New directions in the study of written artefacts from Antiquity to the late Middle Ages. Organised by the Crafting Documents project (AHRC-DFG) and co-sponsored by the Centre for Manuscripts and Text Cultures, University of Oxford.

Day 1 (13th November 2025)

9:45 Welcome

TECHNOLOGIES TO RETRIEVE WRITING
(Chair Lesley Smith, Harris Manchester College, Oxford)

10:00 Brent Seales (University of Kentucky) — UnLost: uncovering lost knowledge from the ancient library of Herculaneum

10:50 Richard Gameson (Durham University) — The Hereford palimpsest psalter

11:40 Jess Hodgkinson (University of Leicester) — Insular manuscripts and their readers: using photometric stereo imaging to study drypoint writing

12:30 Lunch Break

INKS AND PARCHMENT
(Chair Martin Kauffmann, Bodleian Library)

2:30 Kristine Rose-Beers (University Library Cambridge) — Early Islamic manuscripts on parchment: surface preparation and practice-based research

3:20 Andy Beeby (Durham University) — On the variation in the density of writing as seen by multi and hyper-spectral imaging: looking over the scribe’s shoulder

4:10 Coffee and tea break

5:00 Ira Rabin (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung) — Ink analysis of early medieval relic labels

6:00 – 7:00 Wine reception sponsored by the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures, The Queen’s College, Oxford

Day 2 (14th November 2025)

MATERIAL SCIENCE AND HERITAGE RESEARCH
(Chair Dirk Meyer, The Queen’s College, Oxford)

9:30 Alberto Campagnolo (Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven) — Approaches to heritage science for manuscripts in the Digital Humanities

10:20 Michael Marx (Institut für Studien der Kultur und Religion des Islam Goethe-Universität Frankfurt / Institute of Advanced Studies Jerusalem) —  Results of carbondating of early Qurʾānic manuscript and their implications for our understanding of the history of the Qurʾān

11:10 Coffee and tea break

11:40 Matthew Collins (University of Copenhagen/University of Cambridge) — What we are learning from Biocodicology: advancing the interdisciplinary study of parchment

12:30 Lunch break

2:30 Andrew Honey and Martin Kauffmann (Bodleian Library) — Seeing the wood for the trees: recent investigations into the form of Magna tabula Glastoniensis, a late 14th-century manuscript mounted as a folding wooden frame with two wooden leaves
This session will take place in the Weston Library

BROADER PERSPECTIVES
(Chair Julia Smith, All Souls College, University of Oxford)

4:00 Coffee and tea

4:30 Tessa Webber (Trinity College, University of Cambridge) — Early medieval written artefacts: a palaeographical perspective

5:00 Round table discussion