Historical source

A document, object, oral account, or other evidence used to investigate and interpret the past. Its meaning depends on its origin, context, and relationship to the questions being asked.

Primary source: Evidence created during the period or by people directly involved in the events being studied. A major source type, though whether a source is primary depends on the research question.
Source criticism: The evaluation of a source’s origin, purpose, reliability, and limits. It tests what a particular source can safely support.
Domesday Book: A survey of landholding and resources in much of England, commissioned by William I in 1085–1086. Its entries document administration and property relations after the Norman Conquest.
Archival silence: The absence or underrepresentation of particular people and experiences in surviving archives. Survival and record-making practices can make some past lives difficult to recover.
Secondary source: An account that interprets or analyzes evidence rather than directly documenting the events under study. Its claims can be checked against the historical evidence it interprets.
Corroboration: The checking of a claim against independent evidence. Agreement among independent sources can strengthen a historical inference.
Rosetta Stone: A granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Ancient Greek. Its parallel inscriptions helped scholars decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Historical forgery: A deliberately fabricated or altered object or document presented as genuine historical evidence. Forgery exposes why authenticity must be tested rather than assumed.
Provenance: The documented origin, ownership, and history of an object or record. Provenance helps establish where a source came from and whether its history is credible.
Textual criticism: The study of textual variants to establish a text’s transmission and earliest recoverable form. It helps assess whether a surviving text preserves its original wording.

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