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.
13-14 NOVEMBER 2025, SHULMAN AUDITORIUM. THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Register for free here
9:30 Arrival and registration (coffee and tea available for all attendees)
9:45 Welcome
Julia M. H. Smith (Crafting Documents co-PI, All Souls College, University of Oxford)
Martin Kauffman (Head of early and rare collections, Special Collections, Bodleian Library)
Dirk Meyer (Director of the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures, The Queen’s 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
TECHNOLOGIES TO RETRIEVE WRITING
(Chair Lesley Smith, Harris Manchester College, Oxford)
INKS AND PARCHMENT
(Chair Martin Kauffman, 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)
Ana de Oliveira Dias (University of Oxford)
Ink analysis of early medieval relic labels
Wine reception sponsored by the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures,
The Queen’s College, Oxford
(6:00 – 7:00)DAY 2
MATERIAL SCIENCE AND HERITAGE RESEARCH
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)
Proteomics analysis of parchment samples
12:30 Colloquium pause
(Chair Dirk Meyer, The Queen’s College, 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
BROADER PERSPECTIVES
(Chair Julia Smith, All Souls College, University of Oxford)