New Life of Old Manuscripts – Digitized Georgian Manuscripts andTheir Importance for Codicological and Textological Studies

Abstract

The digital age, the development of modern technologies and the emergence of large databases have led to a drastic change in the scientific infrastructure in many fields of the Humanities, including manuscriptology. The fixation of old manuscripts in photographs and microfilms has been replaced by digitisation, which has made it possible to obtain high-quality digital photographs that have become a reliable source for the palaeographical, codicological and textological study of manuscripts.

Scientific projects that were initiated by Professor Jost Gippert at the Institute of Empirical Linguistics of Goethe University, Frankfurt, in collaboration with Georgian scholars in the late twentieth century, aiming to electronically document Georgian written sources and digitise ancient Georgian manuscripts, have proved to be crucial. It was within the framework of one such project that it became possible to fully digitise the collection of Georgian manuscripts preserved in the Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos.

The present article shows the importance of digital images for codicological and textual studies on the example of two of the Athonite manuscripts (Ivir.georg. 62 and Ivir.georg. 83) which contain the Old Georgian translation of the Gospels. Discussed are the new insights revealed as a result of the study of the digital images of these manuscripts, which open up new prospects for the further study of the history of the Georgian translation of the Gospels.