So hello and welcome to the second talk in the textiles and libraries context and conservation series.
My name is Alice Evans and I'm an assistant book conservator here at the Boston Library.
And as you can see, I'm speaking to you from the confirmation she get here at the Western Library in Oxford.
I hope some of you are able to join us at the first libraries talk two weeks ago.
But for those of you who are new to the series,
today's talk is part of a series organised by my team in the conservation and Collection Care Team and the Centre for the Study.
The book and the whole series is exploring tech sales found across library collections and than many expected and unexpected forms.
We have an amazing line-up of speakers who will be approaching this topic from many different perspectives and areas of expertise.
Some conservatives and curators to pick artists. And as well as this series of public talks,
the project is continuing behind the scenes at the body and as our team works to develop our understanding
of all the different ways textiles can be found in the collections and how best to care for them.
And we're doing that through a series of outreach, events and training, all of which has been generously funded by rented the library to a barren.
So just to let you know a few practical things before we start the session today, we're recording this event, but it's a Zoom webinar.
Your camera and audio are turned off and you won't appear in the video.
We'll be sharing a link to the recording in a week or so's time, and it will also be available on university podcast channel and the YouTube channel.
At the end of this presentation, we'll have some time for live question answer, which will just say, please,
do you use the question and answer box to type any questions that you have as we go and we'll try to answer as many of them as we can at the end?
You see, this is a thumbs up function in the Q and a box.
So please do you upvote any questions that you are particularly interested in and will be able to prioritise those ones?
We have had a few technical issues this afternoon unexpectedly, and I will be sharing to address it slides for him to do that.
Bear with us as we kind of navigate that, but I'm sure everything will be fine.
So yes, I'm very pleased to introduce our speaker today's talk. So I'm sure for many of you, no introduction at all.
Georges Bootlegs has worked at the Museum of Byzantine Culture and.
That's kicked Thessaloniki. I've been practising that, but light perfect.
Thank you, Josh. Since 2000, where he is now the head of book and paper conservation.
His recent research is focussed on the history of Byzantine and Byzantine book and the influences of other cross.
Based on the study findings now in collections all over the world. In particular,
Georgia has studied closely the library collections of the Environ Monastery on Mount Everest and St. Catharines Monastery of Mount Sinai.
These collections have enabled him to develop insights into the features of the book Traditions of Eastern Mediterranean,
from the late antiquity to the 18th centuries. In today's talk,
studios will be looking in particular at the text elements found in some of these binding and some of the lesser known techniques used to create them.
So over to you, George, give me a second or two. Thank you very much, Alice.
Thank you for the invitation, thank you, everybody, for attending tonight.
Some of the stuff I will be showing you and speaking about are rather familiar to some of you, I'm sure.
But there are other stuff that will be new as I haven't presented them before.
We do have some issues, as Ali said, and it will be an awkward feeling.
Maybe they will be trying to walk to work like with with other,
with another person's shoes because I'm going to be speaking, that is will be changing the slides.
Nevertheless, let's let's start. And Alice, can we have the first fight, please?
Yes. OK, we will be I will be actually speaking about thick file techniques,
is using the different parts of the Book of a Codex and specifically more specifically,
I will be speaking about pixelated techniques on the sewing, on the spine, lining on the end buttons.
The markers. The cover of the books.
And the fastening straps. And last but not least, I will be speaking about ecstatic meakes as they appear on the illustrations of Byzantine goddesses.
Next slide, please. So starting with the with the sewing.
OK, so the sewing of codices is one of those parts of the book that, you know, that have attracted a lot of attention.
Basically, Byzantine goddesses, as well as all the other eastern Mediterranean countries, are with what we call an unsupported sewing technique.
And basically next like this basically consists in a number of looks, continuous loops.
We will see in a second how these are made in what we normally call now usually links to technique
or what I think maybe should be more properly and more accurately called the loop stitch technique.
The technique is basically varied.
Can we have the next slides? Alice with the animation?
So the idea is that you open those reshape cards at the opening set design of the different gatherings,
and you go with your thread through these openings, which marked the sewing stations and create these loops.
So the thread of its gathering is so encouraging, its gathering looks around the threads in the in the previous gathering created at the end fabric.
So basically, if you are able to somehow isolate the gatherings or out a separate the gatherings from the sewing structure,
then what you end up with is a fabric basically like the fabric you see at the top right.
And that's rather loose looking. Fabric is not any fabric.
