A manuscript was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has come to be understood to further include any written, typed, or word-processed copy of an author's work, as distinguished from the rendition as a printed version of the same.
The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an unknown script referred to as 'Voynichese'. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438). Stylistic analysis indicates it may have been composed in Italy during the Italian Renaissance. The origins, authorship, and purpose of the manuscript are debated. Hypotheses suggest that it is a script for a natural language or constructed language; an unread code, cypher, or other form of cryptography; or a meaningless hoax.
The Siamese cat is one of the first distinctly recognized breeds of Asian cat. Derived from the Wichianmat landrace, one of several varieties of cat native to Thailand, the original Siamese became one of the most popular breeds in Europe and North America in the 19th century. The carefully refined, more extreme-featured, modern-style Siamese is characterized by blue almond-shaped eyes; a triangular head shape; large ears; an elongated, slender, and muscular body; and various forms of point colouration. Other than colouration, the modern-style Siamese bears little resemblance to the original stock, and the more moderate, traditional, or "old-style" Siamese, with a much rounder head and body, has been re-established by multiple registries as the Thai cat. The International Cat Association describes the modern Siamese as affectionate, social, intelligent, and playful into adulthood, often enjoying a game of fetch. Siamese tend to seek human interaction and also like companionship from other cats.
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the practice continued into secular texts from the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations, enrolled bills, laws, charters, inventories and deeds.
The Chester Beatty Library, now known as the Chester Beatty, is a museum and library in Dublin. It was established in Ireland in 1953, to house the collections of mining magnate, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty. The present museum, on the grounds of Dublin Castle, opened on 7 February 2000, the 125th anniversary of Beatty's birth and was named European Museum of the Year in 2002.
The Burmese cat is a breed of domestic cat, originating in Burma, believed to have its roots near the Thai-Burma border and developed in the United States and Britain.
The Korat cat is a silver-tipped blue-grey, short-haired breed of domestic cat with a small to medium build and a low percentage of body fat. Its body is semi-cobby, and unusually heavy for its size. It is an intelligent and playful active cat that forms strong bonds with people and is very vocal, with a sound different from other breeds. Among the Korat's distinguishing characteristics are its heart-shaped head, its large green eyes. Its front paws are shorter than the back paws.
A herbal is a book containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually with information on their medicinal, tonic, culinary, toxic, hallucinatory, aromatic, or magical powers, and the legends associated with them. A herbal may also classify the plants it describes, may give recipes for herbal extracts, tinctures, or potions, and sometimes include mineral and animal medicaments in addition to those obtained from plants. Herbals were often illustrated to assist plant identification.
Antiqua is a style of typeface used to mimic styles of handwriting or calligraphy common during the 15th and 16th centuries. Letters are designed to flow and strokes connect together in a continuous fashion; in this way it is often contrasted with Fraktur-style typefaces where the individual strokes are broken apart. The two typefaces were used alongside each other in the germanophone world, with the Antiqua–Fraktur dispute often dividing along ideological or political lines. After the mid-20th century, Fraktur fell out of favor and Antiqua-based typefaces became the official standard.
The Vienna Dioscurides or Vienna Dioscorides is an early 6th-century Byzantine Greek illuminated manuscript of an even earlier 1st century AD work, De materia medica by Pedanius Dioscorides in uncial script. It is an important and rare example of a late antique scientific text. After residing in Constantinople for just over a thousand years, the text passed to the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna in the 16th century, a century after the city fell to the Ottoman Empire.
The Boxer Codex is a late-16th-century Spanish manuscript produced in the Philippines. It contains 75 colored illustrations of the peoples of China, the Philippines, Java, the Moluccas, the Ladrones, and Siam. About 270 pages of Spanish text describe these places, their inhabitants and customs. An additional 88 smaller drawings show mythological deities and demons, and both real and mythological birds and animals copied from popular Chinese texts and books in circulation at the time.
Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, VLQ 79, also called the Leiden Aratea, is an illuminated copy of an astronomical treatise by Germanicus, based on the Phaenomena of Aratus. The manuscript was created in the region of Lorraine and has been dated to around 816. It was produced at the court of Louis the Pious, who ruled from 814–840. It is one of the four Carolingian codices that were produced in his court. There are many translations and copies of this text, so it is very well known throughout the Middle East and Europe.
The Thai or Wichien Maat is a newly renamed but old cat breed, related to but different from the Western, modern-style Siamese cat. This natural breed is descended from the cats of Thailand, and, among various groups of breeders in different times and places has also been called the Old-Style Siamese, Traditional Siamese, Classic Siamese; Wichien Maat ; and the Applehead, a nickname that originated in the 1950s. According to The International Cat Association: "The Thai is the breed dedicated to preserving the native pointed cat of Thailand in as close to its original form as possible."
Tai Tham script is an abugida writing system used mainly for a group of Southwestern Tai languages i.e., Northern Thai, Tai Lü, Khün and Lao; as well as the liturgical languages of Buddhism i.e., Pali and Sanskrit. It is historically known as Tua Tham. In Thailand and Myanmar, the script is often referred to as Lanna script in relation to the historical kingdom of Lan Na situating in the Northern region of modern day Thailand and a part of Shan state in Myanmar. Local people in Northern Thailand also call the script as Tua Mueang in parallel to Kam Mueang, a local name for Northern Thai language. In Laos and Isan region of Thailand, a variation of Tai Tham script, often dubbed Lao Tham, is also known by the locals as To Tham Lao or Yuan script. Tai Tham script is traditionally written on a dried palm leaf as a palm-leaf manuscript.
The Khao Manee cat, or Khao Plort, also known as the Diamond Eye cat, is a rare breed of cat originating in Thailand, which has an ancient ancestry tracing back hundreds of years. They are mentioned in the Tamra Maew, or Cat Book Poems. Khao Manee cats are pure white with a short, smooth, close-lying coat. They can have blue eyes, gold eyes or odd-eyes with one of each colour. The odd-eyed Khao Manee is the rarest variety. They are muscular, athletic cats of moderate foreign type and are reputed to be active, communicative and intelligent.
Humanist minuscule is a handwriting or style of script that was invented in secular circles in Italy, at the beginning of the fifteenth century. "Few periods in Western history have produced writing of such great beauty", observes the art historian Millard Meiss. The new hand was based on Carolingian minuscule, which Renaissance humanists, obsessed with the revival of antiquity and their role as its inheritors, took to be ancient Roman:
[W]hen they handled manuscript books copied by eleventh- and twelfth-century scribes, Quattrocento literati thought they were looking at texts that came right out of the bookshops of ancient Rome".
The Balinese is a long-haired breed of domestic cat with Siamese-style point coloration and sapphire-blue eyes. The Balinese is also known as the purebred long-haired Siamese, since it originated as a natural mutation of that breed and hence is essentially the same cat but with a medium-length silky coat and a distinctively plumed tail.
The Suphalak is a solid reddish-brown copper colored short-haired breed of cat originating in Thailand. The Suphalak is a natural breed and should not be confused with the sable Burmese cat, an established American and European created breed which expresses the colorpoint Burmese gene (cb) that results in a dark points on the extremities such as the ears, feet and tail as well as a dark mask on the face. A written description and pictorial of the Suphalak first appeared in the ancient Thai manuscripts over 300 years ago known as the Tamra Maew.
The Khom script is a Brahmic script and a variant of the Khmer script used in Thailand and Laos, which is used to write Pali, Sanskrit, Khmer and Thai.
Folding-book manuscripts are a type of writing material historically used in Mainland Southeast Asia, particularly in the areas of present-day Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. They are known as parabaik in Burmese, samut thai in Thai or samut khoi in Thai and Lao, phap sa in Northern Thai and Lao, and kraing in Khmer.
