Forms and Function: The Splendors of Global Book Making

Highlighting the diversity of global book making traditions using examples from the Princeton University Library, this exhibition focuses on the continuous transmission and exchange of formal aspects in the world’s three major lineages of the book form: the codex, the East Asian, and the pothī traditions.

Awash in rich jewel tones and featuring a range of striking visuals, the  exhibition features treasures from some of Princeton’s lesser-known collections, as well as items from its renowned collections of Western, Islamic, East Asian, and Mesoamerican manuscripts and printed books. There are also works by modern artists completed in the style of these global traditions.

Among the 73 items on display are an early Egyptian papyrus scroll displaying parts from the work usually called the “Book of the Dead,” dating from 3rd-1st century BCE; a stele discovered in 1625 outside Xi’an, China that revealed that Christianity had been in China as early as 635; examples of texts written on dried and treated leaves from Bali and Myanmar; and examples of works on materials like bark, textiles, shell, lacquer, and copper.

To highlight the interconnections and commonalities between items from different traditions dispersed throughout the exhibition, a set of symbols is used to emphasize common forms, materials, technologies, or script cultures. Another feature of the exhibition is a map and timeline that illustrate the global nature of and the many millennia covered by the exhibition.