It is a fabric with a name, if you like. It is a looped fabric and it is a loop fabric like the one to the top left next slide,
which is basically one of the many variations of loops, states and looks.
This is one of the and here you see basically three variations loops.
This is one of the most universal kind of fabric making techniques.
It's probably older than weaving itself, and you find it throughout history and throughout the globe.
What interests us? Here are just three of the many variations of looping.
What is interesting for us is the variation at the bottom right, which is called the cross knit looping.
Now that might look too many lost while modernised familiar.
It will be familiar because of meeting, so we might actually think this is knitting.
It is not. It is looping and actually looking. It is the ancestor of meeting.
Can we see the animation in the next slide, please? So this is how I looked.
Textile with the cross needs looping technique is done.
Think of it as a sewing rather than his knitting, because basically you have one needle and one thread,
and it is that single thread which is looped around itself in the process.
And so this is what you end up with if you consistently do that,
and the sock that is sold in the next slide is basically the kind of artefacts that
are very commonly found in the late Roman entirely late antiquity sites from Egypt.
So this is a cross knit looping technique, which was very common apparently in the time and in the cultural context and
chronological context where the Codex appears and is established gradually.
This was the kind of artefact where this krosnick looping technique was extensively used.
There is evidence to suggest that this was a technique that was rather widespread
in the whole Roman world and the whole of the at least eastern Mediterranean.
So it wasn't specifically Egyptian, but it was within the Roman,
despite the fact that all of the of the remains that we have about technique from great antiquity comes from Egypt for the obvious reasons.
So if we see the next slide, this juxtaposition of photographs of.
The one at the at the in the background is, is a sock basically a sock like that.
So this is an exact copy of one of these Egyptian late antique socks made by the dean of the Giovanni,
whose hands appear in the photograph in the background.
So between the making of that sock, with the cross knit looping technique and the photographic the foreground,
which is a photoshop immense detail of a codex fine where what they did is that they are both close,
close the the chains, if you like,
formed by the sewing process is to basically give you a visual aid in order to hopefully understand that basically both structures are identical.
The difference in structural terms in identical. The difference is that interconnects this showing in the process of the looping
process of the thread goes through the fold of the galaxy because otherwise,
as I said before, if you separate the structure, then if the sewing structure from the gatherings,
you end up with exactly the same fabric and hence looks like Greece and hence the idea of of of the book as a fabric,
which I consider to be an important concept because it somehow gives us, I think,
a better understanding, a deeper understanding of the book of the of the of the structure of the book.
Next slide, please. So a book is a fabric in the same sense that this panel of which is which our feathers.
Next slide, please. Knotted with threads.
So you don't see, of course, the underlying structure.
But there is no way that you could possibly separate the feathers and the structure that holds the feathers in place.
So in the same way that we consider that as a fabric in the same way,
we should consider the book as whole as a fabric and not separate the two things unless it is really necessary.
Next slide, please. The same idea is with the carpets, with the notes of a carpet,
there is no way you could consider separately the pile of a carpet from the structure that keeps it in place.
OK, so that's that's a basic concept to to start with.
And so, so summing up the very structure of the codex of the book, I think, is the structure of the fabric.
And that's that's a very important starting point for our discussion.
Next slide, please. The next the next part of the book, where one can find textiles or textile techniques, is obviously the spine lining for this.
This binding of the Eastern Mediterranean spine lining means a piece of textile,
normally a single piece of textile which covers the spine throughout and which extends on both
ends and the two ends of the textile extending on the outer face of the boat where they are based.
Like the example to the right and normally just very plain textile is used for the purpose normally not coloured at all,
but often it is coloured with this kind of indigo dye like like the example we see here or next slide,
please, for in more or imported textiles like the example to the left or the example the which is now in the Michigan Michigan University Library.
Next slides. And occasionally you can see that actually the textile use,
these are parts of some fabric because some of these exotic stands are really more elaborate, not plain at all.
And next slide, please. And there are examples of spine linings.
We have these crosses on their surface, either stitched or attached like this or sewn on on the on this canvas.
Like this style? Next, next slide, please. And that's another example.
And still another example in the next slide where basically you get these this impression or this,
this feeling that these are pieces of recycled liturgical vestments, possibly.
And also the fact that there is a possibility that whoever did that deliberately placed the cross in the spine of the book as a kind,
as a sort of talisman for the book. Because consider that this.
The book would be normally would be normally covered by the by the cover,
normally leather, but sometimes fabric as well as we will see in a few moments.
The next part of the book and I'm dealing with this Boxing Day in the conventional sequence that the book binder would have followed.
