A paleographical particularity of the Jewish scribal tradition is that some letters of the strongly standardized square script featured within the scrolls are adorned with crownlets (tagin) or written in an unusual way (otiyyot meshunnot). The Talmud specifies the seven letters gimel, zajin, tet, ayin, nun, tsade, and shin for this uncommon letter ornamentation. Yet, medieval written testimonies from the time of the 12th to the 16th centuries (there are some later testimonies of this phenomenon above all within the megillot) present numerous exceptions to this antique limit and a remarkable wealth of forms for new ornaments. Legal scholars from different regions of the Diaspora saw in the unusual curlicues, arcs, little flags, and dashes a threat posed to the authentic gestalt of a Sefer Torah, and they urged uniformity. However, even the standard work Sefer ha-tagin (10th/11th c.), which was widely received in scribe circles and which provided copyists with a precise listing of words and letters for such modifications, could not curb the enthusiasm for these letter ornamentations. Parallel to this uncommon writing practice, an exegetical tradition began to develop by which these crownlets and unusually written letters, and also the standardized letterforms were interpreted from rabbinic-ethical, mystical, and philosophical perspectives. The contributors of this volume discuss the phenomenon of the tagin and otiyyot meshunnot for writing the STaM from diverse perspectives, as a paleographic tradition that has developed different regional characteristics over the time, as a subject of exegesis, and as matter of scribal practice.
