Rare medieval bookmark exceeds expectations at auction | Hacker News Reader

Rare medieval bookmark exceeds expectations at auction

thehistoryblog.com

44 pointsspeckx18 comments

> [...] the maker was almost certainly a transcriber who used it to keep his place on the page and note the column he was writing in when he stopped. The wheel would be moved to the stopping point and the circle turned to the number of the column he had been writing in when he stopped.

It would make a lot more sense that the bookmark was placed in the source book rather than in the copy. I.e. the wheel would be turned to the source column they had been reading from.

I imagined the same; and in that case, it wouldn't need to follow that it was transcriber's bookmark.

The other instrument, a pencil-beam light.

Would that be necessary though? You've already got the perfect bookmark, all you'd need to do is check where in the copy the text stops and continue from there in the source. At most you'd need to bookmark the source page, but in theory not even that.

This style of bookmark is rare so it follows it wasn't _necessary_. But with dense text it might be faster and perhaps less error prone than locating the right place in the text?

Scribe would change the margin size and line spacing, and the parchment would be a different size than the source, so the page breaks would end up in different locations in the text.

I have a pretty over engineered fidget spinner on my desk. (Flyaway) It’s amusing to imagine what a future archeologist would say about its function and importance to my work.

Likely to be classified as early 21st century religious artefact.

Fertility symbol

And now we know that the Antikythera Mechanism really was.

Maybe bookmarks need innovation. Not sure what exists out there now, but could be a cool product

I’ve been innovating on bookmarks for decades. Money, receipts, paint swatches, entire spiral notebooks, ripped off corners of magazines… bookmarks are everywhere!

Basically anything that will fit between pages and is in reach is a bookmark.

Including the cover of another book.

Silliest thing I ever used as a bookmark was a refridgerator. It did require taking the book to the bookmark though.

Perhaps a book that keeps track of the reading progress automatically. /s

Yes! A method to easily understand completion status without having to open a book to verify progress.

Disappointing it doesnt list the expected or sale price that it went for on either the article or the linked auction page.

From the article:

> The pre-sale estimate £800-1200 ($1073-1610). It sold for £7,000 ($9390).

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