Martin Schøyen
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Martin Schøyen
Martin Schøyen (born January 31, 1940) is a Norwegian businessman, traveller, historian, paleographer and collector of books. He started collecting books in 1955. Currently his private collection, the Schøyen Collection, contains more than 13,000 manuscript items, the oldest book is about 5,000 years old. In 2012 he was forced to sell 60 manuscripts at Sothebys because of the Norwegian wealth tax. In 2024 further sales took place. Some manuscripts * Biblical manuscript in Coptic language, dated to the 3rd century. * 15 Dead Sea Scrolls * Sumerian text from the 21st century B.C.; Ur-Nammu's law-code * Babylonian calendar from 2000–1600 B.C. * Tutankhamun's signet ring * MS 5236, an ancient Greek block print Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later on paper. Each page or image is creat ... dating to the 6t ...
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Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of Norway. Bouvet Island, located in the Subantarctic, is a Dependencies of Norway, dependency, and not a part of the Kingdom; Norway also Territorial claims in Antarctica, claims the Antarctic territories of Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land. Norway has a population of 5.6 million. Its capital and largest city is Oslo. The country has a total area of . The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden, and is bordered by Finland and Russia to the northeast. Norway has an extensive coastline facing the Skagerrak strait, the North Atlantic Ocean, and the Barents Sea. The unified kingdom of Norway was established in 872 as a merger of Petty kingdoms of Norway, petty kingdoms and has existed continuously for years. From 1537 to 1814, Norway ...
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Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun or Tutankhamen, (; ), was an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled during the late Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Born Tutankhaten, he instituted the restoration of the traditional polytheistic form of ancient Egyptian religion, undoing a previous shift to the religion known as Atenism. Tutankhamun's reign is considered one of the greatest restoration periods in ancient Egyptian history. His endowments and restorations of cults were recorded on what is today known as the Restoration Stela. The cult of the god Amun at Thebes, Egypt, Thebes was restored to prominence, and the royal couple changed their names to "Tutankhamun" and "Ankhesenamun", replacing the -aten suffix. He also moved the royal court from Akhenaten's capital, Amarna, back to Memphis, Egypt, Memphis almost immediately on his accession to the kingship. He reestablished diplomatic relations with the Mitanni and carried out military campaigns in Nubia and the Near East. Tutankh ...
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Norwegian Book And Manuscript Collectors
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *Norwegian language, including the two official written forms: **Bokmål, literally "book language", used by 85–90% of the population of Norway **Nynorsk, literally "New Norwegian", used by 10–15% of the population of Norway *Norwegian Sea Norwegian or may also refer to: Norwegian *Norwegian Air Shuttle, an airline, trading as Norwegian **Norwegian Long Haul, a defunct subsidiary of Norwegian Air Shuttle, flying long-haul flights *Norwegian Air Lines, a former airline, merged with Scandinavian Airlines in 1951 *Norwegian coupling, used for narrow-gauge railways *Norwegian Cruise Line, a cruise line *Norwegian Elkhound, a canine breed. * Norwegian Forest cat, a domestic feline breed *Norwegian Red, a breed of dairy cattle *Norwegian Township, Pennsylvania, USA Norsk * ...
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Block Print
Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later on paper. Each page or image is created by carving a wooden block to leave only some areas and lines at the original level; it is these that are inked and show in the print, in a relief printing process. Carving the blocks is skilled and laborious work, but a large number of impressions can then be printed. As a method of printing on cloth, the earliest surviving examples from China date to before 220 AD. Woodblock printing existed in Tang China by the 7th century AD and remained the most common East Asian method of printing books and other texts, as well as images, until the 19th century. ''Ukiyo-e'' is the best-known type of Japanese woodblock art print. Most European uses of the technique for printing images on paper are covered by the art term woodcut, except for the b ...
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Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek Dark Ages, Dark Ages (), the Archaic Greece, Archaic or Homeric Greek, Homeric period (), and the Classical Greece, Classical period (). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athens, fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and Ancient Greek philosophy, philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Homeric Greek, Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period (), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek, which is regar ...
