Philological Methods in the Historical Interpretation of Library Artifacts and Manuscripts

Abstract

In this piece, the meaning of philological approaches to library objects' historical study and to manuscripts, above all against the backdrop of emerging digital humanities and library science studies, is being examined. With its examination of the history of the scholarly enterprise of philology in Greco-Roman, Hebraic, and Chinese traditions, the work illustrates the ways in which philology represented an early language, culture, and history-science of interpreting. In inter-disciplinary examination, the essay responds to issues including textual examination, paleography, codicology, and application of new digital tools for the preservation and understanding of manuscripts. In citation of examples from materials of Central Asian, European, and North African origins, the study emphasizes the importance of philology in examining textual transmission, dialects' oscillation, changes in orthography, as well as sociopolitical contexts of manuscript creation. Moreover, it responds to the challenges brought by contemporary practices of digitization, ethical problems of preservation of cultural heritage, and artificial intelligence incorporation in historical text analysis. The essay identifies that philological research is still a master key to comprehension of material and semantic aspects of texts—unlocking concealed knowledge and affecting contemporary archival and library practice. Finally, the article calls for a new, interdisciplinar paradigm of philological research placing it at the heart of the sustainable and meaningful use of historical texts in academia and public life.