The Old Norse text of republican laws shown earlier in this exhibit is one good example. The manuscripts may have been taken apart for one reason or another, or they have been partially damaged. Sometimes all of the existing copies of the same text have missing parts, so scholars must use the remaining pieces to put the puzzle together. This manuscript copy of the Iliad was long ago cut apart so that only an estimated one-quarter of the illustrations and very little text survive. Urs Graf, 1955.
Many manuscripts contain later handwritten additions .
Some of these are commentary on the original text. These additions are often useful to scholars and also help to date the original texts. Additions to the text have already been seen in the form of corrections to the manuscript copy of The Rule of St. Benedict. Here, with The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, numerous additions of material are seen on a much used manuscript copy. Four major versions and three useful variants of these versions of the Chronicle survive.