An Unknown Work from an Unknown Time

In the second case of the exhibit, we throw viewers a bit of a curveball by introducing a modern woodblock. It is, of course, there for a reason: to compare and contrast work from perhaps the premier wood engraver of today with work by unknown artists from an unknown time.

The modern piece is the work of Gaylord Schanilec. On display is a woodblock from his Ernest Morgan: Printer of Principle, published by Schanilec's Midnight Paper Sales Press in 2001. Schanilec has this to say about the book:

In 1997 I traveled to Yancy County, North Carolina, and spent three days with Ernest Morgan. He had been described to me as an old printer (ninety-two years of age) with plenty of good stories. On the first day, much to my surprise, he mentioned that he had been an apprentice in the shop of William Rudge in 1923 and yes, Bruce Rogers had been there. In the course of my visit Ernest went into detail about his experiences in Rudge’s shop. He gave me a line of type ornaments designed by Bruce Rogers that he took with him when he left in 1924.... He also talked extensively about his own enterprise, the Antioch Bookplate Company, where he had dealings with such bookish notables as Rockwell Kent and Lynd Ward....

Ernest was also a social activist. During the Depression he had been a union organizer, a regional barter organization manager (as well as the printer of its currency), and Chairman of the Socialist Party of Ohio (as well as its candidate for governor).

The text of Ernest Morgan: Printer of Principle is a transcription of his stories. Will Powers, who contributed an introduction and afterword to the text, started his career as a printer apprentice at Ernest Morgan’s Antioch Bookplate Company in 1968. From there he embarked on an illustrious career as a printer, designer of books, and a fine typographer.

Juxtaposed to the Morgan block are two blocks used to print prayer flags. As with our ancient works displayed in the first case, these prayer blocks are scantily identified. Labels on the blocks identify them as Manchu and Mongol; both are undated. We do not know much more about them, not even the wood from which they are made.

Part of our mission is to collect and document examples of global writing and printing technologies from antiquity to the present. Artifacts acquired from dealers at an earlier time occasionally present gaps in our knowledge. Dealer’s descriptions of items were often incomplete or incorrect. The age of these prayer blocks, for example, are unknown; their labels or other identifying marks potentially misleading. Artifacts such as these present opportunities for additional research, in the quest for fuller, more robust descriptions and of information about the cultures that created them.

While we know little about the prayer blocks, we take some solace in what they represent, and what they create: the promotion of peace, compassion, strength, and wisdom. In days such as these, there is some small comfort knowing that somewhere, on the roof of the world, winds blow these prayers and mantras, spreading good will and benefit to all. And as the flags fade, exposed to the elements, new flags take their place. Hope is renewed; the power of the press is reaffirmed.

James Ford Bell Gallery, Case Number One

We took a brief break to attend the Association of College and Research Libraries/Rare Books and Manuscript Section conference, and then the American Library Association Conference, both in New Orleans. We'll be in and out a bit during the month of July, but will continue to post about items on display in "The Best from Pen and Press."

Our earlier posts described items displayed in the Bell Gallery's first case. Now that we've completed those descriptions, we thought you'd like to see what the case looks like.

On the top shelf you'll see our scroll of the Book of Esther, one of five megillahs (Hebrew word for scroll) read during Purim.

On the bottom shelf you'll see our cuneiform cone, bulla, and tablet along with the papyri fragments, ostraca, and figurine.

A Source Map

We're starting to develop a map that pinpoints the geographical source for each item in "The Best from Pen and Press" exhibit. This map will continue to grow with more points as we review each item in the exhibit.

Pins on the exhibit will give brief information about the site and/or about the exhibit item associated with the location. We thought this would be an interesting way to highlight the global reach of the materials on display.

A Figurine and a Scroll

Today we continue our tour through the first part of "The Best from Pen and Press" with two remaining items found in our first exhibit case: a figurine and a scroll.

Neither piece, upon their arrivals to the Library, carried much additional descriptive information, what librarians and others call "metadata," that is, data about data. We like to know such things as: Where did this item come from? What did we pay for it? Who previously owned it? What is its value? (However you wish to define value. The Society of American Archivists created and maintains an informative glossary, which includes at least nineteen narrower terms for the concept of value.) In the case of the figurine and the scroll, we know little else beyond what they are.

Additional information about an item can be immensely helpful. It can also be exceedingly distracting. Even the word "data" can divert one away from a task (such as writing this post) and lead down a rabbit hole, as we're about to demonstrate.

A recent article entitled "Data! Data! Data!" by D. L. Dusenbury, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Leuven, in the Times Literary Supplement Online illustrates the point (made even easier as it involves one of our other interests: Sherlock Holmes). At the same time, Dusenbury provides a bit more data on the word "data."

Dusenbury begins by introducing a scene from the very first Sherlock Holmes adventure, A Study in Scarlet. 

In the scene I have in mind..., Dr John Watson, is seated beside Holmes in a hansom cab which is taking them to a vacant house on Brixton Road where the Metropolitan Police have identified the corpse of an American gentleman. Asked by Watson what he is thinking, Holmes snaps that he has “no data yet.” “You will have your data soon,” Watson says soothingly.

Watson’s reply now reads like a sort of prophecy. In the last decade, IBM has invested roughly $1 billion in a front-wave computing platform called Watson. Whatever IBM’s Watson may lack – a mind, or at least, a blood-suffused brain in a warm body – this “cognitive” entity can mine, and scan, and sift, and analyse titanic, oceanic amounts of data. Or, as IBM’s brand-consultants prefer to put it, “Watson can ingest, enrich and normalize a wide variety of data types”. And what are “data”?

Data is a plural form of the Latin word datum, which originally referred to a gift or a symbol of high office. In premodern terms, then, data were things given or attested. “Data” entered English in the middle of the seventeenth century, but only seems to settle into its current meaning – a “mass of information”, as Edgar Allen Poe writes in his true-crime tour de force, “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” – towards the end of the nineteenth century. The Holmes canon signals the meteoric rise of “data” as a term, and a concept, in the years between 1890 and 1910.

It's nice to know that the Sherlockian canon (as the gathering of fifty-six short stories and four novels are collectively known) contributed to the term and use of data. The Google Books Ngram viewer provides additional insight on the appearance of "data" in texts.

But none of this gets us any closer to what these two items are, or how to describe them. All we know about the figurine--absent an ability to read hieroglyphics--is found on a small label: "Egypt, 11th Dynasty." The 11th Dynasty in ancient Egypt ruled from Thebes in Upper Egypt and reigned from about 2134 to1991 BCE. Obviously, there's more work to be done to pull out additional information on the figurine.

As to the scroll, we again were left with a simple label: Book of Esther, scroll, 18th century. A colleague, Kate Dietrick, archivist for the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives, provided additional information about this item in an email after viewing it in the exhibit. We quote:

The scroll is the Book of Esther, which is one of five megillahs (Hebrew word for scroll) read during Purim (Jewish holiday taking place in March). While there are five different megillahs read (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther) it is the book of Esther that is the core of the readings, and thus is most widely considered THE Megillah. It's also where the phrase "the whole megillah" comes from, referring to the lengthy and all-encompassing reading of all of these books.

This is useful data indeed, something we can add to the metadata for this item!

Part of what we do is similar to the enterprise of Mr. Holmes: we investigate, deduce, induce, or otherwise reason our way to fuller descriptions of items in our collections. We also use our networks of scholars, including those most useful and knowledgeable of colleagues--curators of collections around the globe. By obtaining and providing this additional information, we also provide new avenues of access to each item. It is one of the many joys and adventures in our work as academic librarians and curators of world-class collections. Or, as Holmes would say of our work: "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”

An Early Morning View

Here's an early morning view looking into the Bell Gallery in the Wallin Special Collections Research Center, and a peek at the first part of our exhibit. The logo on the glass wall was designed by a UMN graduate, now graphic designer, Jerod Johnson (and son of our Rare Books and Special Collections curator).

Moving Ahead About Two Thousand Years

Our cuneiform tablets, cones, and bulla are the oldest objects held by the Special Collections & Rare Books unit in the Archives and Special Collections Department of the University of Minnesota Libraries. They may be the oldest items held by the University Libraries, although our colleague and University Archivist, Erik Moore, might disagree. (Perhaps Erik will share, at some time, his contention on the oldest item in our collections.)

If we move ahead in time by about two millennia we arrive at the next items on display: papyri fragments and ostraka. An ostracon is a potsherd used as a writing surface; papyrus sheets were made from a plentiful wetland plant growing along rivers in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The papyri fragments come from Egypt, from the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus (Greek: Ὀξύρρυγχος) located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Cairo. 

For over 120 years, archaeologists have excavated in and around the ancient rubbish sites of this city. Their digging uncovered numerous historically significant (and everyday) texts from about the third century before the common era into the time of Roman rule. Rediscovered texts include pieces from the Gospel of Thomas, Euclid's mathematical text, The Elements, and plays from the Greek dramatist, Menander.

Our papyri fragments and ostraka are of a more ordinary type. Here are their descriptions and a few images.

Papyrus Fragment 3 

Description: Text of Uncertain Character in Hieroglyphics, verso: blank. 
Accesson number: 554187
Date of Acquisition: January 6, 1933. Erik von Scherling (dealer).






Papyrus Fragment 5 

Date: III century CE. 
Description: recto: Receipt for the Return of Some Marriage Goods, verso: blank. 
Accession number: 762403
Publication: K. A. Worp in BASP 44 (2007), no. 2 (http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.0599796.0044.001:05) 
Date of Acquisition: December 22, 1937. Erik von Scherling (dealer).






Papyrus Fragment 4

Date: 89-93/4 CE. 
Description: Declaration to a Strategus of the Oxyrhynchite Nome, verso: blank.
Accession number: 762402
Publication: K. A. Worp BASP 44 (2007), no. 1 (http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.0599796.0044.001:05) 
Date of Acquisition: December 22, 1937. Erik von Scherling (dealer).



Papyrus Fragment 12

Date: 120/1 CE. 
Description: recto: Receipt for the Price of Green Fodder, verso: blank.
Accession number: 1381984
Dealer: Erik von Scherling (G63)
Publication: K. A. Worp in BASP 44 (2007), no. 4 (http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.0599796.0044.001:05) 
Date of Acquisition: in or after 1952




Ostrakon 1

Date: 4th to 5th Century CE
Description: Receipt, Red Pottery
Accession number: 554185
Publication: K. A. Worp in BASP 44 (2007), no. 11 (http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.0599796.0044.001:05)
Date of Acquisition: January 6, 1933. Erik von Scherling (dealer).


Ostrakon 2

Description: Text of Uncertain Character in Hieroglyphics
Accession number: 554186
Date of Acquisition: January 6, 1933. Erik von Scherling (dealer). 

Panoramic Views of Andersen Gallery

Here are two panoramic views of the second part of our exhibition, located in the Andersen Gallery on the first floor of the Elmer L. Andersen Library.

The library is located on the West Bank Campus of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Parking and other building information may be found here. 

The gallery is open Monday, Tuesday, and Friday from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. and on Wednesday and Thursday from 8:30 a.m. until 7:00 p.m.

We hope you'll visit us!

A Panorama of the James Ford Bell Gallery

Here's a panoramic view of the first part of our exhibition, located in the James Ford Bell Gallery of the Maxine Houghton Wallin Special Collections Research Center on the ground floor of the Elmer L. Andersen Library.

The library is located on the West Bank Campus of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Parking and other building information may be found here. 

The gallery is open Monday, Tuesday, and Friday from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. and on Wednesday and Thursday from 8:30 a.m. until 7:00 p.m.

We hope you'll visit us!

Starting at the Beginning: Our Oldest Items on Display

In planning the exhibit for two galleries in the Elmer L. Andersen Library, we began work in the newest gallery, a space opened to the public in early April 2018. The James Ford Bell Gallery is located on the ground floor of Andersen Library and is part of a new suite of rooms that make up the Maxine Houghton Wallin Special Collections Research Center. The suite includes a reading room, state-of-the-art classroom, reception area, exhibit gallery, and offices.

The Bell Gallery portion of "The Best from Pen and Press" includes items from the James Ford Bell Library and the Rare Books Collection. Bell curator Marguerite Ragnow and Rare Books curator Tim Johnson selected items with both global appeal and chronological expanse. Over the next posts, we'll provide a description of these items, some images of the items and the exhibit, to give you a sense of what's on display. Of course, there's nothing better than seeing the real items, so we hope over the summer you'll have a chance to visit the exhibit and view what we've chosen.

"Pen and press" offers some avenues for interpretation. With that in mind, we decided that a stylus and damp clay fit within our parameters, thus allowing us to display the oldest objects in our collections. We chose three works in cuneiform: a tablet, a cone, and a bulla. Here are their descriptions, along with images and links to more information.

Cuneiform Inscriptions: UM 6. Date: Ur III, circa 21st century BCE.

Measurements (height x width x thickness): 59mm x 42mm x 20 mm.

Description: List of quantities of aromatics.

Provenience: Umma?

Translation: 12 minas (fragrant) reed, 1 2/3 minas sweet aromatics, 12 minas cedar, 12 minas juniper resin, 8 2/3 minas arganum (resin), 3 ½ minas x-aromatic, 12 minas i m-aromatic, 12 minas cypress, 7 2/3 minas x-aromatic, 5 minas Dilmun?-aromatic ½ (bán?), 2 sìla gu4-ku-ru aromatic ½ (bán?), 2 sìla pine(?) seeds(?), 8 sìla gán aromatic ½ (bán?), 5 sìla gam-gam-ma aromatic. From the storehouse of the (temple) steward, Šara-mutum received.

Note: obverse. Line 1ff: Rulings demarcate all lines, including the blank line between 14 and 15. Line 16: This individual might be the same as Šara-mu-túm, scribe, son of É-gal-e-si, attested at Umma during the reigns of Amar-Suen and Šu-Suen (see, inter alia, Fatma Yildiz and Gomi Tohru, Umma-Texte… Istanbul, vol. III, no. 1765, and Fatma Yildiz and Ozaki Tohru, Umma Texte… Istanbul, vol. VI, nos. 3655 and 3807). Andersen Library, Special Collections and Rare Books, Cuneiform Tablet Collection.

Cuneiform Inscriptions: UM 15. Date: Isin-Larsa (Early Old Babylonian) Period, circa 20th cen. BCE.

Measurements (mm): length=114, base diameter=47.

Description: Building inscription of Lipit-Eštar.

Provenience: Isin.

Translation: Lipit-Eštar, humble shepherd of Nippur, true farmer of Ur, ceaseless provider of Eridu, en-priest fit for Uruk, king of Isin, king of Sumer and Akkad, the favorite of Inanna am I. When I established justice in Sumer and Akkad, I built the House of Justice at Namgarum, the eminent place of the gods.

Note: This cone is one of at least 94 known exemplars of Lipit-Eštar's building inscription commemorating his construction of a “House of Justice,” perhaps on the occasion of promulgating his laws. It is registered by D. Frayne as exemplar no. 64 of this inscription, RIME 4.1.5.4; to Frayne's list add an exemplar in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CTMMA I, no. 114), and another belonging to the archives of Colorado State University (see E. von Dassow, “An Ur III Document and an Old Babylonian Cone at Colorado State University,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 52 [2000], pp. 127-8). The provenience of those exemplars recovered during archaeological excavations is the site of Isin (Frayne, op. cit., p. 53).

Rulings and a column divider demarcate the lines and columns of the cone's text; about one quarter of the space on the cone remains blank. The translation given here mainly follows that of Frayne, with some modifications in accord with the translation given for CTMMA I, no. 114. Andersen Library, Special Collections and Rare Books, Cuneiform Tablet Collection.

Cuneiform Inscriptions: UM 19. Date Ur III, circa 21st cen BCE. Šu-Suen, year 8, month 5, day 30.

Donated by Karen Moynihan (ex coll. T. Donald Wallace), August 2001.

Description: Bulla summarizing one month's rations at Girsu River Tower.

Provenience: Umma. Date: Šu-Suen, year 8, month 5, day 30.

Seal Impressions: Sealed by Lukall and Ur-Nungal. Translation: [x +]2 (bán), 4 sìla average-quality beer, 4 (bán), 5 sìla fine beer-mix, 4 (PI), 2 (bán), 5 sìla average quality beer-mix, 2 gur, 2 (PI), 2 (bán), 1 sìla average-quality porridge, 1 gur, 3 (PI), 3 (bán) barley-flour, [x ] barley, [x fat]tened fleece plucked [sheep], [x grass]-fed full-fleeced [sheep], [x] grass-fed fleece plucked [sheep], 1 goat, 2 (bán), 4 2/3 sìla sesame-oil, [x +]3 sìla crushed onion, [x +] 2/3 sìla crushed alkali(-plant), [x ] average-quality bran, [x ] . . ., Regular allotments, couriers in Girsu River Tower via Luduga, messenger. Seal(ed by) Lukalla and Ur-Nungal, Month RI, day 30 20-23. [Year] Šu-Suen, king of Ur, made a magnificent [boat] for Enlil and [Ninlil]. [Luduga] and Ur-ema confirmed it.

Seal 1. 1. Lukalla, 2. scribe, 3. son of Ur-e-e, squire

Seal 1. 1. Ur-Nungal, 2. scribe, 3. son of Ur-Šara, 4. archivist

Note: This seal of Lukalla, son of Ur-e-e, is catalogued by Rudolf Mayr as no. 344.2 in The Seal Impressions of Ur III Umma (Ph.D. dissertation, Leiden, 1997). On Lukalla, his use of a series of seals, and his "filiation" to Ur-e-e as well as possibly to Ur-nigara earlier, see Francesco Pomponio, "Lukalla of Umma," Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 82 (1992), pp. 169-172; on Ur-e-e's title šùš, see W. Heimpel, "Towards an Understanding of the Term sikkum," Revue d'Assyriologie 88 (1994), p. 11.

This seal of Ur-Nungal, son of Ur-Šara, is catalogued by Rudolf Mayr as no. 829.2 in The Seal Impressions of Ur III Umma (Ph.D. dissertation, Leiden, 1997); the sign ka at the end of the last line of the seal legend was omitted in [Sumerian Economic Texts, University of Minnesota,1961]. On Ur-Nungal and his seals, see also F. Pomponio, "Lukalla of Umma," Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 82 (1992), pp. 172-4 with n. 8.
Sealed and inscribed clay tags like UM 19 were attached to sacks, each sack containing one month's vouchers for rations in the way stations, or rest houses, of the Ur III state's road system. The vouchers, commonly termed "messenger texts," list foodstuffs supplied daily to various officials, couriers, and workers whose jobs involved travel and who were entitled to provisions at the way stations; sometimes other items, such as sheep for offerings or fodder for beasts of burden, were listed as well. Each month the amounts listed on the daily vouchers were totaled up, the vouchers were put in a sack to be transported from the way station to the provincial capital, and the totals were listed on a clay tag attached to the sack. The tag thus served both as a label for the sack and as a summary of one month's disbursements on expense vouchers at the way station. Such tags were sealed by one or two officials, and the contents of the sack, or of the textual record, were confirmed by one or two other functionaries. (The foregoing description is based on F. Pomponio's discussion of these kinds of records in "Lukalla of Umma," Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 82 [1992], pp. 169-179, esp. pp. 172-7; and on W. Heimpel's discussion, in "Towards an Understanding of the Term sikkum," Revue d'Assyriologie 88 [1994], pp. 5-31, esp. p. 16.)

UM 19 is inscribed with the totals of “regular allotments” (sá-du11), which were issued at the way station of Girsu River Tower, located upstream from Girsu in the province of Umma (see Heimpel, RA 88, p. 18), during the fifth month of Šu-Suen's eighth year. The final storage place for this and other records of Girsu River Tower would have been an administrative center in the city of Umma. The officials who sealed UM 19, Lukalla and Ur-Nungal, also sealed many similar tags together or separately (Pomponio, ZA 82, pp. 172-4), as well as numerous tablets of various types (see the listings given by R. Mayr, in The Seal Impresssions of Ur III Umma [Ph.D. dissertation, Leiden, 1997], under catalogue nos. 344.1-2 for Lukalla, and nos. 829.1-3 for Ur-Nungal; add UM 19 [=SET 185] to the listings for Lukalla, seal 344.2, and Ur-Nungal, seal 829.2). The confirming and conveying functionaries, Luduga and Ur-ema, are likewise attested in other records of the same type as this tag (Pomponio, ZA 82, pp. 176-7). The disbursements recorded on UM 19 include beer, porridge, flour, oil, and condiments, as rations; sheep, probably destined for offerings; and bran, presumably for fodder.

Exhibits Now Open at UMN Elmer L. Andersen Library

To celebrate Minnesota's rich book culture and love of books, the University of Minnesota Libraries' James Ford Bell Library, Special Collections and Rare Books, and Owen H. Wangensteen Historical Library for Biology and Medicine, among others, are partnering with institutions across the state to share some of the “best” manuscript and printed items in our collections. The Andersen Gallery on the first floor—and the James Ford Bell Gallery located in the Maxine Houghton Wallin Special Collections Research Center on the ground floor—display some of these treasures.

But what do we mean by “best” books or manuscripts? It is a question we’ve wrestled with since the idea for this exhibition first surfaced five years ago. It might mean historically most important, globally most significant, technically most innovative, artistically most beautiful, or something that, on seeing it, simply causes you to say, “Oh, wow!”

In the end, it’s a question we’re still pondering and one we hope you’ll engage with as you view the items in this exhibit. Other institutions will host their own exhibits around Minnesota. Visit our blog (http://mnpenandpress.blogspot.com/) for details about this summer's related exhibits: where they are, who is hosting them; perhaps there will be one in your home town!