

Consulting Medieval Manuscripts Online - yarapavan
http://www.utm.edu/staff/bobp/vlibrary/mdmss.shtml

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JackC
This is really great.

By the by (and I know that this is about to sound like an ad, but I have no
connection, I'm just someone who likes printing out old books scans and
sticking them to my walls), if you want large-scale color prints of this
stuff, I've had good luck with Shortrun Posters -- they focus on churning out
one size of poster super-cheap, so the prices are way lower than I've found
elsewhere. If you stick to the default options, you can get 18" x 24" posters
shipped for like $4 each.

[http://www.shortrunposters.com/posters/18x24.html](http://www.shortrunposters.com/posters/18x24.html)

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motoboi
Thanks for the link!

My first though was exactly this: print some and put on the wall.

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walterbell
Very cool. These historical images would benefit from metadata (at least time
& location) annotation, to improve discovery and visualization. E.g. placing
documents in the context of J.B. Spark's 4000 year Histomap.

[http://www.bookofjoe.com/2012/04/fromdavidrumseycomrand-
mcna...](http://www.bookofjoe.com/2012/04/fromdavidrumseycomrand-mcnally-
published-amateur-historian-john-b-sparks-the-histomap-four-thousand-years-of-
world-histor.html)

~~~
pretzel
I've got a project that is trying to do just this sort of thing, check out
[https://retred.org](https://retred.org)

You can go to a time and place and see exactly what kind of events were
happening at that point of time. I haven't opened it up to things yet, but am
planning to pretty soon!

~~~
walterbell
Looks promising!

The closest projects I've seen are
[http://pleiades.stoa.org/home](http://pleiades.stoa.org/home) for Ancient GIS
open-data and an iOS App with a timeline database,
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/timeline-eons-
free/id4333521...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/timeline-eons-
free/id433352152?mt=8)

Edit: David Rumsey's classic site has many historical maps & charts, e.g.
[http://www.davidrumsey.com/blog/2012/3/28/timeline-
maps](http://www.davidrumsey.com/blog/2012/3/28/timeline-maps)

~~~
pretzel
That's really cool! The problem seems to be that for all these things the data
isn't stored anywhere in an easily digestible format. It would be great if you
could query something and procedurally generate any of these graphs.

~~~
walterbell
DBpedia appears to have historical data extracted from Wikipedia, not sure how
usable it is:
[http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1205/1205.4138.pdf](http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1205/1205.4138.pdf)

Found a UI demo & thesis project for DBpedia GIS:
[http://latemar.science.unitn.it/spacetime/usecase.html](http://latemar.science.unitn.it/spacetime/usecase.html)
& [http://latemar.science.unitn.it/spacetime/FabioValsecchi-
the...](http://latemar.science.unitn.it/spacetime/FabioValsecchi-thesis.pdf)

~~~
pretzel
That's where I've got all my initial seed data from already!

~~~
walterbell
Does that mean you've converted it into a more digestible format that others
could use :)

~~~
pretzel
I have - you can checkout
[https://github.com/twistedvisions/anaximander](https://github.com/twistedvisions/anaximander)
and build it using my parser from a dbpedia dump!

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richardwigley
The Aberdeen Bestiary I was looking for manuscripts with pictures - but bonus
get the translations as well
[http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/](http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/)

Of mice

The mouse is a puny animal; its name, mus, comes from the Greek, the Latin
word deriving from it. Others say mures, mice, because they are produced ex
humore, from the damp soil, of the earth; for humus means earth and from that
comes mus, mouse. Their liver grows bigger at full moon, like the tides rise
then fall with the waning of the moon.

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pvorb
I helped to create the software for the two projects from Würzburg, including
the 3D bookshelf using WebGL ([http://vb.uni-
wuerzburg.de/ub/lskd/regal.html](http://vb.uni-
wuerzburg.de/ub/lskd/regal.html)).

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stinos
Highly recommended: Aztec codices, especially the ones with pictures. Looks
like modern psychedelic art of some kind but is in fact made centuries ago,
sometimes by their priests.

For the rest: it's amazing to see how back then simply writing was way more of
an art than it is now. It's no exception that the writer would use 2 or more
colors even for simple text, for example just to highlight capitals. Don't
think I have ever seen anyone doing that in the present. Also the maps from
those days often look like sceneries from some fairytale with nicely drawn
castles etc. Not like your average roadmap :P

~~~
rmc
Related: When the Spanish invaded and conquered the Americas, they burned just
about all the Mayan books be a use they were "heretical":

> In particular, all those in Yucatán were ordered destroyed by Bishop Diego
> de Landa in July of 1562. De Landa wrote: "We found a large number of books
> in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be
> seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they
> (the Maya) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much
> affliction."

No wonder those people "regretted" it, it was newly all of their written
culture being destroyed. Imagine if some aliens invaded Europe and burned all
these books and all that was left was 3 books.

~~~
alphydan
Unfortunately only 3 of these Mayan codices have survived (imagine inferring
1,000 years of Western civilization from a comic book, an almanac and a prayer
book). Here are some of the codices which contain very accurate astronomical
forecasts on Venus, Mars, eclipses and the sun:

[http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/codices/marhenke.html](http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/codices/marhenke.html)
or also: [https://archive.org/details/Ancient-Books-All-Rare-
Collectio...](https://archive.org/details/Ancient-Books-All-Rare-
Collections_Of_CODICES)

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unclesaamm
For everyone asking for metadata, I recommend the Schoenberg Database of
Manuscripts (link:
[http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/schoenberg/index.html](http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/schoenberg/index.html)).

They have a weekly data dump, as well as a three-year overhaul underway.
Wonderful, wonderful community around it, with a deep commitment to open data.
If you have any suggestions for the database's future you'd like to see, I'd
be happy to say it forward or put you in touch with somebody (I interned there
last semester).

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SergeyDruid
Thank you for sharing! I'm part of a medieval and reinassance dance group, we
study manuscripts and books about music and dance of those centuries and
organize events so this link will be very useful to us!

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athenot
Very cool!

And there are more on the way: NTT Data signed in March [1] an agreement with
the Vatican Library to digitize 82,000 manuscripts.

[1] [http://www.news.va/en/news/vatican-library-and-japanese-
firm...](http://www.news.va/en/news/vatican-library-and-japanese-firm-ntt-
data-sign-ac)

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tinkerdol
Tangentially related: does anyone know good sources to find 3D data of old
objects (e.g. old roman arches, museum objects, etc.) ?

~~~
walterbell
Thingiverse has a few scans from the Met, Brooklyn, Asian Art museums.

~~~
tinkerdol
cool, thanks :)