So starting with the showing, the spine laying next thing in the process would be and binding.
So the process of 10 months. Next slide, please. And and once full of frame.
For those of you who know me is one of my favourite subjects,
I've been doing consistent research on elements for several years and what I came out of.
That is basically the fact that the number of bands in the Eastern Mediterranean
book bindings at least is much greater than we have originally suspected.
And that's one thing. The second thing is that, well, of course, things like the primary end point in the secondary end bonds.
I suppose these are things we're familiar with. Primary end point is the one who is directly sold on the book a compound and buy.
A secondary component is the one which is shown on top of the primary punch of
the thread for the secondary component does not go through the book block,
but it totally worked around the primary component. These are all things I think we are all more or less familiar with.
Next slide, please. What is interesting to notice is that next slide as well is that we go to the previous story.
Is that basically in the same idea that the book is a fabric?
If we consider that as a principle, then any make perfect sense because they basically work in the same way that edge finishes work for textiles.
And that explains a few things, one of which is not the same exactly the same techniques and used both in its finishes and in inventory,
like the example you see here,
which is an endowment from a century Georgian binding from the St. Catharines monastery on way to a very peculiar, peculiar and rather uncommon end.
But these use, which is exactly exactly the same technique as the one used for the sleeve of that unique, which appears in the background.
So there are different techniques used for the buttons. We will see them very quickly now.
The first one is showing. Next slide, please. And so ink is what we all know.
And I'm sure we are all familiar with the idea of so many buttons at the edges of the book, so there is nothing much to say about that.
I'm just showing you here two examples one of a simple and the one thing that is right and one of the
compound and one the example to the left of the idea that the term simple and does not imply and then build,
which is very easy to make. It just implies that it is an end which is done in one single sequence.
So this amendment, which is directly sold in one go as opposed to compound and bunch, which, as I said, have two different components.
OK, so in good one technique, the next technique looks like this is they is weaving.
And although actually this is an example of very decorative example of a song and one of a compound compound compound and bands
are normally much more decorative than the simple ones because they're using coloured silk threads for the that's showing.
And of course, underneath that and one that you see, there is now a primary component,
which is not possible to see because of course, there is this secondary component which covers it.
Can we have this next slide, please? So next technique, which is, if used in advance,
is weaving and weaving being extremely widespread throughout history and throughout in time and space space.
Let's say one would have expected it to be much more common in then, but it is not.
Next slide, please. This is one of the few examples of ten months I've woven bands that I know and weaving, like the drawing at the bottom, you see,
is one of those techniques where, according to specialists in textile making and engineering, you have two sets of elements.
The first set of elements is the work and the other is the weft.
OK. Can we go quickly back to the previous slides? Alice.
OK, so we have the world and the West. That's not the the these are the two elements that make a woven fabric.
The important thing to remember because we will come back to that when speaking about planning is that in weaving,
the two are independent of the West in general, an independent one from the other.
So it's where works on its own right? OK, that's a basic distinction to remember to keep in mind.
Next slide, please. OK. I said this is a yes.
That's another example of a woven endowment, in which case that band you see at the front of the blue and yellow band is one of the book.
It can be woven in different ways. We're not going to go into that now.
And then once woven that that bag is stitched or sewn all the primary on the primary component.
So these are the only two examples of Lebanon bonds that I know, and it is a very small number compared to the number of twine backpacks that we have.
Next slide, please. And Twining is, in fact again a fabric making technique which many people confuse or consider as same as weaving.
In fact, it is. It is a branch of weaving, let's say, because again, here we have two sets of element.
We have the work and the with the the major distinction is that entwining at least two lifts are working together,
so one way it is intertwined with with at least another one.
OK. And that creates those those two.
And then once next slide, please.
Which I'm sure most of us are familiar with, and mostly because of the Islamic bonds, has the end point in the next slide.
Next slide, please, yes. OK, so this is applying them.
OK.
And I remember the basic distinction that entwined then once the two left are worked together or what actually works and we will see examples of that.
Next slide, please. Now, Twining is a very ancient technique.
Scholars believe that is older than weaving itself. And as as as it is older and universal and still very much used today,
you can find it in all sorts of artefacts like baskets or like next slide plays like fences.
This is this is embarked today, back today, or like in fabrics like the next slide, which shows basically a carpet from Uzbekistan.
Next slide in which the axing of the fabric is made with Twining.
And I'm sure we will all recognise here the same effect, as well as the same structure with the with the at least the Islamic.
