Difficulties faced by historians in using manuscripts:
(i) There was no printing press in those days so scribes copied manuscripts by hand which were difficult
to read and understand.
(ii) During copying, scribes also introduced small changes in a word or sentence which grew over
centuries of copying.
(iii) Original manuscript of the author rarely found today so they are totally dependent upon the copies
made by later scribes.
(iv) Historians have to read different manuscript versions of the same text to guess what the author had
originally written.