21-04-2016, 09:11 AM
I agree that this is all very tentative, and we need a more or less complete reading that makes sense. The person who made this inscription could have come from anywhere, be he a scribe, copyist or anything else, so we should consider all options carefully.
So far, the book Anton found is the best source on "anchiton", but there are a lot of "ifs". The scholars who debated the origin of this name, settled on an invented word for a protective substance, derived from the verb meaning "not-harm", so the English equivalent would be undestructionite. Anchiton is then one of several ways in which this word changed over time.
Since we may be dealing with a charm, a word related to protection from harm (or even material damage, of the book?) would be very much expected though. In that way, it's one of the proposed solutions that make most sense. But etymologically it's a bit of a small chance.
So far, the book Anton found is the best source on "anchiton", but there are a lot of "ifs". The scholars who debated the origin of this name, settled on an invented word for a protective substance, derived from the verb meaning "not-harm", so the English equivalent would be undestructionite. Anchiton is then one of several ways in which this word changed over time.
Since we may be dealing with a charm, a word related to protection from harm (or even material damage, of the book?) would be very much expected though. In that way, it's one of the proposed solutions that make most sense. But etymologically it's a bit of a small chance.

