Palaeography, also spelt paleography, palaiós, "old" and graphein, "to write")'s the study of ancient handwriting, and the practice of deciphering and reading historical manuscripts. Palaeography can be an essential skill for historians and philologists, as it tackles two main difficulties. First, since the style of a single alphabet has evolved constantly it's necessary to know how to decipher its individual characters. Second, scribes often used many abbreviations, usually so that they c… (More on Paleographer)