Georgian Palaeography Revisited: Dating Undated Manuscripts

Abstract

The present article summarises the results of the first radiocarbon (or 14C) analysis of Old Georgian manuscripts, undertaken in 2024–2025 on behalf of the DeLiCaTe project (“The Development of Literacy in the Caucasian Territories”) at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, with support by Graz University Library and the Korneli Kekelidze Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts, Tbilisi. Samples from a total of 20 manuscripts of their collections, mostly of palimpsests and other undated manuscripts from the first millennium of our era, have yielded decisive insights into the early centuries of Georgian literacy, especially with respect to the distinction of khanmeti and haemeti layers: the analyses clearly show that this distinction was not chronologically determined but must have been regional or dialectal, thus supporting the view first expressed by Akaki Shanidze in 1923. Other important insights concern the transition period between khanmetoba and haemetoba on the one hand and the emergence of sannarevi forms; this can now be safely assigned to the 8th century. For the collective volume of Shatberdi, MS S-1141 of the National Centre of Manuscripts, the analyses have proven that a time span of more than 100 years must have passed between its two units (one in asomtavruli majuscules and one in nuskhuri minuscules).