But Twining is not confined to Islamic Islamic bindings.
But all these eastern Mediterranean banks? Next slide, please.
So basically on top of the primary and bottom, you have an ambition tying binding,
and what you see here is a typical the typical endowment you have in most of the business and binding.
This is what we often call a grip on the byzantine part for for for the sake of simplicity.
Now that's the primary component. And on top of that, in order to create a timetable, you have to first provide the works.
And in order to make the work, you have a thread which widens around the primary component, as shown in the going next slide, please.
And so here we will. I will.
So in a sort of very simple animation, how training is made.
Again, I'm sure that most of you will know that Alice.
Can we do that? Yes. Okay, so.
So the works and on top of the works, the with two of them working from one end of the one to the other end and then back and back and forth until the
whole surface of the NBN is covered in order to create something like like the fabric you see at the bottom.
Next slide, please. And that is to try and then bunkmate in the 15th century or early 16th century.
This is a typical advent of the bindings made in creating the island of grey concrete in the 15th and 16th centuries,
a period when the grid was under Venetian domination and it was a major centre of book production.
Book production and book banking, obviously, after the fall of Constantinople, of course,
no book production moved a great part of that book production of Greek books destined for the Renaissance, a scholarly market in Italy and elsewhere.
Most of the book of those books are a great part of those books was produced in Greece.
So that pattern and that combination of colours is typical of bindings making great.
Next slide, please.
And this is the back of that end where basically, I think you have a very clear idea of a clear view of the whole structure of that.
And so with the thick, linear thread, you have the primary component, the primary element.
And then around that you have with a thinner plate where the linen threads.
You have these this works works.
And then at the front of the end and around these works, you have the actual binding, which is made with red and green threads.
Secrets, not much. Next slide, please. And as I said, Twining can be done with Norm.
It's often done with two colours, but more twining with three or even more colours is not are not uncommon.
This is a typical and one of Syriac bindings.
So Twining made with three colours in this case yellow, green and red.
Next slide, please. So I mentioned at the beginning that there are many variations of combining.
I'm not. There isn't the time to go through all of them, but one I find particularly interesting is this one we are in the process of finding.
The threads do not only go around the world and around themselves, but they also go around what they call an additional core.
And next slide, please. And so this is the image of such an environment which, because of it, is not very good preservation.
It actually shows the underlying structure. Next slide the actual amount, if well-preserved, is looks like that.
So these are really quite 10 months.
But compared to those seen previously, like the one concrete or the one from the Islamic binding, they have much more volume.
They're much more sculptural, if like. Next slide, please.
This is another example of this type of once these are flattened.
And so the code behind this entrance is a flat, normally a flat parchment thick parchment core.
OK, so they have a distinctive flat and vertical for, let's say.
Next slide, please. And this is still another and one of a kind you can actually see better here.
I think the the the the the fact that under these coloured threads, there is a need of this trying robes.
There is a coach under the the silk threads,
and these are very typical of the best bindings produced in Byzantium in the late, 14th and 15th centuries.
And it isn't by chance that you find this in bunting in bindings which are related to the to the best book binding.
So the books which have been bound for the imperial family. And in fact, next slide, please.
This example of a book bound for the Imperial Palace Lodge Families of the final.
The last family of the Imperial Family of Byzantium. This is the monogram of the paleobiology family.
This is the end of this binding. This is from the National Library in Paris.
Next slide. This is from the National Library of Greece in Athens.
Again, a binding not very well preserved, but still binding with the monograph of the imperial family.
What remains of the endowment is still enough to identify it as one of these elaborate flying tenements with additional cost.
The next example in the next slide is an example from the Bodleian Library from one of the Perotti codices of.
Very, extremely beautifully, well executed binding of the declaration of the cover is extremely beautiful.
The by the book has been Reebok, but of course the men are still there pretty much intact.
So these end points are related, as I said, with the best book production the last period of Byzantium of the Byzantine Empire.
But next slide, please. As I mentioned, these 10 points are very common, also in Syriac bindings.
This is an example of these. It might not be a straightforward clear to you, but there are in each of these trying throws,
there is a code underneath the colour of the colour bridge.
So this is designed with addition, of course. Next slide, please.
The next one is again a twined and one with additional cores.
But and then buttons, which are which we normally call an Armenian in,
but not just because it is found on normally on on manuscripts written in Armenian,
but it has some peculiar features like me the size of the additional course.
So the top court is always much thicker than the other ones and the combination of colours with red,
white and black like here being the very typical Armenian combination.
