Arrangement

Notes

My reconstruction of the ur-form of the Great Stemma is based on several cardinal assumptions:

The Liber Genealogus, particularly the G recension, is a commentary on the ur-form of the Great Stemma. Even if we are unable to judge the extent of the additions undertaken by the Liber author, the LG is a dependable witness to the general arrangement of the stemma.
The four fila constitute a kind of external skeleton and are an authentic element from the ur-form, since they are exactly reproduced in the Liber Genealogus.
The timeline is a scalar representation keyed to the genealogical material. While some compromises may have been made in the scale, and it may not have been a continuous line, I assume the sum of its parts to have extended across the chart, from Abraham at the left to Julius Caesar at the far right, as presented in the codex recensions. The Levites and the Judges are assumed to have been part of this left-to-right horizontal sequence, whereas the spans from Adam to Terah are probably later additions.
Considerable experiment has been required to accommodate the sub-stemmata in the reconstruction, since all the sons in each clan are commonly presented in the codices as names beaded along a single string. It is assumed that this stretched-out form of presentation was not original to the ur-form, but was adopted by the first codex copyist because of the necessity to sectionalize the material onto portrait-format pages, sometimes with two sub-stemmata to a page, where the page centre was already occupied in some cases by a large arch describing an ancestor of Abraham.

No major changes were made to the fila other than adjusting the spacing to match the timelines or distributing the roundels along the lines with improved regularity.

Filum A: from Adam to David. The repetition of Judah, his son Perez and any other figures which appear in both Filum A and in a sub-stemma is assumed to be a matter of authorial intention.
Filum B: the descendants of Cain, who expire after seven generations (or are perhaps destroyed in the Flood). (LG 40-61.)
Filum C: from David to Christ as set out by Matthew.
Filum D: from David via Nathan to Christ as set out in Luke (LG 572-611). The curves in the third and fourth fila re-unite at Christ, as seen in the Plutei recension. This is assumed to be an original art feature.

The following diagram summarizes the scheme which I argue was the author's structure:

When we come to the 15 sub-stemmata, we possess no firm indication as to how parents, children and grandchildren were presented in the roll version. As noted above, the beaded arrangement of the grandchildren in the codices seems inconsistent with the author's care to visualize each clan as pregnantly as possible. One must also assume that the arches did not take away space from the genealogical material in the ur-form, and that the sub-stemmata had a less attenuated, more compact shape.

The ray form, with lines from the children focussed back onto the parent from various angles, was adopted to commence six of the groups. One can imagine that this could possibly have been utilized to continue ramifying into the next generation before space ran out, as we see for example in a 15th-century French-language manuscript, but one can also imagine a looser hierarchical arrangement resembling that in the works of Boethius.

As experimental solutions, I have arranged the sons of Joktan in left-root, ray and fishbone pattern.

The sequence order of the sub-stemmata for Noah's three sons is one of the least transparent issues in our investigation. The scriptural order of the three in Gen 10: 2-31 is Japheth, Ham, Shem, but it is notable that the Liber Genealogus reverses this to Shem, Ham, Japheth. In the Stemma codices, the left-right order conforms with Genesis, not with the Liber. How is this to be explained?

My hypothesis is that the ur-stemma placed the sequence either top to bottom, or in an arc on the east, south-east and south of Noah, so that the upper filum leading away to the right could spring from Shem, and that the Liber author read the order from the top and ordered his ecphrasis accordingly,beginning with Shem.

Cain, Abel and Seth are retained in all the manuscripts as a radial group.
Shem's grandsons are always found beaded, but I have attached them to trunk connectors as a hypothetical solution. (LG 64-112.)
Ham's four sons are presented in Epsilon/Alpha in standard stemmatic fashion, as separate rays from their father, but the grandsons are on a beaded string from the fathers. (LG 114-166.)
Japheth's sons are found in Epsilon/Alpha as names beaded like pearls along a single string. (LG 167-202.) I have provisionally restructured them in a fishbone pattern.
Joktan's sons are found beaded. (LG 206-219.) I have converted this group to a fishbone.
Terah's three sons are presented as separate rays, and the correct ramifying treatment continues through Aran and Lot, whereas the grandsons through Nahor are beaded. (LG 240-248.)
The Keturah sons are beaded, but there is a partial ramification for the sons of Madian. (LG 257-262.) See the traverse page for discussion.
The Ishmaelites (from Ishmael, son of Hagar) are beaded. They appear before Keturah's sons in the Liber Genealogus at LG 254 (both Keturah and Hagar were partners of Abraham). The Epsilon/Alpha codices place Keturah to the left of the Abraham roundel and Hagar to the right. A possible explanation for the inverted LG order is evident in the Leon manuscript, where Hagar is attached at the right, and Keturah below a rectangular clipeus representing Abraham, and in the Urgell manuscript, where Hagar is attached at the north-east side and Keturah at the east side of the Abraham roundel.
The sons of Esau by three wives are assumed to have been attached to their respective mothers, not detached to separate areas of the page. (LG 268-280.) The peculiar structure in Epsilon/Alpha assembling Esau's five wives onto a trunk line has been converted here into a form of fishbone. See traverse page for more discussion.
The Horrite tribes were probably arranged as a detached group, as in our recensions. (LG 291-303.) On space grounds, I have assumed this group was a part of the genealogical section of the chart, not of the timeline, since it is difficult to accommodate in the timeline and contains no chronographical data. See traverse page for discussion.
Leah's six sons are arranged in ray fashion, but the grandchildren are again found beaded in the recensions. LG 311-317, 324-339. I have moved the connector outside the line of roundels to suggest a possible earlier format. In the Alpha manuscripts this sub-stemma is divided over two pages, whereby Judah, Issacar and Zabulon are separated from the mother.
Zelpha's two sons are found in ray fashion, but the grandchildren are beaded. LG 318-319, 340-342. Once again, I have moved the connector outside the line of roundels to suggest an alternative joining technique.
Not only Rachel's sons, but also her grandsons through Joseph— Efraim and Manasses— appear to have been arrayed in strict ramifying fashion. LG 320-321, 343-355.
The two sons of Bilhah (Balla) similarly commence in ray fashion, but the sons of Nepthalim are then beaded. LG 322-323, 356-358.
David's seven Hebron children are arrayed in the recensions under their six respective mothers. This is a particularly difficult sub-stemma to accommodate on the page if the timeline proportions are to be maintained, since the space after David is too overcrowded to absorb this material. There are two possible solutions. The first is to draw this sub-stemma so that it swings away to the left into a vacant space. This is what I have done in my reconstruction, following an idea seen in the Beta manuscripts. I am generally reluctant to rely on Beta as a guide to form, but this seems to be a coherent solution, and it is possible that the Beta editor was inspired by viewing a very old model. The other possible solution would be to follow the Liber Genealogus and place the David offspring in the timeline, not in the genealogy (LG 541-542). In the reconstruction, the shaping of the group is derived mainly from Epsilon. Plutei's explicit reference to the Hebron seven makes clear that Tamar is to be included, and that Agla uxor (Eglah) and Etharan filius (Ithream) must have been the last member set of this group on the right, so I have restored these two roundels to that position. All the recensions show Abisac next to David, so she has also been retained as part of the overall formation.

