Fragmentary Excess: Body, Text, Receptacle

Papyrus and Parchment

Perhaps the most ubiquitous method to create and present text - in ink on a paper-like material - the exhibition includes several fragments of Greek and Arabic papyrus. These small pieces of text represent the extraordinarily fragmented nature of our knowledge of the ancient world.


In addition to the papyrus fragments, the exhibition includes three pages of parchment. All three folios are dismembered representations of their originally bound manuscripts, and the two historiated initials are further fragmented by being literally cut off from the rest of the page. These two historiated initials confront the viewer with a nineteenth- and twentieth-century practice in which medieval illuminated manuscripts were systematically cut down and sold as fragments for a greater profit.
Historiated initials are enlarged letters containing images at the beginning of a section of a manuscript and are therefore often related to the text they begin. By stripping these initials from their original context, the supportive role of the image is reversed and its autonomy, and therefore a false dominance, as picture is claimed. Arguably, these are the only intentionally-produced fragments in this exhibition.
In contrast, the parchment containing the Greek text is materially whole, even though only a small portion of the total text, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, written by John Climacus. Recent Bryn Mawr College PhD graduate and Visiting Assistant Professor at Haverford College, Charlie Kuper translated the text.

[Recto]
(I would commit an injustice against those desirous of the [heavenly] goods, if in the tomb of silence)
I shall bury the achievement and the victory of Macedonius
the first of the deacons. He was particularly
devoted to God once during the feast of
Christmas. He requested 
from the abbot that two days prior [to the feast] that
he visit the city of Alexandria for some personal
need, promising that he would return quickly 
from the city for the order and preparation of the festival.
But the beauty-hating devil hindered the
archdeacon and caused him,
though released from his superior, not
to arrive for the holy festival at the monastery according to
limit he set with the prior.
When he returned one day later,
the abbot removed him from the diaconate and
placed him among the humblest initiates.
The good deacon of endurance,
the archdeacon of perseverance accepted
the father’s decision and word as calmly as if
[Verso]
someone else were censured, not himself. After
he had occupied this low position
for forty days, the wise abbot reinstated him to his place. And behold, one day later he was asked by the archdeacon
to return him to the previous place
of dishonor, giving the following reason,
“I committed an unforgiveable sin in the city.”
The holy abbot recognized that he was not telling the truth, but
made this request out of humility, so he acquiesced 
to the noble desire of the good worker.
And it was possible to observe the respected elderly man
working in the lowest place, sincerely
asking all to pray for him.
“Since,” he said, “I have fallen into the fornication of disobedience.”
But to my humble self, the great Macedonius
dared [to recount] why
he willingly entered into such
a humble course of life. “Never,”
he said, “(have I seen) such a calmness from every conflict and
(such a sweetness of God’s light in myself as I do now.)” 
 

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