Next slide, please. Or even in Georgian bindings.
And this is one of these twin 10 bands with additional colour from the 10th century Georgian binding from the St. Catharines Monastery.
Next slide. The only way still today,
the only way to mechanise to do to speed up training there is that there has
never been a machine invented for speeding up training or mechanised twining.
The only device ever used is tablet. OK, and tablet waving is an ancient craft is a natural technique.
We find that in classical antiquity in Egypt, in Rome, everywhere and in our lives.
Until today, it's still used today, and there are plenty of emerging mediaeval mediaeval manuscripts like the two
miniatures to the right and the photograph to the left showing a woman in Sweden,
I think practising tablet weaving in the 20th century.
Next slide, please. My my first contact with tablet waving is because of this very beautiful bond and this beautiful book.
When we were assessing the condition of the Sinai collection and this is a unique example,
it's the only example of such of such a tablet woven and banned in the Sinai at the time.
When we came across that we didn't really know what tablet with because we thought
this is just a more elaborate version of Twining made with red and medium,
as you know, as the in of showing you as the Islamic emblem, et cetera.
But then I met a joy, but you are very. Next slide, please.
As a friend and colleague, she's a text black engineer actress's is professor of Physics, an engineer in Denmark.
So I sent her a photograph of the the photographs to the top.
And a week or so later, I received in the post and the envelope with the unbanked or with the band at the bottom,
which is basically a band woven with tablet living in the same colours,
etc. Do notice at the middle of that balance in the book, where there is a point in the middle of the strap where the pattern becomes a.
OK, so the pattern to the left to the right is mirroring the pattern to the right.
Do you see that? I hope. We will come back to that later on, just keep that in mind.
So tablet waving. Next slide, please.
This is a rather I mean, it's not an extremely complicated picnic, but for us, we are completely unfamiliar with that technique.
It's a bit of a surprise. So consider that for each of these twined rows and next slide, please.
For each of the design rows of the unbent and two to draw in the drawing to the top right,
you see that the the end point that was showing you just before has one two three four five six seven eight nine rows of trying.
Therefore, there will be nine tablets. OK.
And there are specific weights in which one has to pass the threads through the tablets, et cetera, et cetera.
So it isn't the place to explain all these particularities.
The next slide we show was assured the very short video of my first attempt with tablet waving a few years ago.
Alice, can we have the next slide, please? OK. And so that's these are the tablets I made the tablets with comic books, really?
These are the silk threads. These are how they are laced through the tablets, and both ends need to be in tension so the twins need to be stretched.
Okay. And then this is the process of tablet weaving.
So every time you turned the tablets a quarter forward and you pass the the left.
Then we turn another quarter. There is a set or bent in the process.
And then from that, you pass again the threat.
Now when when this tabloid weaving is done for remember, you have to have the cool because the elements have shown you before.
As I said, I've made on a parchment thick parchment call.
And so this is what I was doing here.
I just put a strip of parchment at the back in order to create and then one to 10 one tablet woven twine, then bent around the parchment called.
It's very it's a very quick once you set up everything and once once you lace you, yes, you lace your threads through the holes of the tablet,
then the rest is very quick so you can make a tiny, tiny band in a fraction of the time.
You would need to do the same end on the book with thread and needle.
OK, so that's one of the reasons why I use tablets tablets we think about, apparently.
OK. And so this is the final and bumped from.
That's how it looks from the box. So you have a strip, a tablet woven, a strip made around department court.
Next slide, please. And once this is done,
you cut your your strip to the length of the end you want to create and then you up the show that's on the edge of the book like in different ways.
There are different ways. One of which is just showing the drawing.
And it was the way Stone actually used in the in the actual end of this from the Sinai next slide.
Please. It is this one. OK, now next slide.
Tablet weaving is common was common, very much common in antiquity.
These are examples from Egypt. Next slide. This is an example from the Peloponnese in the 14th century.
This is an example. Yes, that's that's an example from Byzantine of the 14th century excavated in the properties in Greece.
The next example in the next slide is from Russia.
And it is a tablet woven strip with a name on top of it written in Greek.
Next slide. I mean,
the technique can create such us so I can work so nicely and so delicately that you can actually write texts on these by twining of these banks.
And this is the same idea but used in Burma. These are from Burma.
Next example next slide, please. These are examples from mediaeval Russia.
Next example next slide. This is a tablet of an endowment from a 16th century bound book in Russia,
which a colleague of ours, Alexander Kruger, has repaired and has published in Anarchical Day.
