UNITED KINGDOM, June 26, 2023 (Asian and African Studies Blog): In collaboration with the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), the British Library is currently digitizing its complete collection of 70 palm leaf manuscripts from Java and Bali, written in Old Javanese, Javanese and Balinese. For centuries palm leaf was the standard writing medium throughout India and Southeast Asia. The leaves, usually of the palmyra or talipot palms, were cut, treated and dried. Text was incised on the leaf with a sharp stylus or knife and then rubbed with ink, which settled in the grooves of the letters. Completed books were usually provided with hard covers made from either bamboo or wood, cut to the same size as the palm leaves. However, probably the oldest palm leaf manuscript in the British Library from Indonesia is a copy of Sang Hyang Hayu (MSS Jav 105) written in Old Javanese not on palmyra but on gebang (Corypha gebanga palm), the use of which is associated with very old manuscripts from west Java. Until recently only 29 manuscripts on gebang were known to exist, mostly dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, with the oldest dated 1334 (Aditia Gunawan 2015); the British Library manuscript MSS Jav 105 brings the number of this small corpus up to 30.

Over half the palm leaf manuscripts from Java and Bali held in the British Library to be digitized through this project are now already online, and the project will be completed within 2023. There have been many challenges in digitizing this collection of palm leaf manuscripts. Some of the manuscripts are in poor condition, with edges of leaves damaged by insects or by careless handling over the years. Sometimes the main issue is unsympathetic repairs with materials and methods which would nowadays be avoided, such as synthetic laminate across the whole leaf, which has lessened legibility of the text. Often the manuscripts are unstrung with leaves out of order, with new incorrect foliation or numbering (added by library staff in pencil) exacerbating the problems, meaning that the digitized images are often not in correct order.

More at source.
https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2023/06/efeo-java-bali-palmleaf-manuscripts-digitisation-project.html

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