This document features a chancery script. The script is curvilinear and proportioned with a variable ductus and pervasive hairlines.

Abusive ligatures are frequent.
e.g. mithāl line 2:


Letter shapes are regular and consistent. Baselines are nested and stacked, with words written on a diagonally slanted baseline, each succeeding word beginning above the previous.

Words are stacked toward the ends of lines.
e.g. in shāʾ allāh line 2: 


Interlinear spacing is wide. Lines slope upward.

A kollesis (glue seam) runs through line 3, suggesting that the document may have originally been in a long rotulus format.

These features — curvilinear and proportioned script, variable ductus, pervasive hairlines, abusive ligatures, nested and stacked baselines, stacked words at line-ends, wide interlinear spacing, upward-sloping lines, and large multi-sheet format — conform to the graphic conventions of the Abbasid/Buyid chancery of Baghdad.

Glossary

Abusive ligature — the joining of canonically non-connecting letters (e.g. alif) to a succeeding letter; a feature of both cursive and chancery scripts

Curvilinear — a script characterised by long, rounded, flowing strokes, most evident in the loops of letters such as fā or ʿayn, and in the bowls of letters such as yāʾ or nūn; distinct from cursive

Ductus — the movement of the pen caused by the gestures of the scribe when writing; particularly relevant when describing variation in stroke width between thick and thin strokes

Hairline — a very fine, thin stroke, typically connecting letters

Interlinear spacing — the space between lines of text

Kollesis — a glue seam where two sheets of paper or papyrus have been joined

Nested baselines — baselines of individual words which are slanted, with succeeding words beginning above the end of the preceding word

Proportioned script — a script in which letterforms are executed according to consistent geometric ratios, typically based on the height of the alif and the diameter of a circle; associated with formal calligraphic training

Rotulus — a document in the form of a long vertical scroll

Stacked words — words written above one another toward the end of a line, a deliberate layout convention of the chancery style

Further Reading

• Rustow, Marina. 2020. The Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Shawe-Taylor, Edward. 2026. “Abbasid Continuities and Seljuk Innovations: Persian State Documents in the Bamiyan and Firuzkuh Papers.” In State Documents from the Medieval Islamicate World, edited by Nadia Vidro, Arezou Azad, and Marina Rustow. Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming.