Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC)
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csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC)
@csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
540 followers 230 following 98 posts
At the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures and its Cluster of Excellence Understanding Written Artefacts, we conduct cross-disciplinary research on handwritten artefacts from all periods and regions of the world.
https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/
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csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Announcing the J.P. Gumbert Dissertation Award 2025! 🏆

We are looking for the best PhD thesis on any aspect of manuscript studies defended between 1 Sep 2024 and 31 Dec 2025. The award includes a prize of 5,000 EUR and a fellowship at the CSMC.

Apply by 6 February 2026!

uhh.de/csmc-jpga-2025
November 11, 2025 at 2:42 PM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
The Tai Lü in Laos continue the craft of handmade mon paper, using local lianas to produce distinctive manuscripts. Agnieszka Helman-Ważny and Volker Grabowsky describe an ancient technique that endures despite the challenges posed by changing environments and modernisation:
uhh.de/csmc-mon
November 3, 2025 at 11:55 AM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
We’re thrilled that @robertamazza.bsky.social is at the CSMC today! Tonight, she will give a talk on ‘Papyrology and Reparations’, addressing the regimes of violence, injustice, and inequality that papyrology has been enmeshed in since colonial times.
Hybrid event, all welcome!
uhh.de/csmc-mazza
October 23, 2025 at 10:12 AM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
It's been busy weeks for our mobile CT scanner ENCI and our team: at the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations in Ankara and the Archaeological Museum in Kayseri, they analysed not only enclosed cuneiform tablets, but also cups, golden earrings and engraved gemstones, among others!
uhh.de/csmc-enci-2025
The ENCI team in Ankara: Philipp Pätzold, Andreas Beckert, Cécile Michel, Samaneh Ehteram, and Andreas Schropp. Image: Charles Steitler. Enclosed cuneiform tablets at the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations in Ankara. Image: Andreas Schropp.
October 16, 2025 at 1:44 PM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Happy to announce that we have agreed on two new Memoranda of Understanding with the National Library and Archives of Bhutan and the National Library of Peru! The latter was signed today by Peru’s Consul General in Hamburg, Sandra Pinto La Fuente, and CSMC Director Konrad Hirschler:
uhh.de/csmc-mou
Sandra Pinto La Fuente (right) and Konrad Hirschler signing the MoU between the National Library of Peru and the CSMC
October 13, 2025 at 1:18 PM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
How did Christianity spark the rise of written Georgian culture? In our PhD Research Series, Sandro Tskhvedadze explores the evolution of Georgian Gospel lectionaries and the pivotal legacy of George the Athonite in shaping liturgical traditions:
uhh.de/csmc-tskhved...
Fresco of the Athonites Euthymius, John and George, Akhtala Monastery, Armenia. © Giorgi Gagoshidze Studying the Khanmeti Lectionary fragments during the material analysis of the Georgian manuscript collection of Graz University Library within the DeLiCaTe project at the CSMC. © Eka Kvirkvelia
September 22, 2025 at 9:40 AM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
‘I hereby let you know that I am doing well so far’:
A soldier in WWI writes a postcard to his family; the handwriting fades over the decades. In 2025, his grandson wishes to read the message. The story of an encounter in the Artefact Lab of the CSMC:
uhh.de/csmc-ww1-pos...
Rainer Krumsiek in the Artefact Lab at the CSMC, August 2025 Friedrich Adolf Krumsiek (marked with a blue cross) in a military hospital, July 1918 Postcard from Friedrich Adolf Krumsiek with faded writing, February 1916
September 8, 2025 at 11:24 AM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
We are currently looking for a doctoral researcher in the field of Computer Science to join our Visual Manuscript Analysis Lab! More info here:
www.uni-hamburg.de/en/stellenan...
September 5, 2025 at 9:44 AM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Using digital tools to bring order to the creative chaos in Rilke's notebooks: Our Visual Manuscript Analysis Lab collaborated with @dlamarbach.bsky.social to investigate 56 notebooks of one of the greatest German-language poets:
uhh.de/csmc-rilke
Page from a notebook of Rainer Maria Rilke, DLA, A:Rilke-Archiv Gernsbach. Another page from a notebook with writing in different colours and directions, and a drawing.
September 2, 2025 at 9:53 AM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
‘We like lists because we don’t want to die’, said Umberto Eco. What drives our deep fascination with lists? PhD researcher Michael Hensley explores the meaning of Ethiopian and Eritrean book lists, offering glimpses into communities that would otherwise be lost:
uhh.de/csmc-hensley
Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript evidence from the medieval period survives until today in varying states of preservation, ranging from whole codices, small fragments, or somewhere in-between. Some exemplars, for example, were later palimpsested to accommodate new texts. One such case is shown in the image above. Now housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, this manuscript was acquired by Antoine d’Abbadie (1810–1897) during his travels in Ethiopia in the nineteenth century. While the overtext dates to the seventeenth century, the pages on which it was written were taken from at least four earlier manuscripts, ranging from the fourteenth (or possibly earlier) to the early sixteenth centuries. This written artefact, and other palimpsests like it in the Ethiopian and Eritrean context, was treated recently in Erho 2025. Image: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, ms. Ethiopien d’Abbadie 191, f. 96v. Gallica. Accessed 20 August 2025. Donation List of ʾIyasus Moʾa from the gospel book of ʾIyasus Moʾa = EMML 1832 (1280/1281), recording the manuscripts that he donated to the monastery of Ḥayq ʾƎsṭifānos on his death in 1292. This important document is treated in my dissertation. Image courtesy of Meseret Oldjira.
August 25, 2025 at 11:35 AM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Lightly written and thoroughly researched: For over a decade, Cécile Michel’s ‘Mesopotamian Bulletins’ have offered fresh insights into ancient Mesopotamian high culture — and into its ongoing academic study. 11 new episodes are now available in English:
uhh.de/csmc-mesopot...
The queen drinks a cup of wine, Banquet under the vine arbour of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh (7th century BCE). Photo: The Trustees of the British Museum
August 21, 2025 at 12:28 PM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Do your PhD in Manuscript Cultures with us!

