Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies: An Introduction

Öz

he most comprehensive introductory handbook on comparative Eastern manuscript studies existing today, "Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies" (COMSt), published under the Research Networking Programme, was funded by the European Science Foundation from June 2009 to May 2014. Under favour of the five-year project, hundreds of academicians exchanged ideas about manuscript studies and research. They discussed different approaches and the opportunity was found to meet on common ground.The work, consisting of 677 pages, includes codicology, paleography, textual criticism, scientific organization, cataloging, and preservation, taking into account the increasing importance of digitalization and positive sciences. In the book, manuscripts in various Eastern languages such as Turkish, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Hebrew, and Slavic were analyzed with an interdisciplinary approach from a scientific perspective by myriad specialists such as linguists, historians, theologians, manuscript analysts, and analysts.