Towards the Investigation of Material Choices in Written Artefacts: Methodological Reflections – CSMC Occasional Paper No. 10

This Occasional Paper is the result of the discussion held in 2022–2024 within Research Field K (RFK) – ‘Selecting Materials’, part of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts (UWA): Materiality, Interaction and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures’ at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC), University of Hamburg. RFK comprises researchers from various disciplines, both from the humanities and the natural sciences, bringing together a multitude of perspectives and aimed at comparatively investigating the options and choices involved in the selection of materials for creating written artefacts (WAs). Combining in-depth material, philological and historical analysis, the group seeks to determine the materials that were chosen to be used, to identify potential underlying patterns in these choices, and to understand the reasons behind them and the consequences they had for the preservation and circulation of the artefact. This paper sets out a preliminary framework for this approach, with the intention of laying a foundation for its future development.