Our Grad School invites applications for full PhD scholarships (3 years, 1300 EUR/month + allowances) in the Scholarship Programme of the German Academic Exchange Service @daadworldwide.bsky.social

Apply by 30 Sep!
More info here👉 uhh.de/csmc-scholar...
August 14, 2025 at 12:51 PM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
From Handwriting to Woodblock Engraving: Next week, our fellow Tô Lan NGUYỄN (Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences) shares her latest research on ‘The Buddhist Printing Culture in Early 20th-Century Northern Vietnam’

Monday, 18 August, 4:15 pm. Hybrid lecture, all welcome!

uhh.de/csmc-nguyen
August 12, 2025 at 3:57 PM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
In 19th-century Damascus, the library of Khālid al-Naqshabandī is a centre for scholarly exchange. Preserving it requires legal ingenuity from his heirs, until it is finally scattered worldwide. In our PhD research series, Joud Nassan Agha tells its story:
uhh.de/csmc-agha
Khālid and his close followers discussing the preservation of his library. Created by Naser Nassan Agha, 2025. CBL Ar 3036 lower cover. © Chester Beatty, CBL Ar 3036, CC BY – 4.0.
August 11, 2025 at 2:34 PM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Once a hub of Ottoman culture, Süleyman Efendi’s library was scattered by conquest. In our PhD Research Series, Rawda El-Hajji traces these manuscripts, showing how they help reconstruct lost intellectual communities and reveal the fate of cultural heritage in times of conflict:
uhh.de/csmc-el-hajji
Ms. 3406, Süleyman Efendi’s endowment deed on folio 1r. Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, ms. 3406 © 2023 by AMS Historica is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Rawda El-Hajji visiting the Church of Our Lady of Buda Castle, Budapest. © Ashraf Sarip
August 6, 2025 at 1:05 PM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Early Tamil poetry, rich with tales about journeys, patrons, and cultural exchange, reveals a vibrant blending of languages. In our PhD Research Series, Maanasa Visweswaran explores how Sanskrit influences and the use of Grantha script shaped these classical Tamil manuscripts:
uhh.de/csmc-viswesw...
Chennai, UV Swaminatha Iyer Library, Palm-leaf manuscript UVSL 5, p. 50, Grantha in l. 3, mid-nineteenth century CE.
August 5, 2025 at 10:06 AM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
We are delighted to have gained the renowned Korean Studies Institute as a partner in researching and preserving the heritage of manuscripts and printing woodblocks. We officially established our collaboration at an international conference in Andong:

