An introduction to Greek and Latin palaeography / by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson.

  • Edward Maunde Thompson
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An introduction to Greek and Latin palaeography / by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    100/624 page 80
    CHAP. stroke which marked contracted words in the Inblical uncial texts served tlie same purpose in minuscules. It also distinguished letters which were used as numerals or special signs. But the ordinary terminal ahlu’eviations h}^ suspension were marked by the long ohlicjue stroke (already noticed as in use in the papyrus period), as in a8y=aoeAf/)os', -noK^/—■noXqxo'i, although this stroke was also often dispensed with, and a mere flourish added to the over-written letter. This over-written letter was also subject to modiflcations. It was doubled occasionally to indicate a plural (a prac- tice also followed in the papyri), as ■nai^^/=-naih(tiv, o-rt = orixot. It was also in some instances the emphatic letter of the omitted portion of the word, as AV=Aey€tr, K^''/=KaTa. And the arrangement of letters was sometimes inverted, as A = Adyo9, (a = oaLos} But with the new minuscule book-hand also appears a further developement in the use of certain signs, mostly tachygraphical, which are employed either as component parts of words, or as entire, inde- pendent words. They had been employed to some extent also in late uncial MSS. They generally are found as terminations, but in MSS. of the early minuscule period they are also used in the middle or at the beginning of words. For the most part, they are placed above the level of the words to which they belong ; in a few instances they are pendent, or in the line of writing. At the later period, when the writing became more cursive, these signs were linked with the letters below them in a flourish. They also, even at an early date, show a disposition to combine with the accents, as in 0 which is the sign 9 (i]s) combined with a circumflex. This developement, when exercised to its full capacity, renders the text of a MS. difficult reading, without some considerable experience of the meaning of the various compendia with which it may be crowded. Having thus briefly traced the histoiy of the growth of Greek abbreviations and contractions, it may be useful to give, fli^st, a list of the more general single-letter abbreviations and symbols, other than ordinary abbreviations by suspension, as found in papyri; ^ to be followed by an analysis of the mediaeval symbols of the vellum MSS. 1 From the recently issued catalogue of the Aphrodite Papyri {Gk. Papyri in the British Museum, iv), which are of the end of the seventh and early years of the eighth centuries, we find that by that time the fuller system of suspension had come into jn-actice in cursive papyri. In this collection, in addition to the simple suspension system, e.g. av^ = dv9pantos^ tv‘/ = iv5iicTt6vos, letters are also omitted from the body, as well as from the end, of a word, the over-written letter being almost invariably a consonant (eitlier the first to follow, or an emphatic one), e.g. Sattau^ = SavavyOtwra, =^KenTus, and =<poiviKfs ; or two letters were over-written, e.g. = uvdpa.iroha. This developement is practically unknown in papyri of an earlier period; and we may therefore regard its presence in the Aphrodito collection as due to the influence of the contemporary vellum codices. ^ See Appendix IV in Kenyon’s Palaeogr. Gk. Papyri, and the Indexes in the Catalogue of Gk. Papyri in the British Museum.
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