paleography

n. research and study of ancient forms of writing

Palaeography (British) or paleography (American) (from the Greek  palaiós, "old" and graphein, "to write") is the study of ancient handwriting, independent of the language (Koine Greek, Classical Latin, Medieval Latin, Old English, etc.).Palaeography is in many ways a prerequisite for philology, and it tackles two main difficulties: first, since the style of a single alphabet has evolved constantly (Carolingian minuscule, Gothic, etc.), it is necessary to know how to decipher the individual characters. Second, scribes often used many abbreviations, usually so that they could write the text more quickly, and sometimes to save space, so the palaeographer must know how to interpret them. Knowledge about individual letter-forms, ligatures, punctuation, and abbreviations, enables the palaeographer to read the text as the scribe intended it to be read.
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Noun
1. the study of ancient forms of writing (and the deciphering of them)
(hypernym) archeology, archaeology
(hyponym) epigraphy

(n.)
The study of ancient inscriptions and modes of writing; the art or science of deciphering ancient writings, and determining their origin, period, etc., from external characters; diplomatics.
  

(n.)
An ancient manner of writing; ancient writings, collectively; as, Punic paleography.
  

The study of ancient writings