Leather books were found in the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945 with Coptic writing from the 4th Century, one containing the Gospel of St. Thomas; housed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo.
 |
| From The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding by J.A. Szirmai |
In a Nag Hammadi Bookbinding workshop I learned how to make the book from Jana Pullman at the Focus on Book Arts in Oregon. We created a replica using tooling techniques on the leather cover. Jana referenced this book: The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding by J.A. Szirmai.
I cut the outline from a piece of leather, and wet it to emboss the design with a butterfly leather stamp from Tandy Leather.
In the class we glued several papyrus sheets to make the cover boards. At home mat board worked - covered with bookcloth - adhered to the back of the leather.
The outer side glued first, then the top and bottom tabs. I was going to cover them with end sheet fabric - decided to leave it open.
Next I used my new sewing cradle bought from Missy Bosch last week. I love it!
Missy sells them on Etsy here:
Lastly, I hole punched and sewed the tie plus sewed the text block to the spine with tacket binding making the text block refillable. I am pleased with how it came out too!
Making the Nag Hammadi did not take me as long as I thought it would. The most time-consuming part was embossing the wet leather. I made additional books with red leather and blue leather covers - for sale on my Etsy site: www.ARTbooks.Etsy.com
Please let me know if you tried any type of historic bookbinding. Makes me feel connected to the 4th century!
No comments:
Post a Comment