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    Test of Authenticity

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    maryani
    To determine if a document is authentic, historians examine several factors: 1) The materials used - paper, ink, writing implements - to check for anachronisms and consistency with the estimated date. 2) Handwriting, signatures, seals or other identifying marks to attempt to verify the authorship. 3) Stylistic elements like spelling, grammar, idioms for anachronisms that could reveal a forgery. 4) Contextual details within the document for inconsistencies with known events or anachronistic references that suggest a fake.

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    Test of Authenticity

    Uploaded by

    maryani
    2K views2 pages
    To determine if a document is authentic, historians examine several factors: 1) The materials used - paper, ink, writing implements - to check for anachronisms and consistency with the estimated date. 2) Handwriting, signatures, seals or other identifying marks to attempt to verify the authorship. 3) Stylistic elements like spelling, grammar, idioms for anachronisms that could reveal a forgery. 4) Contextual details within the document for inconsistencies with known events or anachronistic references that suggest a fake.

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    TEST OF AUTHENTICITY

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    To determine if a document is authentic, historians examine several factors: 1) The materials used - paper, ink, writing implements - to check for anachronisms and consistency with the estimated date. 2) Handwriting, signatures, seals or other identifying marks to attempt to verify the authorship. 3) Stylistic elements like spelling, grammar, idioms for anachronisms that could reveal a forgery. 4) Contextual details within the document for inconsistencies with known events or anachronistic references that suggest a fake.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    2K views2 pages

    Test of Authenticity

    Uploaded by

    maryani
    To determine if a document is authentic, historians examine several factors: 1) The materials used - paper, ink, writing implements - to check for anachronisms and consistency with the estimated date. 2) Handwriting, signatures, seals or other identifying marks to attempt to verify the authorship. 3) Stylistic elements like spelling, grammar, idioms for anachronisms that could reveal a forgery. 4) Contextual details within the document for inconsistencies with known events or anachronistic references that suggest a fake.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    TEST OF AUTHENTICITY 

    To distinguish a hoax or a misrepresentation from a genuine document, the

    historian must use tests common in police and legal detection. Making the best guess of

    the date of the document, he/she examines the materials to see whether they are not

    anachronistic: paper was rare in Europe before the fifteenth century, and printing was

    unknown; pencils did not exist there before the 16th century; typewriting was not

    invented until the 19th century; and Indian paper came only at the end of that century.

    The historian also examines the inks for signs of age or of anachronistic chemical

    composition. 

    Making the best guess of the possible author of the document, he/she sees if he/

    she can identify the handwriting, signature, seal, letterhead, or watermark. Even when

    the handwriting is unfamiliar, it can be compared with authenticated specimens. One of

    the unfulfilled needs of the historian is more of what the French call "isographies" or the

    dictionaries of biography giving examples of handwriting. For some period of history,

    experts using techniques known as paleography and diplomatics have long known that

    in certain regions at certain times handwriting and the style and form of official

    documents were conventionalized. The disciplines of paleography and diplomatics were

    founded in 17th century by Dom Jean Mabillon, a French Benedictine monk and scholar

    of the Congregation of Saint Maur. Seals have been the subject of special study by

    sigillographers, and experts can detect fake ones. Anachronistic styles (idiom,

    orthography, or punctuation) can be detected by specialists who are familiar with


    contemporary writing. Often spelling particularly of proper names and signatures, reveal

    forgery as would also unhistoric grammar. 

    Anachronistic references to events (too early or too late or too remote) or the

    dating of a document at a time when the alleged writer could not possibly have been at

    the place designated (the alibi) uncovers fraud. Sometimes the skillful forger has all too

    carefully followed the best historical sources and his product becomes too obviously a

    copy in certain passages; by skillful paraphrase and invention, he/she is given away by

    the absence of trivia and otherwise unknown details from his/her manufactured account.

    However, usually if the document is where it ought to be (e.g., in a family's archives, of

    in the governmental bureau's record) its provenance (custody, as the lawyers refer to it),

    creates a presumption of its genuineness (Gottschalk, 1969). 

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