#old_manuscripts — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #old_manuscripts, aggregated by home.social.
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The Bayeux Tapestry tells only the winner’s story – but the other side can be found in old English texts
The story of the losers is full of meaningful silences and William of Normandy’s terror.
by Catherine Clarke
Bayeux tapestry at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/4445 -
Galileo’s handwritten notes found in ancient astronomy text
Discovery sheds new light on how famed astronomer came to lead a scientific revolution
By Joshua Sokol
https://www.science.org/content/article/galileo-s-handwritten-notes-found-ancient-astronomy-text
Galileo at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1629 -
Lost copy of seventh-century poem in Old English discovered at Rome library
Dublin scholars find 1,200-year-old manuscript of Caedmon’s Hymn composed by Northumbrian cattle herder
by Rory Carroll
Caedmon's Hymn by Caedmon as an audio file at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19677 -
Japanese researchers look at 800-year-old books and trees for signs of extreme solar events
On Feb. 21, 1204, Japanese poet Fujiwara no Teika described in his diary a bizarre phenomenon: the northern Kyoto skies suddenly burning red at night.
by By Tomoko Otake
Full article here:
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/pjab/102/4/102_pjab.102.011/_articleSolar cycle at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=solar+cycle -
As a ‘book scientist’ I work with microscopes, imaging technologies and AI to preserve ancient texts
by Christina Dinh Nguyen
Old manuscripts at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=old+manuscripts -
Thirty previously unpublished verses by Empedocles discovered on a papyrus from Cairo
by University de Liege
edited by Stephanie Baum, reviewed by Robert Egan
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-previously-unpublished-verses-empedocles-papyrus.html
Empedocles at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Empedocles -
New Project Explores the Craft of Writing in the Medieval Nordic World
A major Nordic research effort is taking a fresh look at the earliest written culture in medieval Finland—by studying not only what documents say, but what they are made of.
Paleography at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=paleography -
New Project Explores the Craft of Writing in the Medieval Nordic World
A major Nordic research effort is taking a fresh look at the earliest written culture in medieval Finland—by studying not only what documents say, but what they are made of.
Paleography at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=paleography -
New Project Explores the Craft of Writing in the Medieval Nordic World
A major Nordic research effort is taking a fresh look at the earliest written culture in medieval Finland—by studying not only what documents say, but what they are made of.
Paleography at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=paleography -
New Project Explores the Craft of Writing in the Medieval Nordic World
A major Nordic research effort is taking a fresh look at the earliest written culture in medieval Finland—by studying not only what documents say, but what they are made of.
Paleography at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=paleography -
New Project Explores the Craft of Writing in the Medieval Nordic World
A major Nordic research effort is taking a fresh look at the earliest written culture in medieval Finland—by studying not only what documents say, but what they are made of.
Paleography at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=paleography -
Previously Unknown Medieval Chronicle Discovered
A newly discovered chronicle from the early eighth century is giving medieval historians a rare new window onto the political shocks and religious debates that reshaped the eastern Mediterranean in the decades before and after the rise of Islam.
https://www.medievalists.net/2026/02/previously-unknown-medieval-chronicle-discovered/
More articles about Maronite Chronicle of 713:
https://medievalworlds.net/0xc1aa5572_0x004102d6.pdf -
X-rays from SLAC's synchrotron reveal star maps in a centuries-old manuscript
Pages from the Codex Climaci Rescriptus palimpsest from the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, were brought to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource to recover erased astronomical text, especially fragments from Hipparchus' star catalog.
Hipparchus at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Hipparchus -
Over 32,000 medieval manuscripts transcribed in four months using AI
Medievalists can now access automated transcriptions of 32,763 digitised medieval manuscripts, produced in just four months as part of a project called CoMMA—a large-scale corpus designed to make manuscript texts searchable and analysable at a scale that would be impossible to tackle by hand.
https://www.medievalists.net/2026/01/32000-medieval-manuscripts-transcribed-using-ai/
Original paper:
https://inria.hal.science/hal-05299220The CoMMA website:
https://comma.inria.fr/homepage -
5 Dazzling Medieval Manuscripts That Have Outlasted Empires
These manuscripts stand out for their artistry, craftsmanship, and historical significance.
by Tim Brinkhof
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/illuminated-medieval-manuscripts-to-know-2710634
Old manuscripts at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=old+manuscripts -
Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made for a Monastic Dining Hall?
A new study offers a fresh way of thinking about one of the most famous works of medieval art by asking a deceptively simple question: where was the Bayeux Tapestry originally meant to be seen?
https://www.medievalists.net/2025/12/bayeux-tapestry-monastic-dining-hall/
Original article:
https://academic.oup.com/histres/advance-article/doi/10.1093/hisres/htaf029/8377922?login=false -
Six centuries of secularism
When the first ‘how-to’ books began to explain the way the world worked, they paved the way for science and secularism
by William Eamon
Secularism at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/21793 -
Break out the calculators: November 23 is Fibonacci Sequence Day
The cornerstone of modern math wouldn’t be possible without the Hindu-Arabic numerical system.
by Andrew Paul
https://www.popsci.com/science/fibonacci-sequence-day-2025/
Fibonacci at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=fibonacci -
Scientists found the key to accurate Maya eclipse tables
Eclipse tables in the Dresden Codex were based on lunar tables and adjusted for slippage over time.
by Jennifer Ouellette
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/11/study-how-the-maya-created-such-accurate-eclipse-tables/
Original article:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adt9039 -
Tutivillus Is Watching You
For medieval scribes, mistakes couldn’t be easily shrugged off, as Tutivillus, the stickler demon, was always looking over their shoulders.
By: Amelia Soth
https://daily.jstor.org/tutivillus-is-watching-you/
Medieval manuscripts at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=medieval+manuscripts -
How Close Did We Come to Losing Beowulf Forever?
Robert Bartlett on a Vital Work of the Western Canon That Barely Survived Multiple Disasters
Beowulf at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=Beowulf -
New research may rewrite origins of the Book of Kells, says academic
Author challenges assumption monks on Iona created manuscript, instead positing its origins are Pictish
By Dalya Alberge