paleographer
Etymology
From paleo- + -grapher.
paleographer means A person skilled in paleography. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why this word is great
PALEOGRAPHER — [Noun] A scholar specializing in the decipherment and analysis of ancient and historical handwriting. From the combining form paleo- (from Greek palaios, meaning "ancient") + -grapher (from Greek -graphos, meaning "writer" or "describer"). Unlike an epigrapher, who confronts the enduring permanence of inscriptions in stone, or a philologist, who pursues the abstract life of language through its texts, the paleographer is a reader of ghosts, tracing the intimate and ephemeral gesture of a hand on vellum or paper. Their work is a patient sifting: distinguishing a hurried secretary's hand from a bishop's flourish in fading iron-gall ink, interpreting a tremor in a letter-form that marks the scribe's fatigue, and reconstructing an entire lost library from a single charred fragment. They are the custodians not of what was said, but of the frail, human act of saying it.
noun
- A person skilled in paleography.“Paleography might teach men to read documents, diplomatics to date them and to test their authenticity; but the full significance of an ancient deed might easily escape the most exact paleographer and the most accomplished diplomatist, for the want of that finished sense for legal technicality which is the natural fruit of a conveyancing practice.”