(01-10-2024, 12:58 PM)pfeaster wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.At least in the visible light scans, I don't see any sign of a separate outline under the darker text, and I'd be surprised if the retouching had been done so precisely as to leave none of the original peeking out from underneath. I suppose the darker text could have been added at a different time, but that would have left rather a large gap beforehand, in an unexpected place in mid-paragraph.
I've collected all qo's from f31r. The transition between light and dark ink looks interesting. I think you are right that retouching, unless done very meticulously, should leave some of the original visible. I find it hard to explain the sharp and almost horizontal division between the dark and the light part in some of the q's.
One possibility comes to mind: if the vellum doesn’t absorb liquid readily and the strokes remain as tiny patches of liquid for a while, then ink from new strokes could flow into the previous ones. For example, if the ink in the inkwell separates into light and dark layers, as you suggested, dipping into the lighter layer could create a faint vertical stroke for a ‘q’, and then redipping to make a denser horizontal stroke could cause some of the ink to flow into the vertical stroke, partially coloring it. I’m not sure if it’s possible to recreate this scenario to test it. What would be a good household substitute for vellum with a similar surface?
Update: interestingly, almost all o's here are in dark ink, there is only one, the leftmost in the second row, that has a faint bit.
Update 2: looking at the second qo in the last row, 'q' here is written as a vertical stroke with a hook at the top and a downward left diagonal changing to the horizontal stroke. I was not sure about the way it's generally written.