The Origin of the Glagolitic-Old Church Slavonic Manuscripts

One of the cardinal questions connected with any cultural heritage object concerns its origin. In the case of the oldest Slavonic manuscripts preserved from the 10th-11th century and still composed in the Glagolitic script of the teacher of the Slavs, Constantine-Cyril (9th c.), until recently we mostly knew only their place of discovery, but not of their previous history. In the last decade, however, two previous projects have shown that the finding place of the better part of these often fragmentarily preserved books was also their most important place of origin St. Catherines Monastery in the Sinai. Obviously, this distant home of monasticism served the authors of these writings not only as a pilgrim destination, but also as a refuge at times when church politics in their various homelands (from Bohemia to Bulgaria) impeded the free practice of their ancestral literary and ecclesiastical traditions. In addition to the Sinaitic finds, however, there also exists a smaller group of Glagolitic manuscripts which were discovered on Mt. Athos, in Jerusalem or in different locations of the Balkans the most outstanding of them being the beautiful gospel-codices Zographensis, Marianus and Assemanianus. Their place of origin still remains an open question. The same applies to the remnants of deleted underwritings (palimpsested texts) mainly discovered in fragments of Sinaitic manuscripts. The focus of the proposed project is the investigation of the origin and later fate of all these early sources for the development of the Glagolitic and Old Church Slavonic traditions. At the same time it is necessary to further study and edit all palimpsested and other hitherto inaccessible texts which have not yet been fully deciphered. Finally, the results of those examinations must be placed into their historical context to complete our picture of the cultural history of the relevant regions. In order to achieve these objectives, humanity scholars (predominantly Slavicists), scientists (computer vision specialists, chemists, phycisists, microbiologists) and conservators will engage in inter- and multidisciplinary cooperation employing philological and historical methods of manuscript studies, language analysis and literary criticism in combination with up-to-date relevant technologies, such as Multispectral Imaging and Document Image Analysis, material investigation via spectroscopy (with x-ray-, UV, visible, and infrared radiatons) and DNA as well as the latest preservation analyses and techniques. The interplay of the different investigations will allow important new discoveries not only for the areas in question, but also the development of new methods relevant for other disciplines such as Slavic political and church history and Byzantine-Greek philology or theology, which will benefit the future exploration of any written heritage.

Investigation of the oldest Slavic (Glagolitic) manuscript tradition with humanities' and scientific methods (Slavic Philology, Liturgics, Computer Vision, Materials Chemistry, Microbiology, Conservation) and these objectives: Publication of certain manuscripts and studies on their origin, the development of the Glagolitic script up to the first Cyrillic influences in the early 10th century and the transition from Glagolitic to Cyrillic in Bulgaria. To achieve them, several methods were developed: i.a., 3-dimensional text restoration; determination of the spectral signatures of inks and pigments; storage linking so-called multispectral images with chemical data; evaluation of the biological information in the manuscripts to understand their history; conservation history of codices. Some results: Online publication of 4 Glag. mss.; 3 book editions with ms. pictures on data medium. Sinaitic Missal: New deciphering. It was proved that the Petersburg fragment was its beginning. The view that it contains St. Peter's Liturgy has been refuted in favor of St. Apollinaris' Liturgy. Microbiology confirmed that the ms. was written on Sinai. An emergence of Glag. mss. on Mt. Athos has been ruled out. Cod. Zographensis-hypothesis: origin in Bulgaria, after 1018 on Sinai where a damaged part was rewritten; to Mt. Athos in the 13th century to be copied and used for liturgy. The first history of Glagolitic from its origin to 920 was composed using previous studies, new Sinai data and an inscription from Hungary. The transition to Cyrillic began in the second half of the 10th century, although Glagolitic was still used for long. On Sinai the last Glagolitic ms. written by a Bulgarian dates from the second quarter of the 11th century. This can be linked to the changes in church life after the fall of Bulgaria under Byzantine rule. In addition to the ms.-materials (parchment, inks, pigments, colors, binders, etc.) the physical and chemical degradation of collagen in various sheep's parchments under the influence of three aging conditions was also examined. The DNA analysis determined the parchment origin: Missal - sheep and calf; Cod. Assemanianus - sheep; Kiev Folia - goat. Metagenomic analyzes in the Sinai Missal revealed that the Dasheen mosaic virus infected the Taro plant - an indication that the plant, common in Egypt, was used to extract anthocyanin blue used in the ms. The codicological-conservative investigation applied to the type, production and changes in the parchment, the ruling, characteristics of inks and colors, wax droplets and other stains, sewing and binding techniques and the cover. The collaboration of six disciplines represents a significant advance, the results of which influence both Slavic Philology and the other fields involved, and change our views on the cultural history of the regions where the mss. originated, from which their scribes came or received their training.