The Strip. You see at the left bottom is what remains of the endowment.
Excuse me, next slide, please. And these are different patterns of swords.
Assad's tablet tablet woven in buns and looks like these are examples from such 15th
century Russian bindings from the Lenin library I was able to see three years ago.
This slide next slide, please also. Next slide.
And next slide as well.
OK, next slide is about breaking, so there are elements in the 16th and 17th century which are not made with binding, but they are made with braiding.
I don't know how many of you are familiar with braiding. Let's see the next slide, please.
Braiding again is an antique technique. This is an image from the 15th century showing exactly the practise of look braiding.
Next slide and look braiding. Bathed basically consists of one person working with five loops threaded in three and two fingers in the two hats.
And basically all you do is you alternate looks from one hand to the other.
OK, that's that's very roughly what it is about.
Next slide, please. And this is, for example, such a braided then made of the book and then stitch the book.
This is 17th-century next slide.
And one of the interesting things that I almost came across by accident is this miniature from a book copied in 13 62 in the Peloponnese.
It's a Greek manuscript showing these three women working on different textile making processes.
Next slide the woman to the to the left bottom is the one which is the most interesting for us.
Can we see the next slide? Next slide.
Yes, so if you look closer, although the image is badly damaged, even one can survive and survives intact.
It's definitely shown as working look great and tend to my on my understanding.
This is the only image we have. And one of the very few images from the mediaeval in the times of low rating.
So although I don't think if look, bilinguals is a cog in the Byzantine cortex on the next slide, please.
Although Byzantine been bit famous for the fabrics and the luxurious dresses he produced,
it wouldn't be surprising that all these different techniques,
which have been very well known and very well practised in the Byzantine context, very, very quickly.
Next. Next slide, please. He's the technical shoemaker.
It's a very widespread technique for tablets and carpet weaving, but not as common in buttons.
Although you do find it, I know only two examples, but they are there.
Next slide. This is one of the examples of the Byzantine. This is your five minute.
Oh OK, I have to ask. Thank you. OK, so that's that's as well as Schumacher-Matos, and it might look like a twining.
It's not whining. And the standard might not be very easy to understand from the photograph and next slide, please.
That's the another example from the National Library in Athens.
Very quickly, Marcus is the next part of the book where the fabric making techniques are used and basically here as well.
We are dealing with braiding. Next slide, please.
And in braiding, we distinguish between between unorthodox look braiding like here when?
Well, never mind. Unorthodox is shown here in orthodoxy, shown in the next slide.
I don't think it's very easy to explain it right now.
It's just a small change in the way loops are passing one from the other.
All I know about braiding the very few things I know about braiding all come from.
Next slide, please. No, I'm going spacers and joy, but oops.
Books on loop braiding, which are here, several of which are so here.
And Jodi Bootloop was very generous in sending me back the actual facsimiles of braided markers I sent your photographs of.
Next slide, please. So this is an example. Next slide.
And that's the facsimile next example. Another one.
Next, next slide. Next.
These are all different bookmarks from the books.
Basically, all of them, the in the Sinai.
This is an interesting one because it is made with 10 loops, so it is not made in one person, but two persons working together.
Next slide, please. In that way, so two women probably work in one thing and one next to the other and exchanging looks in their house.
OK, so next, next slide, please.
Is also this idea of free and braiding like the braids we use for hair.
That's the same technique. And of course, next slide tablets.
Woven bands were also used for for bookmarks, and this is an example of that.
Do not these the small how to say a seam at the middle of the bank?
That is where this is a feature. This is a typical feature we all have, and this is a feature which can exist only when a bank is made in public.
It's not easy here to explain now why it is there, but it is there.
If you ever see that, then there is no question about the way this bank was made.
It was definitely made weaving. Next slide is another example of this idea of using public woven bonds as bookmarks.
And very quickly, the next slide, please. The last part?
Well, not exactly. The last part was the last part is the cover. The idea is very clear.
You can understand that the idea of covering books with rich textiles.
There are several examples if we can go through them quickly.
The idea is that at least in the basic Byzantine context,
these rich textiles were used only for the for the most precious books if we stop there only for the most precious books like the gospel, basically.
So you would expect to find velvet and silk patterned or not used in gospel books.
These are, of course, a more luxurious examples embroidered with metal threads in silver or gold silver threads covers which have been used.
These are the only two examples of such bindings we know of. Both of them are related to the imperial family, to their right,
to the imperial family of the clergy, and hence the the monogram that appears in both of them.