uhh.de/csmc-ksi
Chong Jong-sup and Michael Friedrich signing the Memorandum of Understanding between the KSI and the CSMC.
July 11, 2025 at 8:57 AM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
New documentary out now!

Around Luang Prabang is one of the world’s few regions where traditional manuscript culture still thrives. Researchers Agnieszka Helman-Wazny & Volker Grabowsky spent years capturing the voices of those keeping this legacy alive.

🎞️Watch the full film here: uhh.de/csmc-laos
July 9, 2025 at 7:31 AM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Headaches? Plagued by a Jinn? In love with your neighbour’s wife? In West African manuscript cultures, written artefacts were produced to address all kinds of life problems, as Jannis Kostelnik explains in this essay:
uhh.de/csmc-kostelnik

Part 2 of our PhD Research Series
WMS Arabic 529. Source: Wellcome Collection. A page from WMS Arabic 529 containing a large magic square composed from symbols called Sabʿa Ḫawātim (‘Seven Seals’) in Arabic. Source: Wellcome Collection.
July 2, 2025 at 9:29 AM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Tonight, she will deliver the Gender in Manuscript Cultures Award Lecture: 'Why should we be interested in women’s contribution to Islamic scholarly culture?'
Hybrid event, all welcome!
uhh.de/csmc-frede
July 1, 2025 at 7:51 AM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
What untold stories lie within the very fabric of one of the world’s most famous maps?

In early 2025, researchers from our Mobile Lab visited the Biblioteca Marciana to study the renowned Fra Mauro Map. A captivating short film about this project is out now.

Full video: uhh.de/csmc-fra-mauro
June 25, 2025 at 2:32 PM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
The Berlin Traiphum might be the most spectacular surviving manuscript of its kind. Measuring 33 metres in length, it opens up a unique panorama of Buddhist cosmology. Our alumnus Peera Panarut explores it together with his colleagues at the Museum of Asian Art:
uhh.de/csmc-traiphum
June 24, 2025 at 1:28 PM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
He studied falling objects before Galileo, discovered Snell’s law before Snell, pioneered interpolation before Newton, invented binary before Leibniz – yet remains barely known. In our new PhD Research Series, Stefano Farinella explores the mathematical notes of Thomas Harriot:
uhh.de/csmc-harriot
Thomas Harriot observing the Moon with a telescope. Painting by Rita Greer. A page of Harriot’s notes, in which he is exploring shipbuilding rules. From the British Library Collection: BL Add MS 6788 f. 3r.
June 17, 2025 at 1:17 PM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Much of what we know about everyday reading practices in #Arabic writing cultures comes from audition certificates. We make these valuable #manuscripts accessible to research on an online platform. A new version now offers #OpenAccess to over 5000 sources:
uhh.de/csmc-acp
June 16, 2025 at 12:39 PM
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Join our team in 2026!
We're seeking multiple doctoral candidates and postdocs to advance research on manuscripts and other written artefacts at our cluster. Apply now — just over one week left!
uhh.de/csmc-jobs
June 13, 2025 at 8:12 AM