Invisible East / Middle East Medievalists panel
This panel will explore the different scribal and epigraphic techniques applied and works produced in the Islamicate world between the 8th and 13th centuries CE, and discuss modes of transmission and of learning that have enabled the endurance of styles and protocols in documentary and epigraphic sources. The panel will gauge the extent to which standardisation of techniques adds to, or detracts from, the content of the written word, as well as, the importance of training and learning in the Islamicate production of texts on paper and hard surfaces. Examples in this panel will include texts in Arabic, Persian and Judeo-Persian, and texts across varying genres, including state documents, epitaphs, and private letters. An appreciation of digital methods for studying scribal and epigraphic techniques will also be provided.
623-a - Inscribing Epitaphs in 8th- to 9th-Century Egypt: Templates and Typologies
Teresa Bernheimer, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
623-b - Learning to Write Personal Letters in Medieval Afghanistan
Ofir Haim, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
623-c - Learning to Write State Documents in the Islamicate East
Nadia Vidro, University of Oxford
623-d - The (State) Scribes of Fatimid Egypt
Yusuf Umrethwala, Aljamea-Tus-Saifiyah, India; Princeton University
Organiser & Moderator: Arezou Azad, Arts et Patrimoine de l'Afghanistan, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris; Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford
