# A departure from opinion & theories regarding historical documents?



## Jd755 (Jan 15, 2022)

*Frame of reference:* 
Establishing what if anything can be used to provide any sort of guide to the veracity of any tangible document. By tangible I mean a physical something that can be picked up and examined to establish what it is made of, how it was made irrespective of what is writ, drawn or printed upon it. Dating is not part of this examination.

What led to this effort is the madness of talking about what documents have written or drawn upon them which leads to constant speculation about the wordage/imagery without ever considering anything about the physical as in material thing itself.

Any document be it hand written/drawn or printed by some sort of machine process is a material object. It is usually paper but can be skin, wood, stone, clay and likely other physical mediums. Some mediums collapse or otherwise disappear quicker than others due entirely to the nature of their origin and how much variety there is in the living organisms seeking them out and of course how quickly they and other natural processes work to return the mediums to its natural constituents or change them completely.

Paper is by some measure the most common medium. Wood, skin, stone, clay etc are far less common.
Paper is basically plant fibres held together with a plant based glue or an animal glue to provide a consistent surface that will accept all manner of inks/paints/marks with varying degrees of clarity and fastness. 

Light in and of itself degrades paper and the inks/paints/marks made upon it. 
Water also degrades paper and liquids other than water often have an even more disastrous degradation effect. 
Fire naturally destroys paper with ease. 
Physical tearing also destroys paper with ease and moulds fungi, insects, bacteria all work on paper to destroy it.
Constant use degrades paper from the combination of light, folding, exposure to mould spores, oils in our skin etc.
In short paper is just about the worst form of medium to store information on. It's only saving grace is its portability and versatility and not to put too fine a point on it the ease with which it can be destroyed. It can be produced in a wide variety of shapes, types, thicknesses consistently and easily. 

None of the other mediums match paper in this regard. 

What follows concentrates on paper.

Fibres in all papers come from plants. More often than not it is primarily wood fibres from trees that are used today but reeds, cotton, hemp, rice and doubtless other plants provide fibres for paper. All of them have their own unique properties and all look and feel differently to each other. 
Examined under a simple magnifying glass it is possible to see the physical differences within each type of paper.
As currently hemp usage is depressed due to market manipulation it is fibre from trees that holds pre eminence.

Were this undertaken often enough then a pattern book, if you will, of paper types as seen through a magnifying glass would become the de facto measure and method by which the type of paper used could be established reliably and easily time after time especially useful when 'documents' first 'come to light'.

From this basis benchmarks could be arrived at whereby the actual type of paper used could point to the probability the paper was produced at a time when the process used was the predominant one in use where the document is claimed to have originated.
Trouble is of course there is no way to date the start and end if such processes and some may even continue to this day but at least it would be a guide and perhaps that is all that is required.

Perhaps there is something within the paper production processes themselves which are even better guides. 
I know a little bit about paper production and have yet to dive in deeper mainly because I cannot be arsed quite frankly but there is a strong possibility that amongst the legions of lurkers on here there are people already clued up in the realm of paper production who could contribute if they can be arsed.

To keep this short. It seems clear to me that until something is used to establish the probability of veracity using something that is difficult to fake such as paper fibres or paper production processes then all bets are off when it comes to establishing the veracity of any content writ or printed upon said paper. All these maps for example often in pristine condition with no signs of wear or use are just as likely fakes knocked up in some fiction factory as may exist in the vaults of the Vatican or libraries anywhere in the known world on brand new paper as much as they may be genuine on old paper that has avoided all the myriad forms of degradation over the passage of time between its origination and today.

And therein lies the rub. 
There is no way for anyone to get a hold of these things and look them over especially by someone armed with a book of benchmarks to compare them with BUT there are countless books and documents and maps knocking about which appear to be originals in boxes/drawers at home and often for sale on the internet somewhere. Would these be enough to establish what I suggest above?
Who know and I am not the one to find out but maybe you are.


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## SonofaBor (Jan 15, 2022)

It is no doubt an annoying problem; for we-the-people have a proven record of being deceived and acting like bobble-heads.  However, the sheer astonishing material record of architecture gives good reason to consider on-line reproductions of paper when we seek to question and understand the world we inhabit.


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## ViniB (Feb 11, 2022)

I think that this problem of origins is a major one when it comes to maps & letters. I'll use the example of the letter written by the portuguese upon "the discovering" of Brazil. Some believe it to be 100% legit and glorious (wtf???) and others claim it's a copy or a totally different letter! It suits both portuguese and brazilian PTB however.
Awesome and important thread!!


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## Jd755 (Feb 13, 2022)

I went on the internet today and I found this.
How do they come up with a date for such things?


_View: https://mobile.twitter.com/AlisonFisk/status/1491503286540812296?cxt=HHwWkIC--caV8bIpAAAA_
​
Edit to
And why would someone choose to use such a medium  to record these rather mundane occurrences in daily life on?


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## ViniB (Feb 16, 2022)

kd-755 said:


> I went on the internet today and I found this.
> How do they come up with a date for such things?
> 
> 
> ...