The one to the left is now the offered at the monastery outside Rome.
The one to the right is in the Alice Coriander Library in Spain, and they are both,
as I said, closely related to people, to persons of the imperial family.
And of course. Next slide, please. Embroidering embroidered with embroidery with silver and gold silver thread was one of the speciality of Byzantine.
Not very much has survived. This is one of the few treasures from around the thirteen hundreds that survived
until just now preserved in the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki,
where I work. Next slide, please. And this is a detail which gives you an idea of the refinement that such embroideries could achieve.
Last part of the book is Next slide, please.
The fastenings and typical four Byzantine fastenings are the interlaced leather straps, as you can see here.
But then occasionally, like you next slide, you can see the suit threads have been used in this case braided as well as in the next slide, please.
Also here and next example, I think also these straps were made with two people working two together with Lou braiding.
Next slide. This is another example with breaking a next example.
And these are just a few images in order to say that most of these eckstine of this
fabric or silk straps are used in books bound or covered in velvet or silk colours.
And next slide, please. This is an example of tablet woven bands used from Fastenings Next slide.
And these are another three examples of such stops. Now it will be closing,
there are five more slides very quickly with what I consider to be a very interesting feature on these books and next slide, please.
This feature is the idea that several of these rather stylised decorative bounds
you find the manuscripts can be related directly to fabric making techniques.
So this is that doodle, basically.
And next slide, please, is the image of from from from a book on textile classification, which basically tries to show the structure of these books.
Some of these illustrations, they seem they are almost they seem like instruction drawings for fabric making,
and we will see very quickly a few examples. Next slide, please.
This is braiding as as illustrated in the book, and the other is braiding as used the decoration of one of these manuscripts.
Next slide. This is a looping, mixed light.
This is also looking to use as decoration or used as as a classification tool.
Next slide, please. Weaving.
And then next slide.
And this looks like looping, basically the one we discussed earlier when speaking about the sewing and the last slide is the next one.
As I said, some of these images are exact copies of the actual fabric making techniques,
and it is it is an issue which I have just started to investigate.
And these decorations seem to appear in Byzantine manuscripts more or less the same, potentially on work.
And the last line, which is the next one, ends with the phrase I quite like to make research, not work.
And my email for whoever wants to do contact for, you know,
if you have questions or you have links or ideas you want to share, I'm very happy always to be in contact.
Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Judith.
I'm going to stop sharing now and we will move on to some questions.
Answers just give me a second to. So just the first question that I can see, which has had some upvotes.
What type of threat is used for the looting? I'm not sure. Normally, or for all of them, it's either secret which is the norm or later on.
I think cotton. Yeah. Thank you for that.
But more ballistic. So I've got another question which is being upvoted tablet living is much faster, as you said, than something then banned.
Yet we seem to see much more soon end bans. There are particular reason for the bias in that.
Well, I think about it, it was not a widespread technique amongst bankers.
That's that's what they think is especially in the Byzantine context.
I don't know if actually trying to get rid of an endowment whenever used.
All the examples they know Wolf, with the exception of one, seem to be related to Russia.
In Russia, they were very, very common, apparently not in the Byzantine, in the proper Byzantine banks.
But I think that's just that's just because it was a technique Bookbinder did not adopt for some reason.
Mm-Hmm. I think she. Another question.
So thank you for the amazing presentation.
Can you please explain a bit the reasons or motivations behind certain complexity and sophistication of buttons?
Does that kind of relate to? See, binding, do you think?
I don't I cannot really understand. I cannot really be sure about that.
The thing is that you find the more elaborate and often on the most elaborate bindings
show those bindings of the imperial family definitely have the most elaborate inputs.
But that's not that's not necessarily always the case. I mean, even in the Sinai, which is in the middle of the desert,
you get the feeling that some of the banks made in the monastery were really using very beautiful silk and rather elaborate techniques.
But I think those are rather the exception. The rule would be that the more elaborate entrance would be, the more for the more luxurious bindings.
Hmm. That's the idea behind that. Yeah. And another question.
Have you come across any records of kind of the artisans and craftsmen and workshops kind of who were making these no element of Byzantine ways,
amongst other things, is is is notorious for not paying much attention to the craftsmanship.
Yeah. So there is nothing like the manuals we have in bookbinding manuals for the Islamic world.
Nothing like that. So it seems almost nothing survives on the craftsmanship of the craftspeople,
even icon painting, which was probably the major artistic expression of Byzantium.
