25 in this series

Book Open Access 2022

Medieval Multilingual Manuscripts

Case Studies from Ireland to Japan

Michael Clarke, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh

Volume 24 in this series

Book Open Access 2021

Education Materialised

Reconstructing Teaching and Learning Contexts through Manuscripts

Stefanie Brinkmann, Giovanni Ciotti, Stefano Valente, Eva Maria Wilden

Volume 23 in this series

Book Open Access 2020

Dunhuang Manuscript Culture

End of the First Millennium

Imre Galambos

Volume 22 in this series

Book Open Access 2020

Disiecta Membra Musicae

Studies in Musical Fragmentology

Giovanni Varelli

Volume 21 in this series

Book Open Access 2020

Fakes and Forgeries of Written Artefacts from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern China

Cécile Michel, Michael Friedrich

Volume 20 in this series

Book Open Access 2022

Trends in Statistical Codicology

Marilena Maniaci

Volume 19 in this series

Book Open Access 2020

Canones: The Art of Harmony

The Canon Tables of the Four Gospels

Alessandro Bausi, Bruno Reudenbach, Hanna Wimmer

Volume 18 in this series

Book Open Access 2020

The Emergence of Multiple-Text Manuscripts

Alessandro Bausi, Michael Friedrich, Marilena Maniaci

Volume 17 in this series

Book Open Access 2019

Creating Standards

Interactions with Arabic script in 12 manuscript cultures

Dmitry Bondarev, Alessandro Gori, Lameen Souag

Volume 16 in this series

Book Open Access 2019

Studies on Greek and Coptic Majuscule Scripts and Books

Pasquale Orsini

Volume 15 in this series

Book Open Access 2017

Indic Manuscript Cultures through the Ages

Material, Textual, and Historical Investigations

Vincenzo Vergiani, Daniele Cuneo, Camillo Alessio Formigatti

Volume 14 in this series

Book Open Access 2017

Jewish Manuscript Cultures

New Perspectives

Irina Wandrey

Volume 13 in this series

Book Open Access 2017

The Arts and Crafts of Literacy

Islamic Manuscript Cultures in Sub-Saharan Africa

Andrea Brigaglia, Mauro Nobili

Volume 12 in this series

Book Open Access 2018

Manuscripts and Archives

Comparative Views on Record-Keeping

Alessandro Bausi, Christian Brockmann, Michael Friedrich, Sabine Kienitz

Volume 11 in this series

Book Open Access 2020

Dividing Texts

Conventions of Visual Text-Organisation in Nepalese and North Indian Manuscripts

Bidur Bhattarai

Volume 10 in this series

Book Open Access 2016

One-Volume Libraries: Composite and Multiple-Text Manuscripts

Michael Friedrich, Cosima Schwarke

Volume 9 in this series

Book Open Access 2017

Of Gods and Books

Ritual and Knowledge Transmission in the Manuscript Cultures of Premodern India

Florinda De Simini

Volume 8 in this series

Book Open Access 2016

Tracing Manuscripts in Time and Space through Paratexts

Giovanni Ciotti, Hang Lin

Volume 7 in this series

Book Open Access 2015

Translating Chinese Tradition and Teaching Tangut Culture

Manuscripts and Printed Books from Khara-Khoto

Imre Galambos

Volume 6 in this series

Book Open Access 2016

Variance in Arabic Manuscripts

Arabic Didactic Poems from the Eleventh to the Seventeenth Centuries - Analysis of Textual Variance and Its Control in the Manuscripts

Florian Sobieroj

Volume 5 in this series

Book Open Access 2016

The Writing System of Scribe Zhou

Evidence from Late Pre-imperial Chinese Manuscripts and Inscriptions (5th-3rd Centuries BCE)

Haeree Park

Volume 4 in this series

Book Requires Authentication 2014

Manuscript, Print and Memory

Relics of the Cankam in Tamilnadu

Eva Maria Wilden

Volume 3 in this series

Book Requires Authentication 2012

Manuscripts and Travellers

The Sino-Tibetan Documents of a Tenth-Century Buddhist Pilgrim

Sam van Schaik, Imre Galambos

Volume 2 in this series

Book Requires Authentication 2014

Manuscript Cultures: Mapping the Field

Jörg Quenzer, Dmitry Bondarev, Jan-Ulrich Sobisch

Volume 1 in this series