Steven White

Medieval Bible Reveals Secrets of Parchment-Making, Study Finds - Medievalists.net A new study reveals how the skins used to make the 13th-century Hamburg Bible preserve scars, stitches, and even signatures from medieval parchment-makers—offering a detailed look at manuscript…

Medieval Bible Reveals Secrets of Parchment-Making, Study Finds www.medievalists.net/2025/04/medi... #MedievalManuscripts #MiddleAges

A powerpoint slide showing a page from a late 12th century copy of Peter of Lombard's commentary on the Psalms an epistles. To the left in large script is the scriptural text. To the right, in smaller script, is the commentary. I have outlines in various colors the different components that coordinate each but of commentary with the word or verse they gloss and that coordinate them with the auctor responsible for the commentary.

Over the course of the 12th & 13th centuries in Europe, the layout of the page in books became increasingly complex, due to changes to reading practice with the rise of scholasticism & the university. The sophisticated architecture of the page compresses an amazing amount of info into this space.

Inflammatory aortic disease can have a long differential diagnosis. Check out the Consensus statement from the Society for Cardiovascular Pathology for a thorough review and recommendations: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Great story from York's glorious Bar Convent! (cc @amyjsolomons.bsky.social)

Congratulations! It's so impressive that you are studying, delivering amazing educational content, and raising a kid! Good on you!

Absolutely. I will message you tomorrow.

Welcome! Let me know if you have any questions about forensic and/or CV pathology as career paths. I'm happy to help.

#FossilFriday The beautifully preserved Jebel Irhoud 1 basal H. sapiens skull from Morocco, dated about 300,000 years old

Illustration of Manot 1 partial skull. Text: The Cave Research Unit of Hebrew University of Jerusalem discovered this partial skull during a survey of Manot Cave in 2008. The cave had previously been hidden when an entrance was opened by a bulldozer, and the calvaria lay on a flowstone shelf in a side chamber of the main gallery. A crust of calcite on the calvaria allows a minimum age estimate from the decay of uranium into thorium, this suggests the individual lived at least 60,000 to 49,000 years ago. The overall anatomy of the skull resembles modern humans but it has some shape similarities with Neandertals, including the flattened area flanking the lambdoidal suture and a shallow suprainiac fossa. Israel Hershkovitz and collaborators have suggested that the individual belonged to a population that made early Upper Paleolithic artifacts and had some mixture from Neandertal populations.

The Cave Research Unit of Hebrew University of Jerusalem discovered a partial skull during a survey of Manot Cave in 2008. Dated to 60,000 to 49,000 years ago, Manot 1 lived at a time when a modern founder population began to disperse throughout the world.

Top 10 discoveries about ancient people from DNA in 2024 New resolution is emerging of some events in ancient human populations, and a clearer view of some parts of the genome.

Rapid natural selection across the last 5000 years, a complex speciation to kick off the hominin lineage, and a single pulse of Neandertal ancestry into recent people around 47,000 years ago. Those are some of the big stories coming from DNA this year.

johnhawks.net/weblog/top-1...

Why Are We The Only Surviving Human Species? It is possible that our ancestors played a part in their demise.

Why Are We The Only Surviving Human Species?
www.iflscience.com/why-are-we-t...

#fossilfriday Madrid 1993: When Miguelon met Ms Gibraltar Neanderthal pic.x.com/G7N8QponTk” ;)

This past May 2024, The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies hosted an international conference on the medieval Jewish thinker Moses Maimonides and the Christian thinker Thomas Aquinas. Roundtable discussions and public lectures are now available for viewing on YouTube.
pims.ca/article/conf...

PCI in Patients Undergoing Transcatheter Aortic-Valve Implantation | NEJM The benefit of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with stable coronary artery disease and severe aortic stenosis who are undergoing transcatheter aortic-valve implantation (TAVI) ...

In the NOTION-3 trial, researchers assessed whether performing PCI in addition to TAVI in patients with stable coronary artery disease and severe symptomatic aortic stenosis would lead to better clinical outcomes than TAVI without PCI. Full trial results: nej.md/3AH5WJo

#MedSky

Initial Q(uoniam) at the beginning of the Physica, depicting the burning of books before a friar & a seated king; and thought to represent the burning of Aristotle’s works in Paris in 1210 CE.

BL Harley MS 3487; Aristotle, Libri naturales; 13th century; England (Oxford?); f.4r

This is incredibly cool. Using a CT scan to read an unopenable ancient papyrus scroll!

An unknown leaf from the Poor Clares of Cologne The involvement of nuns in creating beautiful medieval manuscripts is often underappreciated. It is very exciting, then, to discover a new example of their work. While searching for items to include i...

There's an interesting new blogpost by Ellie Jackson at the BL:
blogs.bl.uk/digitisedman...
#fragmentology #mssprovenance

Why Notre-Dame Was Built for Medieval Music - Medievalists.net When you walk into Notre-Dame de Paris, the air feels alive with echoes of the past. This iconic cathedral was more than a masterpiece of Gothic architecture—it was a giant musical instrument…

Why Notre-Dame Was Built for Medieval Music https://www.medievalists.net/2024/12/why-notre-dame-was-built-for-medieval-music/ #NotreDame #medievalsky #musicsky

Blue Man Group (circa 1488)

‘Visceral - Planet Man. Diagram of domination of seasons over anatomical regions. Figures representing the four tempers in the corners. Fool.’