There's tons of such examples and even worse ones, such as this. My favorite ones are about skull & bones of millions of years lol


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## Will Scarlet (Feb 16, 2022)

SonofaBor said:


> However, the sheer astonishing material record of architecture gives good reason to consider on-line reproductions of paper when we seek to question and understand the world we inhabit.



...I'm sorry but I must be having a senior moment because I don't understand that sentence at all and yet others have 'Liked' it. Could someone please explain?



ViniB said:


> Some believe it to be 100% legit and glorious (wtf???) and others claim it's a copy or a totally different letter!



Once again, I'm not sure what this means. Are there claims that it's a copy of the original or that it's a letter about something that isn't the discovery of Brazil? Either way, there's no implication of forgery in what you have said.

...I think I'll just go back to bed.


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## Jd755 (Feb 16, 2022)

I'll have a bash.
Sonofabor is saying that they fake up online documents to obfuscate the physical architecture origins.
Vinib is saying some folks think the letter is genuine and glortifys the discoverty achievement others think it not to be an original document and may referr to some otherr event. I think.


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## ViniB (Feb 16, 2022)

Will Scarlet said:


> Once again, I'm not sure what this means. Are there claims that it's a copy of the original or that it's a letter about something that isn't the discovery of Brazil? Either way, there's no implication of forgery in what you have said.
> 
> ...I think I'll just go back to bed.


There is an implication of forgery. The letter is supposed to be original, yet only certified "experts" and government officials can have acess to, it's in a museum in Lisboa. Other researchers have pointed out that it is not the original, but a later copy. 
It goes like this, folk that believe his-story to be 100% factual truth believe it's leggit, independent thinking folk believe it's a copy and ask questions
We usually don't get a lot of good conversations with historians despite trying a lot, they frame us as deniers and all the usual names. Their arguments are like We have document x to prove y happened, and expert historian z made extensive work on it. Professional parrots, if you ask me


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## Will Scarlet (Feb 16, 2022)

kd-755 said:


> Sonofabor is saying that they fake up online documents to obfuscate the physical architecture origins.



...architecture? I thought this thread was about documents?



ViniB said:


> Other researchers have pointed out that it is not the original, but a later copy.
> It goes like this, folk that believe his-story to be 100% factual truth believe it's leggit, independent thinking folk believe it's a copy and ask questions



Do you mean a copy of the original? So are you saying that people who believe the Portuguese discovered Brazil think the letter is the original, but people who don't believe they discovered Brazil think it's a copy? This is about bias then, not the authenticity of documents.


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## Jef Demolder (Feb 16, 2022)

At the university, a long time ago, I learned to date ancient documents by studying the external and material aspects: material used (papyrus, perkament, paper, belonging to a period), way of page-filling (colums, titles, margins, lines,...), the used handwriting (minuscal, majuscal, etc), comparison with dated objects of the same period, style of scriptoria, known history of manuscripts. For ten years now I have completely renounced to use this methods, as everything can be falsified and has effectively been falsified. Since the 18th century, the production of fake ancient documents is a work of professionals. In my actual research (jefdemolder.blogspot.com) I only use internal criteria related to the content of the document. My three starting points are the following. (1) Every text has a REAL writer and a REAL purpose, and if they differ from the pretended author and pretended purpose, this will lead to uneveness in the text. (2) The real construction process leaves traces in the text. (3) If a character has made up in a first text, and this character appears in a second historical text supposedly of the same perioid, then the second text is literary dependent on the first and equally false.


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## Jd755 (Feb 16, 2022)

Jef thank you.
If you don't mind I am sharing the link to your blog. Abyss of Time


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## SonofaBor (Feb 16, 2022)

My meaning: We're stupefied and astonished by the material record of architecture.  We can't deny it. We can touch it. No record we have is more real than that.

kd-755 is probably right: the they would go to great lengths to deceive us. But I'm also saying we should consider even on-line sources that can be easily forged, altered, etc.

For crying out loud (local idiom), Seattle was supposedly burned down and rebuilt in two years-- all according to the newspapers of record.   How can this be? How can they be rebuilt or destroyed? Or how can the papers lie?  Well, we know they can and do about everything. And yet, the photographs show the same. Were they altered too? Maybe.

But in the end, like the pyramids of Giza, the building still stand there. Silent but screaming: look!  I can't stop looking.

We are all subject to miracles of creation, destruction and deception.

All we can do is puzzle over a massive crime scene. All available evidence should be considered with the eye of an honest, hard-nosed cop of film noire vintage.


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## Jd755 (Feb 16, 2022)

Will Scarlet said:


> architecture? I thought this thread was about documents


It is the frame of reference is clear but I would much rather people feel confident enough to post their thoughts and experiences of wider history than have the thread wither on the vine.
Edit to add.
Apologies if I missed your drift. I posted the 3400 year old tablet story off of the image which I realised was not paper and is in fact stone according to the museum people. So I strayed from the frame of my own reference.
Reason being which I failed to make clear, is the high quality of the writing, its colour and regularity on a worked stone surface looks exactly the same as I've seen on wooden slabs and paper. It looks to good to be true.
Then there is the subject matter. None of it is worthy of recording on a material that will survive intact longer than paper longer than the author of the text.

