https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/wp- ... -brown.pdf
Anastasopoulou refers to the rhythm of the writing four times, describing it as “excellent,” “very good,” and “high level.” Although rhythm is more apparent in cursive (connected) writing than in printed (disconnected) writing, and the hand in question is not entirely cursive, the presence of unconnected letters within words, in her view, “does not deter the good writing rhythm.”
What is rhythm in handwriting? As in poetry, dance, and music, this quality is harder to explain in words than it is to recognize and appreciate. Ordway Hilton describes it as “that element of the writing movement which is marked by regular or periodic recurrences.” The writer forms strokes “at equal intervals of time,” which “results in an increase in uniformity,” specifically, “regularity in slope, size and curvature” of the letterforms. In other words, rhythm as seen on the page is produced by coordinated and rhythmic motions of the fingers and wrist muscles that control the pen. As Davis explains, “a skilled writer works to a rhythm,” “tak[ing] the same amount of time to do similar component actions, with a resulting economy of movement and uniformity of shape.”
Two studies of handwriting rhythm by H. W. Nutt found a strong correlation between speed and rhythm. D. E. Hamilton further noted that handwriting rhythm becomes pronounced when the act of writing is entirely automatic. These findings suggest that handwriting rhythm, like good line quality, results from overpracticed, habituated movements that occur without the writer paying much attention to them. In that respect, the rhythmic nature of skilful handwriting is like other human behaviors that occur without conscious direction.31 As Katharine M. Wilson explains in her treatise on rhythm, any repeated movements that humans persist in tend to become automatic, and automatic actions tend to become rhythmic. This is most obvious with respect to automatic behaviors of a purely repetitive nature, such as walking, rowing, and swimming, but also applies to more complex automatic behaviors involving continually varying movements, such as writing, speaking, dancing, typing, playing the piano, and playing table tennis. By contrast, consciously steered behaviors tend to be arrhythmic: “The difference between arrhythmic and rhythmic action resolves itself into a contrast between action, the details of which are closely controlled by the guiding processes of the brain, and action which can continue without that detailed supervision. In fact, we work rhythmically when our overseer mind is free-wheeling.” “Only when the conscious direction of the mind starts, do we become arrhythmic.” Herein lies the difference in rhythm between, say, a novice typist and a professional typist, or between a children’s soccer match and a World Cup match, but also between forged (i.e., consciously copied) handwriting and skilful natural handwriting.
The rhythm of the handwriting in Mar Saba 65 largely accounts for its aesthetic appeal. To quote Wilson R. Harrison, “it is the regular rhythm of a handwriting which makes it acceptable as a pleasing hand which falls easily on the eye of the reader. One handwriting may be composed of letter designs which adhere closely to copybook standards to form a most legible script, and yet be regarded as inferior in appearance to another which is difficult to decipher, but which possesses the regular recurrence of stress and structural elements known as rhythm.” As Harrison’s comments intimate, rhythm and elegance are separate things. Handwriting rhythm concerns the overall flow of shapes across the page, not the elegance of individual words or letters or their proximity to the copybook forms from which students learned. The two qualities are not always easy to differentiate, because the reading habit leads the eye to focus on individual words instead of on the overall flow of forms. For that reason, handwriting rhythm is more easily appreciated when a writing is viewed at an angle that impedes reading. The aesthetic appeal of handwriting is also enhanced by “a sense of proportion and arrangement which puts writing in the proper place and makes it of the proper size and graduation.” The artistry of which Anastasopoulou speaks therefore also includes elements of arrangement such as a stable baseline, straight margins, uniform line spacing, proportion, and balance. Some of these elements are entirely habitual (e.g., the spacing of margins and between words and letters); others involve some conscious control (e.g., keeping the margins straight).
Yet in order to maintain these elements of arrangement, a writer must be able to passively monitor the overall form and alignment of the words as he or she writes them, an ability which is made possible by the habituated nature of skilful writing. These elements suffer in forgeries because the forger’s attention is narrowly fixed on the part of a letterform that he or she is presently rendering and its resemblance to the corresponding letterform in the exemplar. Forged letterforms are effectively rendered in isolation of each other, resulting in misalignments and deviations in proportion within words.37 The artistic flair of Mar Saba 65 therefore also points to its genuineness.
The relevance of rhythm to the question of forgery should be obvious, and is wellappreciated by professional document examiners. Of all the qualities of writing that point to genuineness, good rhythm is the strongest. Harrison writes:
A “fluent, rhythmic script of good line quality” is exactly what we are dealing with in Mar Saba 65, according to Anastasopoulou.
What is rhythm in handwriting? As in poetry, dance, and music, this quality is harder to explain in words than it is to recognize and appreciate. Ordway Hilton describes it as “that element of the writing movement which is marked by regular or periodic recurrences.” The writer forms strokes “at equal intervals of time,” which “results in an increase in uniformity,” specifically, “regularity in slope, size and curvature” of the letterforms. In other words, rhythm as seen on the page is produced by coordinated and rhythmic motions of the fingers and wrist muscles that control the pen. As Davis explains, “a skilled writer works to a rhythm,” “tak[ing] the same amount of time to do similar component actions, with a resulting economy of movement and uniformity of shape.”
Two studies of handwriting rhythm by H. W. Nutt found a strong correlation between speed and rhythm. D. E. Hamilton further noted that handwriting rhythm becomes pronounced when the act of writing is entirely automatic. These findings suggest that handwriting rhythm, like good line quality, results from overpracticed, habituated movements that occur without the writer paying much attention to them. In that respect, the rhythmic nature of skilful handwriting is like other human behaviors that occur without conscious direction.31 As Katharine M. Wilson explains in her treatise on rhythm, any repeated movements that humans persist in tend to become automatic, and automatic actions tend to become rhythmic. This is most obvious with respect to automatic behaviors of a purely repetitive nature, such as walking, rowing, and swimming, but also applies to more complex automatic behaviors involving continually varying movements, such as writing, speaking, dancing, typing, playing the piano, and playing table tennis. By contrast, consciously steered behaviors tend to be arrhythmic: “The difference between arrhythmic and rhythmic action resolves itself into a contrast between action, the details of which are closely controlled by the guiding processes of the brain, and action which can continue without that detailed supervision. In fact, we work rhythmically when our overseer mind is free-wheeling.” “Only when the conscious direction of the mind starts, do we become arrhythmic.” Herein lies the difference in rhythm between, say, a novice typist and a professional typist, or between a children’s soccer match and a World Cup match, but also between forged (i.e., consciously copied) handwriting and skilful natural handwriting.
The rhythm of the handwriting in Mar Saba 65 largely accounts for its aesthetic appeal. To quote Wilson R. Harrison, “it is the regular rhythm of a handwriting which makes it acceptable as a pleasing hand which falls easily on the eye of the reader. One handwriting may be composed of letter designs which adhere closely to copybook standards to form a most legible script, and yet be regarded as inferior in appearance to another which is difficult to decipher, but which possesses the regular recurrence of stress and structural elements known as rhythm.” As Harrison’s comments intimate, rhythm and elegance are separate things. Handwriting rhythm concerns the overall flow of shapes across the page, not the elegance of individual words or letters or their proximity to the copybook forms from which students learned. The two qualities are not always easy to differentiate, because the reading habit leads the eye to focus on individual words instead of on the overall flow of forms. For that reason, handwriting rhythm is more easily appreciated when a writing is viewed at an angle that impedes reading. The aesthetic appeal of handwriting is also enhanced by “a sense of proportion and arrangement which puts writing in the proper place and makes it of the proper size and graduation.” The artistry of which Anastasopoulou speaks therefore also includes elements of arrangement such as a stable baseline, straight margins, uniform line spacing, proportion, and balance. Some of these elements are entirely habitual (e.g., the spacing of margins and between words and letters); others involve some conscious control (e.g., keeping the margins straight).
Yet in order to maintain these elements of arrangement, a writer must be able to passively monitor the overall form and alignment of the words as he or she writes them, an ability which is made possible by the habituated nature of skilful writing. These elements suffer in forgeries because the forger’s attention is narrowly fixed on the part of a letterform that he or she is presently rendering and its resemblance to the corresponding letterform in the exemplar. Forged letterforms are effectively rendered in isolation of each other, resulting in misalignments and deviations in proportion within words.37 The artistic flair of Mar Saba 65 therefore also points to its genuineness.
The relevance of rhythm to the question of forgery should be obvious, and is wellappreciated by professional document examiners. Of all the qualities of writing that point to genuineness, good rhythm is the strongest. Harrison writes:
A handwriting rarely possesses good rhythm unless it has been written fluently and to an appreciable extent by reflex action. When some thought has to be exercised in the endeavour to produce a handwriting which differs in any material respect from that which is usual to the writer, there results an immediate loss of rhythm, for rhythm is even more influenced by the circumstances of the writing act than line quality. It follows from this that no handwriting which is disguised or copied can be expected to approach the standard of the rhythm shown by the normal hand; as this is so, a fluent, rhythmic script of good line quality is extremely unlikely to have been either forged or disguised.
A “fluent, rhythmic script of good line quality” is exactly what we are dealing with in Mar Saba 65, according to Anastasopoulou.
