Comments on Handwriting Analysis and the Mar Saba Letter

[andrewcriddle]

IIUC we are not only dealing with isolated unusual letter formations scattered through the letter. There seem to be consistent usages.

For example the omicron upsilon with circumflex word ending occurs around 30 times in the letter. It looks to be normal cursive at first glance but it seems to be consistently formed with an unusual pattern of pen movements.

Andrew Criddle

Interesting. Paananen and Viklund wrote that there are 56 circumflexed upsilons. 37 of those are written in a continuous stroke, 13 are written with the circumflex as a tilde, and 6 special cases. So my question is, which of these are consistently formed with an unusual pattern of pen movements?

In the 43 cases of the letter upsilon connected with the circumflex accent, we can find only a few examples in which the line with some probability could be described as non-continuous, and these exceptions are quite explainable. They are all coherent with the way this scribe wrote certain letters or letter-combinations.<sup>144

144</sup> There are a total of 56 circumflexed upsilons (ῦ) in the manuscript. Thirty-seven of those are in the word τοῦ, and there the tau is always written alone, the omicron and the upsilon are written as ligature and are as far as we can tell connected with the circumflex accent in a continuous stroke in every case. Of the remaining 19 circumflexed upsilons, 13 are written with the circumflex as a tilde (this includes all 7 instances of Ἰησοῦ…). The remaining 6 times the circumflex is seemingly done as a continuation of the upsilon or omicron-upsilon ligature and then sometimes apparently done separately. But this is all explainable. ...

https://tuhat.helsinki.fi/ws/files/1252 ... _check.pdf (p. 37)

I may be misunderstanding Tselikas but IIUC although in the word τοῦ the omicron and the upsilon are written as ligature and apparently continuous with the circumflex, the stroke is done in the wrong direction. Right to left not left to right.

(This is how I understand the passage from Tselikas ῦ with circumflex: This way is irregular. He should make a curve to the right, here is the reverse. Again, the line connecting the υ with curve or round (!) of the circumflex is discontinuous. )

Andrew Criddle

[AdamKvanta]

I may be misunderstanding Tselikas but IIUC although in the word τοῦ the omicron and the upsilon are written as ligature and apparently continuous with the circumflex, the stroke is done in the wrong direction. Right to left not left to right.

(This is how I understand the passage from Tselikas ῦ with circumflex: This way is irregular. He should make a curve to the right, here is the reverse. Again, the line connecting the υ with curve or round (!) of the circumflex is discontinuous. )

Andrew Criddle

Yeah, it is probably irregular but I don't understand why a forger would have done this if he was trying to imitate someone. I think Paananen and Viklund commented on this peculiarity, too:

Sometimes there are hooks of different magnitudes in the middle of the lines, as if the scribe suddenly twisted his hand. These are extremely noticeable, and obviously a characteristic of this particular scribe. ... Similar sharp turns of direction can also be found in the connecting line between the letter upsilon and the circumflex accent. ... As far as we can see, this is a shift in direction and not a pen lift or a stop (as there are no obvious ink blobs). ... Most importantly, there are seldom any obvious ink blobs where the line ends or when it begins anew, indicating that the pen is moving rather swiftly in a continuous movement.

https://tuhat.helsinki.fi/ws/files/1252 ... _check.pdf (p. 38-39)