Manuscript

In . Technically, these are all Inscription s rather than manuscripts.

Thus it will be seen that manuscripts are not defined by their contents, which may combine writing with mathematical calculations, maps, explanatory figures or illustrations. Manuscripts may be in the form of Scroll s or in Book form, or Codex format. Illuminated Manuscript s are enriched with vignettes, border decoration, elaborately engrossed initial letters and full-page illustrations.

MANUSCRIPTS IN HISTORY

The traditional abbreviations are ms for manuscript and '''mss''' for manuscripts. (The second ''s'' is not simply the plural; by an old convention, it doubles the last letter of the abbreviation to express the plural, just as ''pp'' means "pages".)

Before the invention of printing by inked carved blocks (in China) or by Moveable Type in a Printing Press (in Europe), all written documents had to be both produced and reproduced by hand. Historically, manuscripts were produced in form of Scroll s (''volumen'' in Latin) or Book s ('' Codex , codices''). Manuscripts were produced on Vellum and other Parchment s, on Papyrus , and on Paper . In Russia Birch Bark Document s as old as from the 11th century have survived.

When Greek or Latin works were published, numerous professional copies were made simultaneously by scribes in a Scriptorium , each making a single copy from an original that was declaimed aloud.

The oldest manuscripts have been preserved by the perfect dryness of their resting places, whether placed within Sarcophagi in Egyptian tombs, or reused as Mummy -wrappings, discarded in the Midden s of Oxyrhyncus or secreted for safe-keeping in jars and buried ( Nag Hammadi Library ) or stored in dry caves (Dead Sea scrolls). Manuscripts in Tocharian Languages , written on palm leaves, survived in desert burials in the Tarim Basin of Central Asia. Manuscripts preserved in volcanic ash preserve some of the Greek library of the Villa Of The Papyri in Herculaneum .

Ironically, the manuscripts that were being most carefully preserved in the libraries of Antiquity are all lost.

The study of the writing, or "hand" in surviving manuscripts is termed Palaeography . In the Western World , from the Classical Period through the early centuries of the Christian Era , manuscripts were written without spaces between the words ( Scriptio Continua ), which makes them especially hard for the untrained to read. Extant copies of these early manuscripts written in Greek or Latin and usually dating from the 4th Century to the 8th Century , are classified according to their use of either all Upper Case or all Lower Case Letter s. Early Hebrew manuscripts, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls make no such differentiation. Manuscripts using all upper case letters are called Majuscule , those using all lower case are called ''' Minuscule '''. Usually, the majuscule scripts such as Uncial are written with much more care. The scribe lifted his pen between each stroke, producing an unmistakeable effect of regularity and formality. On the other hand, while minuscule scripts can be written with pen-lift, they may also be Cursive , that is, use little pen-lift.

MANUSCRIPTS TODAY

According to Library And Information Science , a manuscript is defined as any hand-written item in the collections of a Library or an Archive ; for example, a library's collection of the Letter s or a Diary that some historical personage wrote.

In other contexts, however, the use of the term "manuscript" no longer necessarily means something that is hand-written. By analogy a " Typescript " has been produced on a typewriter.

In book, magazine, and music publishing, a manuscript is an original copy of a work written by an Author or Composer , which generally follows standardized typographic and formatting rules. In film and theatre, a manuscript, or ''script'' for short, is an author's or Dramatist 's text, used by a Theater Company or Film Crew during the production of the work's Performance or Film ing. More specifically, a motion picture manuscript is called a Screenplay , a television manuscript is called a Teleplay , and a manuscript for the theater is called a Stage Play .

In Insurance , a manuscript policy is one that is negotiated between the insurer and the policyholder, as opposed to an off-the-shelf form supplied by the insurer.

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