Disir
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Around A.D. 990, the monks at Saint Augustine’s monastery in Canterbury, England, made an illuminated copy of the four gospels of the New Testament. This parchment manuscript is one of the oldest books in Europe and is still used in ceremonies at the Cathedral and Metropolitan Church of Saint Peter in York, better known as York Minster, where it has been kept since about A.D. 1020. All of that history has left its traces on the book’s pages. Now, researchers have found a way to use erasers to recover DNA from the book’s parchment pages without harming them. DNA sampling typically requires destroying a small piece of whatever is being studied. “There was no way they were going to let us cut the York Gospel,” says Sarah Fiddyment of the University of York, “so being able to do it noninvasively is incredible because we get access to these books that otherwise we’d never get to see.”
The research team’s analysis has been able to show that the book is primarily made of calfskin and that four of the five calves whose gender could be identified were female—not male as might be expected for people who raised cattle for dairying. This finding has led the researchers to speculate that the parchment may have come from cattle that died during an outbreak of a disease called murrain that swept through cattle herds in Great Britain and Ireland during the late 900s.
One document that was added to the book in the fourteenth century was made of sheepskin. It records property that was owned by the church in York. In some cases sheepskin was preferred for legal documents because it is not as durable as calfskin. It will come apart if you try to erase what’s written on it, and therefore it is easier to detect whether the writing has been altered.
The Hidden Stories of the York Gospel - Archaeology Magazine
Now this is cool.
The research team’s analysis has been able to show that the book is primarily made of calfskin and that four of the five calves whose gender could be identified were female—not male as might be expected for people who raised cattle for dairying. This finding has led the researchers to speculate that the parchment may have come from cattle that died during an outbreak of a disease called murrain that swept through cattle herds in Great Britain and Ireland during the late 900s.
One document that was added to the book in the fourteenth century was made of sheepskin. It records property that was owned by the church in York. In some cases sheepskin was preferred for legal documents because it is not as durable as calfskin. It will come apart if you try to erase what’s written on it, and therefore it is easier to detect whether the writing has been altered.
The Hidden Stories of the York Gospel - Archaeology Magazine
Now this is cool.