Flanders - Post 1488
Bodleian Library MS. Douce 311

#history #medieval #medievalsky#manuscript

Penwork decoration next to handwritten text.

Lower margin of medieval page, containing penwork flourishing.

Large blue initial letter on medieval page.

Saw some really lovely penwork decoration today. Dutch flourishing from 15th century has distinct regional features, this style is from Haarlem. More importantly, the happiness just jumps off the page!

The Hague, KB, 1900 A 406

A richly decorated manuscript page with many applications in gold that are well visible because of the uneven surface of the parchment. Light reflects from these letter.

Sometimes, because parchment undulates, even in digital facsimile we can see medieval illuminations as they would have looked with an indirect light source. Light and shadow made the page come alive every time it was used, for example, in a liturgical context.

BSB Clm 22311, late 9th century

Flap anatomy illustrations of the heart and lungs from an 17th century text by René Descartes, with one image revealing pealed back layers to expose the ventricles of the heart.

Flap anatomy illustrations of the heart and lungs from an 17th century text by René Descartes, with one image revealing pealed back layers to expose the ventricles of the heart.

On #NationalIllustrationDay we’re bringing #FoldOutFriday over from the other place! Anatomical illustrations of the heart with flaps raised to expose the left and right ventricles. In René Descartes ‘De Homine’, which was published posthumously in 1662 due to fears of being branded a heretic

First letters found in new scroll PHerc. 172 (Scroll 5) is here.

Amazing progress is being made in reading texts in scrolls from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, unread for two millennia. We @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social have been working with the Vesuvius Challenge, and our colleagues in Oxford Classics to read one of ours! substack.com/home/post/p-...

Close-up picture of Caroline minuscule script and Rustic Roman Capitals from a ca. late-11th or early-12th century manuscript copy of Gregory the Great's Moralia in Iob, recycled as the cover to a 1501 printed edition of the letters of Pliny the Younger.

Picture of Caroline minuscule script and Rustic Roman Capitals from a ca. late-11th or early-12th century manuscript copy of Gregory the Great's Moralia in Iob, recycled as the cover to a 1501 printed edition of the letters of Pliny the Younger.

Close-up picture of Caroline minuscule script from a ca. late-11th or early-12th century manuscript copy of Gregory the Great's Moralia in Iob, recycled as the cover to a 1501 printed edition of the letters of Pliny the Younger.

The title page for a 1501 printed edition of the letters of Pliny the Younger.

Nifty 1501 edition of the letters of Pliny the Younger. But for me, the star of the show is the printed book’s manuscript binding: a recycled leaf from a ca. 11th/12th-century copy of Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job. Lovely hierarchy of script! #fragmentology #ManuscriptFragment #BindingFragment

Here’s how the Sun will end all life on Earth Our home star won't go supernova, but the end of its life will be no less spectacular.

Anyway here’s a cheerful piece about how the Sun will eventually destroy all life on Earth (but not by exploding, so, you know, there’s that)

S100

OCT2

#PathSky
Scalp mass, 33M. Just a nice example of soft tissue Rosai-Dorfman disease. I think this low power “pale->pink->blue” look is a good low power clue. In addition to S100 protein, Karen Rech’s group here at Mayo have shown OCT2 to be valuable in this dx. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33177341/

The slightly wrinkled and worn cover of the scientific journal, Nature. From October 2004, the cover reveals a small human-like skull in the palm of a hand, the jaw resting on the table next to it. The headline is "Short for her age"

#OnThisDay twenty years ago the world met Homo floresiensis, a hobbit-sized species so shocking, scientists can still tell me where they were when they heard the news.
📸 A copy of the issue I found tucked away at the Indonesian archaeological center. 🧪🏺

Medieval medical manuscript recycled as a binding fragment in 1541 edition of Aristotle on natural science.

Medieval medical manuscript recycled as a binding fragment in 1541 edition of Aristotle on natural science.

Picture of the limp vellum binding of a 1541 edition of Aristotle on natural science.

Title page of a 1541 edition of Aristotle on natural science.

Nifty 1541 edition of Aristotle on natural science w/ a medieval medical binding fragment preserving text drawn from Isaac Israeli ben Solomon’s Book on Fevers. OSU has lots of exciting #BindingFragments #ManuscriptFragment #fragmentology #MedievalMedicine #Aristotle #BookHistory #manuscripts

Our Special Issue is out, fully #openaccess in PaleoAnthropology! 7 studies integrating #ZooMS and #Zooarchaeology, alongside an extensive introduction on challenges/potentials. Guest editors
@geoffreymsmith.bsky.social, Karen Ruebens, Virginie Sinet-Mathiot, Frido Welker. 🏺🧪🦴
tinyurl.com/ya9js9xp

A look at the Neanderthal from Altamura The exceptional skeleton encased in calcite has started to yield insights about early Neanderthals.

A look at the Neanderthal from Altamura.
The exceptional skeleton encased in calcite has started to yield insights about early Neanderthals.

johnhawks.net/weblog/a-loo...