The Jerusalem sons have been are left in the reconstruction as a loose group. (LG: omitted.) I cannot see any obvious pattern of how this group would originally have been arranged.

Bathsheba (Bersabee) is placed under David, in conformity with the standard placement in the recensions. Bathsheba's four sons have been shown in modifed ray fashion, and of course they represent the crux of the genealogy, with Solomon and Nathan as the points of origin of fila C and D. Solomon does not seem to have been connected to his mother by a line.

The timeline required considerable rearrangement since its presentational logic has been largely lost in the recensions.

The timespans up to Abraham, regarded as scientifically uncertain by Eusebius, are probably original material in the Great Stemma, although they are only described in summary form up to Noah in the G recension of the Liber Genealogus. Since the names of all the patriarchs were already present in Filum A of the ur-stemma, the material in the arches can only have been added with a chronographic purpose. I have hypothetically altered this material in the reconstruction into an arcade of small, plain arches, one for each patriarch, although the manuscripts in fact show a lesser (but varying) number of highly decorated arches with multiple patriarchs in each. There is no firm evidence about how this line was presented.
The three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, begin the timeline proper. We have no indication of how they were originally presented: I have reconstructed this section as three large roundels.
The kings and chieftains of Edom (LG 281-290) do not appear to be part of the timeline: no timespans are given for them, and the Liber Genealogus includes them in the genealogy section. They are placed in my reconstruction in a marginal area at the bottom, but do not belong to the timeline.
The Levites and their wives (LG 474-489, 495-497) form the first substantial section of the ur-stemma's timeline. Levi and Kohath form part of a stemma, and their names are then repeated in this group, with Ambra, Aaron, his wife and four sons, and Moses, his wife and two sons added. We can be certain the Levite group was placed in the timeline area of chart from the very start. In the Liber Genealogus it is presented as a form of appendix, near the end, with the following misleading introduction, perhaps added by a copyist who misplaced the reference to Luke and was not aware of the diagrammatic model underlying the text: incipit generationes a Moise evangelistae Lucae. See traverse page for discussion. My reconstruction deletes further sons of Kohath and Ambra who are not found in the G recension of the Liber Genealogus.
The Judges (LG 498-520) are assumed to have been arranged in a left-right line. Because the scriptural time spans for each judgeship are very short, some method of compressing the elements in this line must have been devised. It seems unlikely that the writing would have simply been made smaller, as this would have made the chart technically difficult to reproduce. I have suggested in the reconstruction that the line zigzagged to accommodate all the roundels, but naturally this is no more than a guess. Time spans may have been given in the archetype: they are found in the Liber Genealogus. But the issue remains open.
The family of Eli: only "Ofni" and "Finees" are listed in the G recension of the Liber Genealogus and accordingly only these two are reproduced. See LG 524-527.
The family of Samuel is not included because these persons are absent from the G recension of the LG. Added later to make LG 528-531.
The family of Saul is not included because these persons are absent from the G recension of the LG, and were only added later (now LG 533).
As noted above, the descendants of David appear at Liber Genealogus 541-542 and must have been understood as a timeline element by the LG author. I have not included them in the timeline area of my reconstruction, but I recognize that their insertion in the timeline is a potentially valid solution.
Corrections have been made to the sequence of kings of Israel (the northern kingdom, LG 546-569), and the sequence has been aligned with the reigns of the southern kings (LG 381-418) using the data in the Books of Kings and Chronicles.
Cyrus, Darius and the Magi, which are placed on the stemma for synchronistic purposes, are shown as roundels arranged on a diagonal. (LG: omitted, except in L 421-425.)
The description of the Roman kings has been retained as a simple list, although they are not present at all in the early LG (except in L 426-438.) However it should be noted that (a) it is unlikely that the kings were part of the ur-stemma and (b) there is in any case no evidence of how the list would have been synchronized with the Judaean king series.
The time span for the Roman republic has been retained, although it is not present at all in the early LG (except in L 440). It has been displayed as a coloured panel to represent what was probably a graphic shape to represent the period as a whole. (LG: omitted,
The Roman rulers in and before Christ's lifetime are found in the LG and are shown as roundels arranged on the diagonal. (LG 611-612.)