Palaeography

Paleography (Greek παλαιóς Palaios, old ' and tomography; scientific publications typically paleography ) is the study of ancient writings. Scientifically it is not in linguistics, but as an auxiliary science of history ( GHW ) and settled as a branch of Latin Philology of the Middle Ages and modern times.

Task of paleography is to retrace the lively development of writing in detail on the traditional font monuments. Palaeographic knowledge help to recognize different fonts in their stages of development and thus classify undated writing and literary monuments in space and time.

The methods consist substantially in the analysis of character shapes or the use of typical abbreviations. Both are designed with inscriptions often the only dating option because the writing material (unlike organic materials such as paper, parchment or leather) are hardly dating aids.

It distinguishes the different font strands: Arabic paleography, Greek paleography, Cyrillic paleography, Latin paleography, etc. The doctrine of historical forms of music notation (notation customer) is also referred to as musical paleography.