Two unusual examples of vispro objects

Before beginning the task of manufacturing vispro ‘pegs’, in order to create the context around which I wish to frame the discussion, the term deserves a few substantiated examples of works which I would term visual prose, that is, vispro.

Liber Lineteus Zagrebiensis

Firstly, the Liber Linteus (a linen book) otherwise known as the linen book of Zagreb* was wrapped around an Egyptian mummy dating approximately 150BC. Consisting of Etruscan text – in fact the longest Etruscan text known today - approximately 1300 words - this fascinating artefact, would typify a physical manifestation of vispro. It is no longer intact as Mihajlo Barić unwrapped the relic, but the photograph below (date unknown) would exemplify the embodiment of vispro.

The mummy of Zagreb with fragments of the Liber Linteus (http://www.geocities.ws/jackiesixx/caere/linteus.htm) date of photograph unknown.

Through its enigmatic nature, evocative juxtaposition of text (prose, not poetry), integration of text and object, and inscrutable visual elements I state this claim for the following reason: as the mummy was wrapped in linen cloth imprinted with text, the object – (the textually wrapped mummy) is in itself the vispro object. Although the wrappings are of meticulously written, decipherable Etruscan text, inscribed onto specially woven linen and executed in expensive ink made of burnt ivory, as a stand-alone linen book it cannot be described as vispro, (although absolutely visually appealing), except perhaps for its’ inherent antiquity. Together however, the mummy and the cloth create an authentic vispro object. Text and object have met in strange circumstances, not yet understood, in a mummy and its bandages.

*In 1848 a Croatian official named Mihajlo Barić resigned from the Hungarian Royal Chancellery preferring to embark on a tour of several countries including Egypt. On reaching Alexandria he purchased (details unknown) a sarcophagus containing a female mummy wrapped in linen bandages. At some point he removed the linen bandages displaying them separately. On his death in 1859 his brother donated the find to the State Institute of Zagreb. …3

Found in 2000, in the medieval city of Novgorod (Russia), The Novgorod Codex is a book consisting of three bound limewood tablets preserved in anaerobic, waterlogged conditions. Waterlogging has caused the preservation of many of the wooden structures of Novgorod, including text and text fragments written on pieces of birch bark. Information regarding this artefact is sketchy and I have used it in research before – at one stage I remember it being lost - but interest still surrounds this fascinating artefact with its wax surfaces still intact. The primary deciphered text is Psalms 75 and 76, but underneath, lie a series of overlaid texts resulting in a hyper-palimpsest. These include musings on “the world is a town…”, written statements (prose) which connect an ancient labyrinth of thought to the current global village. The palimpsest effect, creating layer upon layer of indecipherable text was created by a stylus scratching through the wax onto the soft lime wood*. Dating back to the end of the 10th century, this object functions as a ‘book’, but it is so much more. It is a book where the ‘pages’ are so scratched the wood has become ingrained with prose text. Little lies on the surface, but prose is actually embedded into the very structure and form of the object, qualifying it as a vispro object. Interestingly, both objects have been described by scholars as ‘books’ – the primal home of prose. Yet, when viewed in their totality, the wrapped mummy and the wooden tablets are so much more. This vispro artefact is thought to be the oldest book of the Rus people.

Image of the Novgorod Codex taken from: https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=3909

*According to Zaliznyak, reading the concealed texts in the scratches is a unique challenge unlike anything attempted by any research team previously. The very compact faces of the four writing surfaces contain traces of thousands of texts, estimated to have been written over several decades. As such, the stylus traces form in a constant mesh of lines across the entire surface. To complicate the process, they are also all written by a single hand, making handwriting analysis impossible. As such, Zaliznyak does not call the process 'reading'; instead, he calls it 'reconstruction'. See https://buryingbooks.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/the-novgorod-codex/ , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novgorod_Codex and https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=3909