Machine Dating of Handwritten Manuscripts

Abstract

This paper presents a pioneering study on automatic dating of handwritten manuscripts. Analysis of handwriting style forms the core of the dating method. Initially, it is hypothesized that a manuscript can be dated, to a certain level of accuracy, by looking at the way it is written. The hypothesis is then verified with real samples of known dates. A general framework is proposed for machine dating of handwritten manuscripts. Experiments on a database containing manuscripts of Gustave Flaubert (1821- 1880), the famous French novelist reports about 62% accuracy when manuscripts are dated within a range of five calendar years with respect to their exact year of writing.