The exhibitions associated with the PRESS activities are an extension of making materials of Sudanese and Egyptian antiquities better known for the Drew community. This first series of exhibitions at Drew University Archives and Special Collections explores the history of writing systems from antiquity to the present.
The Antwerp Polyglot (June 2022)
Curated by Alex de Voogt (text) and Candace Reilly (design). The Antwerp Polyglot is a masterpiece of Renaissance printing that features five different scripts (Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Syriac) but also italicized and interlinear Latin fonts as well as vocalized Hebrew. The printing press facilitated spelling standardization efforts for many writing systems and the Antwerp Polyglot illustrates the daunting task of printing some of the ancient scripts. The Antwerp Polyglot will be on display for the better part of 2022.
Elamite Cuneiform (June 2022)
Curated by Alex de Voogt (text) and Candace Reilly (design) with the kind assistance of Matthew W. Stolper (transliteration/translation).
The brick with Elamite cuneiform is part of the exhibition on Script and Materiality but since it is not a reproduction but appeared a genuine example, the full context, transliteration and translation became part of a separate display.
Script and Materiality (July 2022)
Curated by Alex de Voogt (text) and Candace Reilly (design) with thanks to Hamza Rashid, Niek Veldhuis, Ben Haring and Matthew W. Stolper. This exhibit features examples from the Drew University Archives of Ge’ez (animal skin), Arabic (paper), Elamite (brick) and Akkadian (reconstruction of a clay tablet) using different writing materials as well as illustrating the use of pigments (gold, red) when creating texts.
