PALAEOGRAPHY, the name given to the science of an cient handwriting acquired from a study of surviving examples. The word is sometimes erroneously used where epigraphy would be better (for inscriptions, q.v., on stone or metal). It is difficult, indeed, to define the boundary between the two sciences ; many of the ancient inscriptions of the Far East, Cambodia, India, Ceylon, etc., may quite legitimately be dealt with as part of the study of palaeography, although they are usually treated by epigraphists as purely confined to their realm of activity. The different implements used from the beginning in the making of marks or outline characters, whereby man made a permanent record of his thoughts and experiences, have had their influence on the classification of writings as adopted by later scholars.
For a discussion of the palaeography of Far Eastern peoples the article INSCRIPTIONS should be consulted. In the present article only Greek and Latin palaeography will be discussed. In the articles EGYPT and HIEROGLYPHS will be found details of the Egyptian records. (X.) A history of Greek handwriting must be incomplete owing to the fragmentary nature of the evidence. If we rule out the in scriptions on stone or metal, which belong to the science of epigraphy, we are practically dependent for the period pre ceding the 4th or 5th century of the Christian era on the papyri from Egypt (see PAPYROLOGY) the earliest of which take back our knowledge only to the end of the 4th century B.C. This limitation is less serious than it might appear, since the few mss. not of Egyptian origin which have survived from this period, like the parchments from Avroman (E. H. Minns, Journ. of Hell. Stud., xxxv., 22 seq.) or Dura (New Pal. Soc., ii., 156), the Herculaneum papyri, and a few documents found in Egypt but written elsewhere, reveal a surprising uniformity of style in the various portions of the Greek world; but some differences can be discerned, and it is probable that, had we more material, distinct local styles could be traced.
Further, at any given period several types of hand may exist together. There was a marked difference between the hand used for literary works (generally called "uncials" but, in the papyrus period, better styled "book-hand") and that of docu ments ("cursive") and within each of these classes several distinct styles were employed side by side; and the various types are not equally well represented in the surviving papyri.
The development of any hand is largely influenced by the materials used. To this general rule the Greek script is no exception. Whatever may have been the period at which the use of papyrus or leather as a writing material began in Greece (and papyrus was employed in the 5th century B.c.), it is highly probable that for some time after the introduction of the alpha bet the characters were incised with a sharp tool on stone or metal far oftener than they were written with a pen. In cutting a hard surface it is easier to form angles than curves; in writing the reverse is the case; hence the development of writing was from the angular letters ("capitals") inherited from the epi graphic style to rounded ones ("uncials"). But only certain letters were affected by this development, in particular E (un cial e), (c), C2 (co), and to a less extent A (a).