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MS 5236
MS 5236 (inventory number of the Schøyen Collection) is an ancient Greek amulet of the 6th century BC, which is unique in two respects: it is the only known magic amulet of the time inscribed with a text that was stamped as opposed to incised, and it is the only extant specimen of ephesia grammata made of gold. The only partially comprehensible inscription is an invocation of the god Phoebus Apollo and may have been composed in central Greece or western Asia Minor. As such magical amulets are known to have been mass-produced, the existence of MS 5236 indicates that, despite the singularity of the foil, an inkless block printing process was practised in ancient Greece to a certain degree, for texts of some length, beyond the examples known from Roman lead pipe inscriptions and the many types of stamps used to mark bricks and pottery with the maker's name and other details. Description The lamella is registered under the inventory number MS 5236 by the private ...
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Seal (emblem)
A seal is a device for making an impression in Sealing wax, wax, clay, paper, or some other medium, including an Paper embossing, embossment on paper, and is also the impression thus made. The original purpose was to authenticate a document, or to prevent interference with a package or envelope by applying a seal which had to be broken to open the container (hence the modern English verb "to seal", which implies secure closing without an actual wax seal). The seal-making device is also referred to as the seal ''matrix'' or ''die''; the imprint it creates as the seal impression (or, more rarely, the ''sealing''). If the impression is made purely as a relief resulting from the greater pressure on the paper where the high parts of the matrix touch, the seal is known as a ''dry seal''; in other cases ink or another liquid or liquefied medium is used, in another color than the paper. In most traditional forms of dry seal the design on the seal matrix is in Intaglio (sculpture), intag ...
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Babylonian Calendar
The Babylonian calendar was a lunisolar calendar used in Mesopotamia from around the 2nd millennium BC until the Seleucid Era ( 294 BC), and it was specifically used in Babylon from the Old Babylonian Period ( 1780s BC) until the Seleucid Era. In the Seleucid Era it was reformed as "Greek time", Anno Graecorum was introduced and used in the Middle East and Egypt until the middle of the first millennium when the First Council of Nicaea AD 325 defined the Church year based on the Roman early Julian calendar. As Anno Graecorum formed the basis for time references in the Bible and spread westward, it rather increased the Babylonian calendars importance. The Babylonian calendar is also partly reflected in calendars in South and East Asia and the Islamic calendar as well as Iranian calendars. The Julian calendar inherited the definitions of the 12 month system, week, hour etc. from the Babylonian calendar and the current Jewish calendar can be seen as a slightly modified Baby ...
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Paleographer
Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic discipline of historical writing systems. It encompasses the historicity of manuscripts and texts, subsuming deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, as well as the analysis of historic penmanship, handwriting script, signification, and printed media. It is primarily concerned with the forms, processes and relationships of writing and printing systems as evident in a text, document or manuscript; and analysis of the substantive textual content of documents is a secondary function. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which texts such as manuscripts, books, codices, tracts, and monographs were produced, and the history of scriptoria. This discipline is important for understanding, authenticating, and dating historical texts. However, in the ...
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Ur-Nammu
Ur-Nammu (or Ur-Namma, Ur-Engur, Ur-Gur, Sumerian language, Sumerian: ; died 2094 BC) founded the Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur, in southern Mesopotamia, following several centuries of Akkadian Empire, Akkadian and Gutian period, Gutian rule. Though he built many temples and canals his main achievement was building the core of the Ur III Empire via military conquest, and Ur-Nammu is chiefly remembered today for his legal code, the Code of Ur-Nammu, the oldest known surviving example in the world. He held the titles of "King of Ur, and King of Sumer and Akkad". His personal goddess was Ninsuna. Reign According to the ''Sumerian King List'', Ur-Nammu reigned for 18 years. Year-names are known for 17 of these years, but their order is uncertain. One year-name of his reign records the devastation of Gutium, while two years seem to commemorate his legal reforms ("Year in which Ur-Nammu the king put in order the ways [of the people in the country] from below to above", "Year Ur-Nammu ...
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Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. Like nearby Elam, it is one of the Cradle of civilization, cradles of civilization, along with ancient Egypt, Egypt, the Indus Valley Civilisation, Indus Valley, the Erligang culture of the Yellow River valley, Caral-Supe civilization, Caral-Supe, and Mesoamerica. Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, a surplus of which enabled them to form urban settlements. The world's earliest known texts come from the Sumerian cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr, and date to between , following a period of proto-writing . Name The term "Sumer" () comes from the Akkadian Empire, Akkadian name for the "Sumerians", the ancient non-Semitic languages, Semitic-speaking inhabitan ...
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