[INDOLOGY] Russian 14 cent. Birchbark MSS from Novgorod

[Andrey Klebanov]

The Russian site, to which the NYT links ( http://gramoty.ru ) contains, among others, this article - http://gramoty.ru/?id=general_info - that also explains that the letters were in most of the cases scratched with a metal stylus. Only two letters in the collection, so the same article, were written in ink (no mention of etching as far as I could see). And yes, there is definitely plenty of birch (as well as cultural references to it and birch-bark-handicrafts) in Russia!

best, 
Andrey Klebanov

On 20.10.2014, at 17:52, Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> Interesting.  Thanks!
> 
> So, was birch bark as a writing surface invented multiple times independently?
> 
> And is the Russian version thicker than the Kashmiri, to support etching?
> 
> ​Best,
> Dominik
> ​
> 
> On 20 October 2014 14:56, Stefan Baums <baums at lmu.de> wrote:
> Dear Dominik and Matthew,
> 
> yes, plenty of birch in Russia. And the letters are incised
> in the bark. Here two photos where that is more clearly
> visible:
> 
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_bark_manuscript#mediaviewer/File:Beresta.jpg
>    http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/Novgorodwoodp.html (scroll down)
> 
> It am not sure whether ink was rubbed into the incisions
> (palm‐leaf style), but this may have been unnecessary since
> the incision made the darker lower bark visible through the
> light outer layer.
> 
> All best,
> Stefan
> 
> --
> Dr. Stefan Baums
> Institute for Indian and Tibetan Studies
> Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
> 
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