Watermarks are the most important tool for dating old, not explicitly dated paper documents. Hence, catalogues and databases of watermarks play an eminent role for the work of medievalist and paper historians. This article presents an integrated software system developed for storage, retrieval, manipulation, digital processing, and identification of watermarks in old manuscripts. The whole processing pipeline beginning with the scanning of watermarks up to their identification is described. Most of these watermarks were captured from manuscripts kept in the Klosterneuburg monastery (Austria).
Emanuel Wenger, Victor N. Karnaukhov, Alois Haidin