You have to arrive to the eighteenth century or 17th century, actually 18th, I think,
to get the earliest painters money so well after the end of the Byzantine Byzantine mandate in the mid 16th century, 14th century, 15th century.
So we don't we don't get unfortunately nothing like not even terms.
I mean, it would be, you know, we would be happy if we had terms describing all these different parts.
But no, all the terms used to describe the the external appearance of the book,
rather nothing like the, you know, end bunch of fastening straps fastening.
Sometimes, yes, but nothing like sewing or things more more internal, more structural fix from the.
She. Got another quick technical question.
With the twin dam, bans can be seen to be continuous as they work back and forth or the brakes at the end.
Well, that's an interesting question.
That's one of the the features that are actually that can actually help us tell if the mind and one is made with thread the needle on the book.
Or maybe we split within copybook because in a tablet woven in just cut the part off from from the woven from the fabric woven bonds.
OK. So if you cut the threads, then at the end of the of the end of the bundle have loose threads.
Basically, while in amendment at the time on the book, you're using one single thread going front and back.
So at the edges of the end, the thread really locks and goes back.
OK, so if you look at the edges of the pants, if you have cut threads, then that's probably an indication that that's made with tablet weaving.
If you don't have cut threads, but the thread continues from the other end, the other way,
the other direction, then it is a clear indication that that is made with thread the needle on the book.
Thank you. And scroll down.
We're lots and lots of thank you, Stuart. Yes, I'm just going through that.
Yeah. Yes. And lots of people shouting out your fabulous book, which is.
The correct answer to those questions about, yes, that will and another whining and reading, Ken Burns, what material is good for the world?
Yeah, normally it's linen, it's a thin thread, but what we call a plain thread, which means either linen or shouldn't.
I think normally it's linen because it's very fine quality.
Occasionally you do find silk threads as well, but still been, I think, more thin and more delicate.
It wasn't used for the actual what the works normally are made with linen print.
And yes, the type of thread which for the look, we've already replied, that's an that.
You've got time for one more question.
Oh, just a question, would Typekit leaving create a stronger core that Keith against sorry, would tablet leaving create a stronger core?
I don't know. Probably, yes, because the the the band produce the fabric produced is much more compact and much cheaper.
See what I mean, because when you do that twining, we thread the needle and you have to pull the thread yourself.
And you know, it's very hard to keep this the exact same bullying for all the threads.
Why would tablet waving that becomes automatically and is consistent throughout?
You see what I mean? So that's also I mean for for a rather trained guy,
that's that's one of the ways to turn the tablet woven bands from Entwined Band on on the book because the tablet woman band looks very consistent,
looks like made by a machine because actually effectively a tablet tablet, we think is a machine process.
OK, although it's very it's not very sophisticated.
While modernised, it's still a machine only machine ever invented and never used for speeding up training.
Yeah. OK, just one more question. Sneak one more in from Nicky, she said.
An interesting observation about representation of weaving and twining in headpieces, beetles, et cetera.
Is there a time at which the start? So is there a kind of what is there a time at which this starts?
Oh yeah. Well, as I said, I think as I said, it's not a completed research.
So this is very much an ongoing research.
But it seems that these set pieces with these patterns, with these, this pixel patterns become more common from the 13th century.
And and yes, perfect on the manuscripts. Yeah.
Yes. I think I think now we're yeah, we're approaching five o'clock.
So as to just said, see his email.
So any other questions or things he'd be happy to add directly to him?
I said, if anybody wants to know or to ask a specific question or there is something they would like no more or whatever,
he made me up happy to to reply. Well, thank you so much.
So to wrap up, I'd like to say thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you so much for you, us and sharing his research today.
And thank you, everyone, for your patience with the slight technical problems. Alex, thank you.
Thank you for what I forgot to mention that thank you for the good work given the circumstances.
I mean, you know that we haven't had that before,
so we try to thank you very much and thank you to everyone at the body and to the public engagement team and the rest of my conservation colleagues,
and especially also to Karen, who's been in the background today in the session doing some pretty things for us as well.
And to to Barron for funding this series.
And I just like to finish off by saying we very much hope you'll join us for the next talk in the Texas Library series,
which will be on the 9th of December. And I'm going to be joined at the podium by artist Alice Fox, which will be great.
And tickets for that talk and the rest of the series are still available online and they're free to do.
Please check out the body website for that.
So, yeah, without further ado, I hope you have a look the rest of your day and thank you again, George and goodbye.
Thank you. Hi, bye.