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+--- Thread: initial characters, to be last? right-to-left handwritting? (/thread-4276.html)
initial characters, to be last? right-to-left handwritting? - quimqu - 16-05-2024
As I imagine, all of us have been through René Zandbergen's magnificent website.
I read the chapter called Non-sequential writing on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I was a bit surprised by the conclusions of this part of the text: "In a few places, it appears as if the first characters of lines were written in a vertical column first, possibly to create a straight left margin. The remainder of the text was then added later. The following example is one paragraph on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Especially in the last two lines of this fragment, there is a strong suggestion that the initial characters were written first, and the remainder of the line was written later."
I always try to imagine the scriba who was writing the manuscript, and I do not agree with this conclusion. If you are writing from left to right, the overlapping of the characters of rows 5 and 6 in the paragraph, in my opinion, can only have two different root causes. For me, it is not that the initial characters were written first. It makes no sense. If they were already written first, the scriba should have plenty of space at the right to write, so why should he overlap the first and second characters?
In my opinion, there are two different hypotheses: (first, imagine that the drawing was already there before the writing)
- The initial characters were written last. So, there was first the whole paragraph (or the whole row of the paragraph), written from left to right. Then, at the end, the initial character was written there to avoid overlapping the drawing. He left no space enough between the last two lines and the drawing, so he overlaps the characters.
- The scriba was writing from right to left, so at the last character, he had no space and had to overlap the first and second character.
I think both hypotheses open new theories. The first hypothesis makes me wonder what kind of scriba would not write the first character first. Why should he leave that character at the end of the writing? The second hypothesis might make us consider more deeply the possibility of right-to-left text writing (such as Arabic).
If everything here has already been discussed, sorry for my entry.
RE: initial characters, to be last? right-to-left handwritting? - nablator - 16-05-2024
There are so many instances of irregular spacing and smaller glyphs apparently for no reason next to a large space...
There is evidence of bottom-to-top writing (baseline deviations to avoid gallows intrusions from the line below).
Right-to-left writing: I don't see any evidence, maybe in some cases some inserts as these squeezed glyphs seem to indicate, but the alignment on the left in paragraphs is consistent with left-to-right writing.
RE: initial characters, to be last? right-to-left handwritting? - quimqu - 16-05-2024
I agree that the right-to-left writing does not seem to be the scenario, but it could explain the overlapping of the first and second character.
Nevertheless, what intrigued me more is the overlapping in a left-to-right writing pattern, as there is no reason to overlap if the first characters column was written first. So my logic tells me that the column was written at the end. Why do so?
(16-05-2024, 08:31 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There are so many instances of irregular spacing and smaller glyphs apparently for no reason next to a large space...
There is evidence of bottom-to-top writing (baseline deviations to avoid gallows intrusions from the line below).
Right-to-left writing: I don't see any evidence, maybe in some cases some inserts as these squeezed glyphs seem to indicate, but the alignment on the left in paragraphs is consistent with left-to-right writing.