# An inscription is read on a date, not seen > Six objects in this archive carry writing that settled what they are. In every case the reading is an event with a date and a reader, and in four of them the reading changed a category. > The Study - 2026-09-11 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/an-inscription-is-read-on-a-date/ ## Key points - Six objects in this archive were identified, dated or re-attributed by writing on their own surface. In five of the six the decisive reading happened centuries after the writing was made, on a date we can name: 1934, 1966, 1927, the 2010s and 2024. - A reading is not the same as the writing. The Sword of Goujian's last two characters were read three ways by three scholars inside two months, and the Antonius violin's label was read as 1721, 1717 and 1711 by three readers across a century. - The reading can move an object between categories. A relic became a Fatimid court textile in August 1934; a museum label that had said Alexandria for ninety-seven years lost its evidence in April 2024 and, as of this week, still says Alexandria. - A record should carry the reader and the date beside the transcription, because a later reader with better light, better comparanda or better philology can and does reverse the earlier one. ## Six objects in this archive carry writing that decided what they are ## The Sword of Goujian took two months and a dozen scholars to read its own name ## The Cadouin shroud was read in 1934 and stopped being a relic within days ## The Antonius label was read three ways before ultraviolet settled it ## Two Greek endings held up a whole city for nearly a century ## The Kashan bowl is the case where the writing was legible from the start ## What a record should carry: the reading, the reader and the date ## Why this archive is free to read Writing on an object is evidence, and a reading of it is an act. The five contested readings in this archive were each overturned by a later reader with a better instrument, a better comparison or a better grammar, and the one inscription that never moved is the one written in a script that never died. Store the reader and the date beside every transcription, because the next reader is coming. ## Questions **Who read the inscription on the Sword of Goujian?** Six of the eight characters were read on site in December 1965 by Fang Zhuangyou. The king's name was proposed as Jiuqian, a loan for Goujian, by Tang Lan in a letter of 5 January 1966, supported by Chen Mengjia on 8 January and accepted by Guo Moruo on 28 February 1966. **When was the Shroud of Cadouin identified as a Fatimid textile?** In 1934, when Gaston Wiet, director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, read the Kufic band from photographs sent by the Jesuit P. J. Francez and found the name of the caliph al-Musta'li, who reigned from 1094 to 1101. The bishop suppressed the September 1934 pilgrimage by a communique dated 11 August 1934. **Why was the Antonius violin dated 1717 for so long?** Because the New York expert Rembert Wurlitzer read the degraded handwritten digits on the label as 1717 in the 1950s and the Museum adopted his reading. A paper conservator examining the label under ultraviolet light in the 2010s read 17ii, Stradivari's shorthand for 1711, matching the Duport cello and the Earl of Plymouth, Kreisler violin of the same year. **Is the Gennadios medallion from Alexandria?** The Metropolitan Museum's record still says Made in Alexandria, Egypt, as checked on 11 September 2026. The only evidence for that was a reading of the Greek word-endings as Alexandrian dialect, published in 1927. Rachel Patt's 2024 article in the American Journal of Archaeology finds no such dialect feature and reads the endings as a later-Roman nickname form, so the attribution currently has no published basis. ## Sources - [1] China News Service, republishing Beijing Daily, 'Exploring the mystery of the Sword of Goujian: who is the King of Yue in the eight-character inscription', 7 December 2016. Read in a browser. Source for Fang Zhuangyou's on-site reading, the letters of late December 1965, Tang Lan's letter of 5 January 1966, Chen Mengjia's of 8 January and Guo Moruo's of 28 February 1966. - [2] Hubei Provincial Museum, official collection page for the Sword of Goujian. Dimensions and excavation data. - [3] Serge Larue de Charlus, Conservatoire Diocesain d'Art Sacre de Perigueux, 'Le Suaire de Cadouin', PDF on the diocesan site. Read in full. Source for the 1214 act, the 1934 examination by Francez and Wiet, the communique of 11 August 1934 in La Semaine religieuse, Francez's 1935 publication, the classification of 2 December 1935 and the 295 by 135 cm measurement. - [4] Jayson Kerr Dobney, 'Dating Stradivari's Antonius Violin', The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Perspectives, 7 March 2017. Read in the in-app browser after the page refused command-line requests. Source for the three readings of the label, Yana van Dyke's ultraviolet examination and the two comparison instruments. - [5] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access API, object 503008, the Antonius violin, accession 34.86.1a. Consulted 11 September 2026 for the date 1711, medium, dimensions, credit line and gallery. - [6] Rachel Catherine Patt, '"Probably Alexandria": Gold-Glass Portraiture and the Allure of Egypt', American Journal of Archaeology 128.2, April 2024, pages 221-242, DOI 10.1086/728800. Abstract and figure caption read on the journal's site. - [7] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access API, object 466645, Medallion with a Portrait of Gennadios, accession 26.258. Consulted 11 September 2026; the geography fields read Made in Alexandria, Egypt and the date 250-300. - [8] Joseph Breck, 'The Ficoroni Medallion and Some Other Gilded Glasses in the Metropolitan Museum of Art', The Art Bulletin, 1927. Record of the 1927 reading, via JSTOR. - [9] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access API, object 451753, Bowl, Abu Zayd al-Kashani, accession 64.178.2, dated 583 AH/1187 CE. Consulted 11 September 2026 for the date, medium, dimensions, credit line and gallery. - [10] Iconotheca, record pages for the six objects, with their own graded provenance and sources: the Sword of Goujian, the Shroud of Cadouin, the Antonius violin, the Gennadios medallion, the Brescia medallion and the Kashan bowl.