Pen Capture
An iPad app for collecting data on writing movements.
Writing Through Time
The Principles of Handwritten Script Evolution
Investigating the material, physical, cognitive, cultural, and evolutionary forces that shape how writing systems transform over time.
Enter the projectAbout
Understanding how scripts evolve
Handwritten scripts have evolved over millennia through processes that follow recurring patterns, yet the underlying principles governing these transformations remain poorly understood. This project asks what forces—material, physical, evolutionary, cognitive, and cultural—drive the long-term development of writing systems.
Scripts respond to their material environments: straight-lined runes suit carving, while curved South Indian scripts reflect palm-leaf writing. At the same time, the biomechanics of handwriting push toward efficiency, simplifying frequently used forms. These physical constraints interact with cognitive limits, ensuring scripts remain learnable and aligned with linguistic structure.
Over time, small variations accumulate through processes similar to biological evolution, producing gradual change while preserving recognizability. Yet these patterns are not purely mechanical: cultural and historical forces can accelerate or redirect script change, especially during periods of instability.
By integrating these perspectives, the project develops a unified framework for explaining both universal tendencies and historically specific trajectories in the evolution of writing systems.
Team
An interdisciplinary collaboration
The project brings together expertise from linguistics, philology, mathematics, and computational modeling to address a problem that cannot be solved within a single discipline. Script evolution sits at the intersection of cultural history, human cognition, and physical constraint, requiring a genuinely integrated approach.
Christian Casey
Project Leader
Egyptology, digital humanities, and computational approaches to script analysis.
Barak Sober
Project Leader
Mathematical modeling, statistics, and handwriting analysis.
Eliese-Sophia Lincke
Egyptian-Coptic linguistics, categorization and iconicity in Egyptian written language, computational philology.
Nathan Wasserman
Assyriologist, specializing in Akkadian literature.
David Oriel
Mathematics and script analysis.
Margot Belot
Computational philology & digital epigraphy, Egyptian scripts & paleography.
Chunrong Ni
Assyriology and digital Assyriology.
Fenchurch Bombish Stinkerbell
Stochastic interruption of research activity.
Experiments
From manuscripts to models
This project combines historical manuscript analysis with experimental and computational methods to study how scripts change. Using large digital corpora and modern analytical tools, we investigate the fine-grained processes that drive long-term transformation.
Publications
Research output
Peer-reviewed publications arising from the project and the preparatory research that led to it.
Journal article
What Did Scribes Remember? Information, Complexity, and Iconicity in the Evolution of Hieratic
Casey, Christian, and Barak Sober. In press. “What Did Scribes Remember? Information, Complexity, and Iconicity in the Evolution of Hieratic.” Lingua Aegyptia.
Conference proceedings
The Dual Forces of Stability and Change in Egyptian Script Evolution
Casey, Christian, Barak Sober, and Silvia Kutscher. 2026 (in press). “The Dual Forces of Stability and Change in Egyptian Script Evolution.” In Everlasting Variations: Case Studies on the Hieroglyphic Repertoire in Synchrony and Diachrony. Proceedings of the Symposium, University of Liège, 11–13 June 2025, edited by Zacharie Cochin, Émil Joubert, Stéphane Polis, and Philipp Seyr. Hieroglyphs: Studies in Ancient Hieroglyphic Writing, Hors Série 1.
Presentations
Workshops and knowledge exchange
The project engages a wide range of academic and applied communities through workshops and presentations, connecting research on handwriting with fields such as cognitive science, mathematics, and cultural history.
Talk
Reconstructing the Evolution of Egyptian Scripts through Digital and Biomechanical Modeling
Presentation of a new quantitative approach to handwritten script evolution, using large-scale hieratic data to model how Egyptian sign forms changed over time.
Talk
The Principles of Handwritten Script Evolution
Introductory presentation on the project’s central research questions, methods, and broader significance.
Contact
Get in touch
Questions, collaboration ideas, invitations, and project-related inquiries are welcome.