The Cryptography & Palaeography of a Medieval Narrative Map.
Gerard Cheshire
June 2023 

This peer-reviewed journal article demonstrates the technique used for reading the narrative of a Medieval map, from the manuscript listed as MS 408. The writing system and language had confounded linguistics scholars for some time because both were unfamiliar, but they were explained in 2017, allowing the translation of scripts and annotations accompanying the images drawn on the map. Here four examples are presented to explain the procedure used in transliterating the alphabet symbols and then translating the Medieval phrasing into English. The language of the map is an archaic form of Iberian Romance, mixed with Greek and Latin. The writing system is based on the ancient Greek, and Phoenician and Arabic alphabets. The map was created by the nuns at Castello Aragonese, Ischia, to record a rescue mission in the Tyrrhenian Sea, following a volcanic eruption in the year 1444. The date is included on the map, written in Latin abbreviation, otherwise known as sigla.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/008127 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Journal Arteoloji Dergisi
keywords:	manuscript, map, medieval, ms 408, mediterranean, ischia, arolian, voynich, latin, greek, galician-portuguese, syntax, phonology, semantics, morphology
Downloaded:	241 times

 

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