Perhaps in hindsight the frame of reference was too narrow.

Second edit.
And right on cue the lady posts a picture of a papyrus dated 3200 years ago so 200 years younger than the stone tablet but just look at it. I have a book date 1742 and none its paper looks this good but I do have a papyrus on the kitchen wall given to me a 20 years ago which looks just as good in terms of colour drawings and glyphs though mine is a lighter papyrus.
Perhaps I should get the teabags out!


_View: https://mobile.twitter.com/AlisonFisk/status/1493960139371683845?cxt=HHwWioC9_Zq1zrspAAAA_


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## ViniB (Feb 16, 2022)

kd-755 said:


> Second edit.
> And right on cue the lady posts a picture of a papyrus dated 3200 years ago so 200 years younger than the stone tablet but just look at it. I have a book date 1742 and none its paper looks this good but I do have a papyrus on the kitchen wall given to me a 20 years ago which looks just as good in terms of colour drawings and glyphs though mine is a lighter papyrus.
> Perhaps I should get the teabags out!
> 
> ...



3000 years papyrus that looks as good as modern ones that are sold to tourists, then the "experts" get mad at us for questioning this type of bs XD


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## trismegistus (Feb 17, 2022)

kd-755 said:


> And right on cue the lady posts a picture of a papyrus dated 3200 years ago so 200 years younger than the stone tablet but just look at it. I have a book date 1742 and none its paper looks this good but I do have a papyrus on the kitchen wall given to me a 20 years ago which looks just as good in terms of colour drawings and glyphs though mine is a lighter papyrus.
> Perhaps I should get the teabags out!



On the other hand you have stories like this:



> Over the next 200 years, the nation whose birth was announced with a Declaration "fairly engrossed on parchment" was to show immense growth in area, population, economic power, and social complexity and a lasting commitment to a testing and strengthening of its democracy. But what of the parchment itself? How was it to fare *over the course of two centuries*?
> 
> 
> In the chronicle of the Declaration as a physical object, three themes necessarily entwine themselves: *the relationship between the physical aging of the parchment and the steps taken to preserve it from deterioration*; the relationship between the parchment and the copies that were made from it; and finally, the often dramatic story of the travels of the parchment during wartime and to its various homes.
> ...





File:Page fragment from a Bible, Coptic language, Egypt, Islamic period, 700s AD or later, paper - Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago - DSC07968.JPG - Wikimedia Commons​
Yet here you have a piece of paper (not papyrus) from over 1000 years ago (or later ) looking museum ready. Wonder why no one has ever seen the "original" Declaration of Independence.


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## Will Scarlet (Feb 17, 2022)

This subject has been a highly contentious feature of just about all of the 'Ask Pro' threads in this forum and it's always the same. On one side you have the 'historians' who measure and value authenticity using particular protocols and at the other extreme there are those who will not accept anything as being authentic unless they wrote it themselves. They usually end up with the loss of the Pro being Asked from the forum.

There has to be a better way. For example, from the comments above let's consider the Portuguese letter concerning the discovery of Brazil. The Portuguese claim it is genuine and original. The Brazilians (apparently) claim it is a copy or possibly a forgery. The Portuguese can't prove their claim, but neither can the Brazilians, therefore it's a never-ending circular argument. The  following possibilities exist: the letter is genuine; the letter is a genuine copy of the original; the information it contains false; the letter is a forgery; the letter is a copy of an original that never existed; the information it contains is the truth. These possibilities are not mutually exclusive and can be combined in many ways. It's all a nonsense.

However, that letter whether fake or genuine, truth or lie, is *symbolic*. To the Portuguese it represents a glorious achievement. To the Brazilians it represents oppression. That is the true significance of the letter. Proving that it's a forgery or a lie will not magically change the past or the present. However, investigating the motivations of the Portuguese for their voyage of discovery or why they might lie about it, who funded it, who sailed on the ships, what its intention was, how they were received by the natives of that land, why those natives were oppressed, how the chain of events fits in with other discoveries / colonisations, etc., etc., well that could change our present understanding of the past and give valuable clues as to how we have ended up in the mess we have now. (I'm making a huge assumption here that the Portuguese did actually colonise Brazil, although given that the official language is Portuguese and many place names are mirrored in Portugal it's a safe bet that some kind of invasion occurred.)

Take works of art that depict supposedly historical scenes. The Temptation of Eve or The Battle of Hastings for example. The paintings themselves may be genuine or forgeries, but I don't think anyone actually thinks they are genuine or authentic representations of 'the truth'. They are symbolic representations that cannot help but contain strong elements of bias and fantasy. To my mind, documents are no different and should be regarded in exactly the same way as works of art - who created it, who commissioned it and what might have been their agenda, what is it trying to persuade us of, how does it fit in with other related or coincidental events, what does the event symbolise to its intended audience, how has the real or fake event (or information) affected subsequent events?

Personally, I find this approach far more rewarding than getting bogged down in matters of authenticity. Forgeries and lies have exactly the same affect upon our lives as does the truth, especially when forgeries and lies are the truth.


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